I should explain why I called this flag a snipe hunt. I have seen a fairly good description of it, actually I have seen 3 good descriptions. The problem is that the only major thing the descriptions can agree on is that the flag was green. There are some general similarities, but they sound very different.

As far as the flag being in Mexico, I have never been able to verify it. In fact, I came across evidence a couple of years back that it specifically was not there. It goes back to the return of captured colors from Mexico (I believe they were returned under President Truman). Before the return, the colors had all been kept at West Point. From a source I found a couple of years ago (I can't remember which source, will have to find it again), the San Patricio's flag was deliberately not returned to Mexico (probably still bad blood about the whole unit still). However, in listings done shortly after the return, the flag was no longer at West Point either. From that point on, no one was quite clear where it went to.

Actual evidence for what the flag looked like is spotty at best, but there are some clues I came across a couple years back too. I was able to find a number of black and white photos taken of the flags captured in the Mexican War, these were taken at West Point in the very early 1900's. At that date the flag should have still been with the collection, and the number of photos of different flags matched the inventory. So there was an image of it. Now the problem is that most of the flags were not identified correctly with regard to units and actions where they were captured. Visually, none of the flags had a design that matched with any of the descriptions I had seen before. So trying to cross check where they were likely captured, and visual vs written descriptions, I was able to come up with 2 or 3 flags that could possibly be the San Patricio flag, but none was positive. I think it is a flag we may never know for sure about.

Josh Bucchioni