I have posted before that no ANV flag ever carried the cross cannon battle honors as that was a Western Theater only honor. Joe has not responded to that yet. So that is inaccurate.

Eric Wittenberg, a well known cavalry historian, wrote a detailed article on Tom's Brook and the Woodstock races for North & South (Vol. 10, Issue 1) and he has the 34th VA Cavalry Battalion as part of Bradley Johnson's Brigade of Lomax's Division in the Order of Battle. Assuming he is wrong (and he got this OOB from the OR) then the flag lost IDd as the 32nd VA Cavalry has to be either the 36th or 35th VA Cavalry Battalion and, based on his detailed map of who was where, I lean towards the 36th. The 2nd US Cavalry, who took the flag, was part of Lowell's Brigade who advanced directly down the valley Pike against Johnson, whose right was on the pike and Jackson (Davidson's Brigade) whose left was on the pike. So if the number "30" anything is right then we are looking at the 36th VA Cavalry Battalion's flag. If that was wrong then it came from either of those two brigades. Sadly, Lowell was killed in the battle so he wrote no report and the colonel of the 2nd Massachsetts Cavalry claimed the flag but the MOH went to the guy from the 2nd US Cavalry.

I have two sources, Sifakis and Crute that have the 34th VA Cavalry Battalion as part of Lomax's Division in October 1864, Crute has them forming in December 1862 while Lee Wallace (THE expert on VA units!) and Sifakis have them forming in June 1862. The Record of Events in their CSR file from the National Archives (via Footnote) states they completed their organization in December, which means they formed before then. That being said, I highly doubt they got an ANV Second Bunting flag. According to Sifakis, the only time they were ever with the ANV was on the Gettysburg Campaign as part of Jenkins' Brigade and that was only between May and August 1863. The Richmond Depot ran out of wool bunting for flags in June and did not get more until August so I also highly doubt that they ever got an ANV flag from that depot, for after this time they were in the Dept. of East Tennessee or the Shenandoah Valley. Joe did bring up the fact that being in the Valley Army in 1864 they could well have received an ANV style flag from the Staunton Depot but this pales in light of the December 1863 flag from Stuart (sent to them while they were away from the ANV by the way). Stuart probably sent them an ANV Third Bunting.

Greg Biggs