Since we are being partisan here, if I were the President of the Confederacy and my Capitol was about to be overrun, why would I grab a dirty, tore up, striped rag and carry it in my personal baggage as I was making my departure?

Doyle, since we are being partisan, maybe it was a fond memory of kicking some Yankee's behind?

Back to a non-partisan mode....didn't Jefferson Davis' nephew command a brigade? at Gettysburg? Maybe that is the connection, it was Mississippi troops that took the 149 colors, I believe?