He recovered the stolen Civil War battle flag of Corps d’Afrique — one of the first black regiments that fought for freedom— from a Philadelphia collector in 1998, just years before he would become the first senior investigator for the FBI’s rapid deployment Art Crimes team, founded in 2005.
The flag was valued at about $30,000, just a fraction of the estimated $300 million worth of artifacts he recovered during his 20- year career. But that wasn’t its real value to Wittman. At least five men had died carrying the flag into battle.
“Those individuals were dying to give freedom for their children,” Wittman said. “How do you measure the true value? That was priceless.”
Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/2011/04/07/2632544/author-to-talk-about-fbi-career.html#ixzz1IqgjBJ6R
His book has a chapter titled "A Blood Cloth" about this flag. You can read some of this chapter on Amazon.
Ed