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7th Louisiana Infantry flag - Rappahannock Station

........Gen. Harry T. Hays ran the gantlet of the pontoon bridge under an enfilading fire of the enemy. Col. Monoghan swam his horse across the river. Col. Terry and a few others successfully swam arosss but many lost their lives in the attempt. Leon Bertin, the color-bearer of the Seventh Louisiana, tore the flag from the staff and concealed it in his bosom. In fact everything possible was done by the gallant fellows to render their capture as barren of trophies as possible, while in term of casualties it was a dearly bought victory for the enemy.

The entire force captured numbered about 1,409 men, consisting of the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Louisiana Guard Battery and about 200 of Hoke’s North Carolina Brigade.

The capture was witnessed from the south bank by Gens. Lee and Early, who had accepted it as a sacrifice that had to be made, and under its cover successfully retired the remainder of the army across the Rapidan.

But the writer’s mission is to record the daring and chivalric deeds of a member of the command that surrendered. The captured prisoners were marched to Gen. Sedgewick’s headquarters, and when assembled around the camp fire at night, surrounded by Federal pickets, Leon Bertin, by the advice of Col. D. B. Penn, the only field officer captured, threw the flag into the flames, as the effectual means of preventing it from falling into the enemy’s hands........
- Anderson (SC) Intelligencer, 22 April 1880

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7th Louisiana Infantry flag - Rappahannock Station
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