Abraham Lincoln: The Final Casualty of the War

Ford's Theatre Flag  

Remains of U.S. Infantry colors from President Lincoln's box on the night he was assassinated Courtesy Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, NPS FOTH 4857

Canton of the national color of the U.S. Treasury Guard, a reserve unit raised in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1864 to help defend the capital when regular army units were sent south to support the drive on the Confederate capital of Richmond.

On the night President and Mrs. Lincoln were to attend the performance at Ford's Theatre, the theatre management sought additional flags to decorate the state box. Officers of the Treasury Guard regiment loaned three flags to the theatre. Looking up from the stage, this flag was posted on the left side of the state box, and can be seen in the Matthew Brady photograph taken two days after the assassination.

Presidential Box at Ford's Theatre Matthew Brady, April 16, 1865 National Archives

Photographer Matthew Brady took this photograph two days after President Lincoln's assassination. The theatre box and all its furniture and trappings had been greatly disturbed during the assassination and its aftermath. Brady and the theatre management set everything back into place to re-create the most accurate possible view of the scene, including the original positions of the three colors of the Treasury Guard.

Flag of the type carried by the Treasury Guard and other infantry regiments during the Civil War

Regimental colors (flags) were the focus and rallying point of the infantry regiment in battle. The flags were very large in order to be seen through the dense smoke created by artillery and musket fire by men standing shoulder to shoulder in line-of-battle. However, the flags could not be so long as to drag on the ground or fly in the faces of the men in the second rank; so, they were made almost square. When the U.S. flag was made in this style, the union (the blue field with the stars) became tall and narrow. The stars were painted with gold because it did not tarnish and stayed clean longer than silver or white. There is no special significance to the stars being in an oval pattern; this is only one of many different patterns used during the period.