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Civil War flag on display at Brandy Station Foundation, hand-sewn by a Union soldier's 75-year-old grandmother, is without parallel Date published: 9/14/2009
BY CLINT SCHEMMER "Unique" is a much overused word, cheapened by publicists and Madison Avenue hucksters. But it could hardly be more appropriate than when applied to the rare artifact now displayed at Culpeper County's Graffiti House. "This is just glorious," visitor Floyd Houston said of the banner as it was unveiled Saturday inside the historic home at Brandy Station. "It is in glorious shape." Houston, a Marine from Burke, stood with two dozen others and admired the one-of-a-kind U.S. flag, hand-sewn at the conflict's start by a 75-year-old widow whose kinfolk went off to war--and wound up at Brandy Station. The banner has come to Culpeper through a partnership between Brandy Station Foundation, a nonprofit group preserving acreage where the Civil War's largest cavalry battle was fought, and the Neversink Valley Area Museum in Cuddebackville, N.Y. It was discovered in spring 2005 by Juanita Leisch Jensen, a Neversink board member. Jensen "was poking around in the hot attic of the museum, up in the eaves, and saw a small box," recounted Bob Luddy, former president of the Brandy Station Foundation. "Written on top of it was 'American flag.' She opened it up and took it out, and realized this was far more than just an American flag." The only clue to the flag's history was in a handwritten note sewn into one of its white stripes: "This flag was made by Liana Austin Dolson in 1861 when she was over seventy years of age. She was a daughter of Doctor Eusebus Austin who was in the Revolutionary War." Within a year of her making it, three of Dolson's family members would enlist in the Union Army. Genealogical research continues, Luddy said, but it appears that at least three Dolsons served in the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry, known as the Orange Blossom Regiment. Theophilus Dolson, 18, probably Liana's grandson, was in Company D of the 124th.
Date published: 9/14/2009
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