Thomas L. Kane, a Pennsylvanian already famous for his successful mediation between the federal government and the Mormons, conceived the idea of raising a rifle regiment from the rugged mountaineers living in the northern mountains of the Commonwealth. After some delay, ten companies of troops moved to Harrisburg and were organized as the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves. This regiment, perhaps Pennsylvania's most famous Civil War unit, was more popularly known as the "Bucktails," since the men in the companies from the western counties wore a buck's tail in their caps as a symbol of their marksmanship. In honor of Kane's efforts to raise the regiment, it was also known as the "Kane Rifle Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps," and also as the lst Pennsylvania Rifles.
Shortly after organization, the 13th, together with the 5th Reserves and an artillery battery, was sent to Cumberland, Maryland, for guard duty. The regiment then joined General Banks's troops near Harper's Ferry, where it remained until early October. Thus, the Bucktails were not present when Governor Curtin presented the state colors to the Reserve Division, although the color-guard may have been sent to receive the 13th's flag. Colonel Kane's regiment took part in the engagement at Drainesville on December 20, 1861, and this battle was inscribed on the regiment's flag by order of the Governor.
After the division moved south to occupy Fredericksburg in May 1862, the regiment was divided into two detachments. Colonel Kane, by personal request, had Companies C, G, H, and I, detached under his command and was sent to the Shenandoah Valley to operate with the Federal troops there. Major Roy Stone took command of the remaining six companies, which were then transferred with the division to the Army of the Potomac, operating on the Peninsula near Richmond.
Major Stone's command first engaged the enemy during the Battle of Mechanicsville on June 26. His marksmen, posted at one of the bridges over Beaver Dam Creek, repelled every assault against their position until the division withdrew that night. During the darkness and the confusion in the retreat, Company K was cut off and retired into a swamp to avoid capture, but eventually emerged hungry from the swamp after four days and surrendered.
As the division retired, parts of Companies D and E did not receive the order and were also surrounded. Captain Alanson E. Niles of Company E had the state color with his command, and his men retreated into one of the swamps along the Chickahominy River to avoid surrendering the banner. However, after more and more enemy troops began combing the swamp for the elusive Yankees, Niles was forced to give up. Rather than lose the flag, his men buried it in the swamp, and so reported after the war when Adjutant General Russell inquired about the missing color.
However, Niles's men apparently did not do a good job of hiding the flag for the Confederates did discover it. When Federal troops occupied Richmond in 1865, the flag was found rolled up within a large U.S. garrison flag located in the attic of the Capitol building. Major-General Edward O. C. Ord, commanding the Army of the James, and a former brigade commander of the Reserves, saw the flag and took it home with him. In 1899, his daughter, Mrs. John Mason, loaned the color to the Smithsonian Institution, where it has remained ever since.
COMPANY I FLAG In April 1861, when word was received of Kane's recruiting for the regiment, the companies that eventually became C, G, and I, gathered on the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River and floated by raft to Lock Haven, and then took trains to Harrisburg. Before leaving home, the men of Company I, recruited in McKean County, received a wool bunting flag to take with them. The lead raft carried this flag. When Kane divided the regiment into two wings, this banner was taken by Kane’s four companies into the Shenandoah Valley. The detachment engaged Jackson's troops at Harrisonburg on June 6, 1862, at Cross Keys on June 8, and again at Cedar Mountain on August 9. The detachment was present at Catlett's Station when the famed Rebel cavalry leader Jeb Stuart raided General Pope's headquarters there on August 22. Kane's men attacked during the night and succeeded in driving off the Rebel raiders before more damage was done to Pope's wagon train.
The detachment then fought in the Second Battle of Manassas on August 29-30, and was the last of the Federal troops to cross Bull Run as the army retreated to Washington. The companies under Major Stone's command also fought in this battle as part of the Reserve Division, and as the column retreated to Washington the regiment was finally united as one body of men. Owing to the loss of the state color, Company I's flag was briefly used as the regimental color. The flag was given to Colonel Kane when the Bucktails mustered out of service, and he forwarded it to state care in time for the July 4, 1866, ceremony.
COMPANY K FLAG When the Raftsman’s Rangers left Curwensville on May 9, 1861, Mrs. William Irvin presented the men with a "beautiful silk flag.” This flag was apparently carried in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, and at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. In this latter engagement, Corporal John Looney of Company G bore the flag, and during the charge against Jackson's Confederates, Looney was mortally wounded, his life blood spurting over the flag. The flag was badly damaged and the staff was broken. This is the last mention of this particular color, and thus it is unknown if it was carried in any other engagements. It was given to the Irvin family after the war and carried in reunion parades.
PRESENTED COLOR In late 1862, Major Stone resigned to become colonel of the new 149th Pennsylvania, styled the “bogus Bucktails" by the original Bucktails in disdain for what they considered to be Stone's recruiting of another rifle regiment. The bad feelings that surfaced between the two commands would later be smoothed, and on May 15, 1863, the 149th presented a new flag to the 13th Reserves. This was a national color, and contained the names of the twelve battles in which the Bucktails had fought, and also included the inscription "Presented to the First Rifle Regiment by the 149th Penna. Vol. " in the midst of the blue canton.
This banner seems to have been carried by the Bucktails in all subsequent engagements, including the fighting at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna River, and Bethesda Church. When the Bucktails were relieved for muster out, those who had re-enlisted were assigned to the 190th Pennsylvania, also known as the 1st Veteran Reserves. Major William R. Hartshorne of the 13th, destined to become colonel of the 190th, took this flag as the new regiment's color until the state could provide a new flag.
The 190th apparently carried this flag during the battle of Cold Harbor and the Petersburg assaults of June 1864. During the engagement at the Weldon Railroad on August 19, the 190th was flanked by a hidden Confederate force, and many officers and men were captured. This presented color was also taken, and was returned to Pennsylvania by the War Department in 1905, Upon its reception by the Adjutant-General's Office, there was some confusion at first, because the flag was tagged by the War Department as belonging to the 149th Pennsylvania. After some letter-writing, the true story of the flag was uncovered and it was deposited in the Flag Room beside the Bucktails' other banner.
COMPANY F FLAG The members of Company F, recruited in Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, received a flag from the local ladies before the command entrained for Camp Curtin, The subsequent history and disposition of this flag is unknown.
MARYLAND GAR FLAG In December 1906, the Adjutant of Maryland G.A.R. Post I in Baltimore wrote to Adjutant-General Stewart, informing him that a flag marked as belonging to the Bucktails had been found when the Maryland Civil War flags were removed from the cellar of the State House in Annapolis to the present display cases on the main floor. This banner was sent to Stewart, but its present location is unknown.
SOURCE: "Advance the Colors!" - Pennsylvania Civil War Battle Flags. Volume I, Pages 112-114. Author Richard A. Sauers ~ Capitol Preservation Committee
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