"The story of the flag that Charles Whilden carried so
courageously at Spotsylvania does not end with his death. After Whilden was wounded at Spotsylvania and hospitalized, the
flag was stored with his other effects. Given to Whilden when he was furloughed to Charleston in August 1864, the flag was in
his possession when he died about two years thereafter. About 15 years after the war, Edward McCrady, Jr., a prominent
Charleston lawyer who had captained the color company of Gregg's 1st South Carolina early in the war and had later risen to
the rank of lieutenant colonel of the regiment, petitioned William Whilden to turn over the battleflag that he had inherited from
his brother Charles. McCrady had possession of the regiment's blue state colors, and he professed a desire to reunite the two
flags. In a letter written on New Year's Day, 1880, McCrady pled his best case, pointing out that his regiment had carried the
battleflag "in every battle until May 1864" and that, for years during the war, he had "lived with the flag in [his] tent, and slept
with it by [his] side in the bivouac." After consulting his three surviving brothers, two of whom were Baptist ministers, William
Whilden declined McCrady's request, essentially on the grounds that McCrady had no higher claim to the flag than any other
veteran of the regiment. In declining, however, Whilden indicated a willingness to entrust the flag to a collection of Confederate
relics. Following William Whilden's death in 1896, custody of the battleflag passed to William's daughter, Mrs. Charles Hard of
Greenville. In 1906, Mrs. Hard delivered up the flag to her Uncle Charles' old friend and messmate, James Armstrong, a
postwar harbor master of Charleston who had commanded the color company of Gregg's 1st South Carolina at Spotsylvania.
In his letter to Mrs. Hard expressing his appreciation for the flag, Armstrong promised to "communicate with the other officers
of the Regiment in regard to sending the flag to the State House to be placed alongside of the blue State flag." Armstrong
assured Mrs. Hard that, "[u]ntil sent there it will be kept in a fire proof vault." Time passed, and the battleflag remained with the
aging Armstrong. Finally, in 1920, Mrs. Hard wrote to Armstrong about the flag. Rose McKevlin, Armstrong's nurse,
responded, informing Mrs. Hard that Armstrong's leg had been amputated the prior month as a result of a wound he had
suffered at Spotsylvania more than half a century previously. The letter explained that Armstrong had tried to convene a
meeting of the surviving officers to discuss the flag but that he had failed to do so, and it concluded with the promise that
Armstrong, being the senior of the two surviving officers of the regiment, would send the flag to the Secretary of State in
Columbia to be placed alongside the blue state colors of the regiment already there. Although the evidence is not conclusive,
the old soldier evidently made good on his nurse's promise on his behalf by turning over the battleflag to the state before he
died."

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