Don Troiani has done two paintings of the 1st Minnesota. The first, done in 1984, has the regiment rushing forward in their famous charge at Gettysburg. In this depiction the regiment is shown carrying both a national and a regimental flag. In his second painting of the Minnesotans, completed in 1999, Troiani corrected his earlier work and had the regiment only carrying their national colours. However, in both paintings Troiani erred in his depiction of the national flag. The mistake is understandable as the national flag he based his paintings on is (or was until recently) in the rotunda of the State Capitol in St. Paul and was identified as the flag carried at Gettysburg.

Only recently has this error been corrected and the actual Gettysburg flag been identified. I believe was done by Steve Osman, curator at Fort Snelling in St. Paul, but I am not completely sure of this. But if you have checked the photo of the remains of the true Gettysburg flag you can see very little is remaining. The 1896 Weide painting unfortunately shows few additional details.

All that can be established is that the flag was a Philadelphia Depot pattern. This is the pattern that has the stars in the canton in two concentric oval rings. It may be possible, however, to speculate on some additional details.

The national flag carried at Antietam was replaced sometime after November 1862, most probably by the Philadelphia Depot flag. This latter flag was described as already being in a tattered condition at Gettysburg, so a late 1862 date seems to fit.

In April of 1863 a state flag was also presented to the regiment. This flag is still in very good condition, suggesting it was not carried in any battle. The flag was manufactured by Horstmann Bros. of Philadelphia and carried battle honours for Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, Siege of Yorktown, Allen's Farm, Savage Station, White Oak Bridge, Glendale, Malvern Hill, and Antietam. If the Philadelphia national flag carried battle honours they may very well have been similar, given its possible date of presentation as late 1862 . But let me emphasize that this is not a known fact and is only speculation on my part. Whether the Gettysburg flag had any battle honours, or even a unit designation, can not be verified.

Ryan Toews