Thursday, March 18, 2010
Little Rock--Next year Arkansas’s Old State House Museum will mark the American Civil War Sesquicentennial with four years of exciting exhibits, reenactments and programs. The museum will commemorate this transformational event by hosting five exhibits from 2011 to 2015. Exhibit planning has begun and includes the conservation of two irreplaceable Arkansas Confederate battle flags.
This past fall, the Old State House Museum and the Missouri State Museum exchanged ownership of Civil War battle flags, returning them to the appropriate states. Museum Director Bill Gatewood says, “The Old State House Museum received two Arkansas flags that add significantly to its already outstanding collection of Arkansas Confederate battle flags and transferred a Missouri flag from its collection to the Missouri State Museum.”
One of the two flags is a Confederate Second National pattern battle flag carried by the Consolidated 6th & 7th Arkansas Infantry Regiment. With the acquisition of the 6th & 7th Arkansas Second National pattern flag, the Old State House Museum’s collection is unique – containing examples of all three major patterns of flags distributed to units of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.
The Old State House Museum also acquired a Confederate First National pattern flag attributed to “Hart’s Battery,” otherwise known as the “Dallas Artillery” as it was organized at Dallas, Arkansas (Polk County), in August 1861. Apart from Hart’s and Key’s (already in the museum’s collection) flags, no other flags of Arkansas artillery units are known to exist. Gatewood adds, “These two impressive additions now expand the museum’s Civil War battle flag collection to include twenty flags.” The Old State House Museum’s entire collection of Civil War battle flags can be found online at oldstatehouse.com/collections/flags.
Both the 6th & 7th Arkansas Infantry flag and Hart’s Battery flag require substantial conservation treatment before they can be exhibited. The museum’s goal is to conserve the flags by 2012, in time for our second exhibit commemorating the Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War.
The total estimated cost of proper cleaning and stabilization of both flags is $25,881. The museum recently launched the Save the Flags campaign to both raise awareness of Arkansas’s Civil War history and to ensure the survival of these two important artifacts for future generations.
Please contact the Old State House Museum at (501) 324-9685 to find out more about the Save the Flags Civil War flag preservation project.
About the Old State House Museum
The Old State House Museum is a museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage and shares the goal of all seven Department of Arkansas Heritage agencies, that of preserving and enhancing the heritage of the state of Arkansas. The agencies are Arkansas Arts Council, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Delta Cultural Center in Helena, Historic Arkansas Museum, Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, and the Old State House Museum.
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