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A National Park Service intern uncovers a mysterious service flag that's been tucked away in a drawer for almost 70 years Date published: 11/10/2006
By CATHY DYSON As an intern for the National Park Service, Kati Singel uncovered a mystery when she was working on one of those glamorous projects interns tend to get. Singel was doing inventory in the basement of the Chancellorsville Battlefield Visitor Center. She was supposed to make sure the 10,000 items in storage were packaged correctly. She came across a service flag--a 7-foot long banner decorated with 49 blue stars and one gold one. She knew flags shouldn't be folded as this one was because creases lead to wear and tear. But that wasn't the only thing amiss. Singel, a history major at the University of Mary Washington, knew service flags were hung during World War I and II to honor members of the military. They became popular again after 9/11. But she never heard of them in use during the Civil War and everything at the Chancellorsville center should be from that era. The intern began her "Singel-minded" pursuit to learn all she could about item "FRSP 141." ("FRSP" stands for Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.) With the help of park historians, librarians and a church archivist--and after a trip to the Arlington National Cemetery--Singel unraveled the story behind the flag that had been tucked away in a drawer almost 70 years. Remembering 'The Great War'The label said the service flag was donated to the Park Service in 1937, and that it had once hung in St. George's Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg. Singel figured the flag honored those who fought in what the old-timers call "The Great War." She contacted Trip Wiggins, archivist at St. George's, who found nothing in church minutes about it. "I was just as surprised about it as the Park Service was," he said. He met with Barbara Willis at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library, and the two looked through files, old newspapers and parish records. They checked the list of 109 Fredericksburg-area men killed in World War I against names in the church records. The only one from St. George's--and the first man from Fredericksburg to die in the war--was Douglas Hamilton Knox Jr. Knox came from "one of Fredericksburg's oldest and most prominent families," according to Park-Service literature.
Date published: 11/10/2006
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