The “Grand Division Standard” of the 8th Va.

Rob Andrews and Erik Dorman guard an 8th Virginia division standard in front of the Shenandoah County Courthouse in Woodstock, Virginia in 2012. (Courtesy of Rob Andrews)

Authentic Revolutionary War-era flags are incredibly rare artifacts, and the ones that survive are sometimes misunderstood. A case in point is a flag associated with the 8th Virginia that is privately owned but currently on public display.
 
Regimental flags were not just symbols—they were, like fifes and drums, used for command and control on the battlefield. Noise, confusion, and black-powder smoke could make it hard for individual soldiers to know what they were supposed to be doing. Failure to stay in formation could quickly lead to a loss on the battlefield. Large, waving, colorful flags helped prevent that from happening.

While the Grand Union flag and the Stars and Stripes may have appeared on some battlefields, they were more likely to be seen on forts and ships. Virginia had no state flag until the Civil War. Every regiment, however, had a flag that served important symbolic and battlefield purposes. Regimental flags were unique works of art, often featuring symbols from antiquity or popular culture with mottos in English or Latin. The flags of the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment and Connecticut’s 2nd Continental Light Dragoons are among the very few that survive.

​There is, however, an 8th Virginia flag that still exists—but it is not the regimental banner. It is a “grand division standard,” one of two that were used to direct halves of the regiment on the battlefield. These were utilitarian devices with little ornamentation. The most important thing about them was their color. 

The surviving 8th Virginia division standard was hidden from public view for 150 years. “The first time I heard of the 8th Virginia Standard was during an internet search on the 8th,” reported Rob Andrews, an SAR member and Revolutionary War reenactor with the 1st Virginia Regiment in 2015. What he found was an 1847 reference in the Richmond Whig.  The newspaper quoted Peter Muhlenberg’s great nephew saying, “The regimental color of this corps (8th Virginia Regiment of the Line) is still in the [my] possession.  It is made of plain salmon-colored silk, with a broad fringe of the same, having a simple white scroll in the centre, upon which are inscribed the words, ‘VIII Virga. Reg’t.’ The spear-head is brass, considerably ornamented.  The banner bears the traces of warm service, and is probably the only revolutionary flag in existence.”

A close-up of the flag's fringe also shows the netting that is used conserve the flag. (Author)

Henry A. Muhlenberg was at that time preparing to publish a biography of his great uncle, the still-useful (but occasionally inaccurate) Life of Major-General Peter Muhlenberg of the Revolutionary Army. The younger Muhlenberg was a member of Congress and quite knowledgeable about his pedigree, but his description of the flag as “the regimental color” was wrong.

The repainted side of the flag as displayed before 2012. Exposure to light resulted in a rectangle of faded fabric in the center of both sides of the flag. (Courtesy of R. Andrews)

Other than the 1847 reference, Rob could find no mention of the flag anywhere. “I emailed the folks at Valley Forge and the Trappe Foundation in Trappe PA, where the Muhlenberg family lived.  Emails bounced around and finally one person said he thought he knew who had it." Then, Rob said, an email "popped into my box with two pictures of the flag.  It was in a frame and had a card at the bottom stating its provenance." The owner of the flag at that time had purchased it at an auction in the 1960s. The flag had not been professionally conserved, had faded where it faced the glass, and was displayed with a card that claimed a service history that followed General Muhlenberg’s career, but not that of the 8th Virginia (which he led for just a year).

"In 2012, the flag was sold at Freeman’s Auction in Philadelphia. Prior to the auction, Freeman’s brought it to Shenandoah County to be displayed.  I was lucky that I found out about it just a couple of days prior to the event.  I contacted my friend Erik [Dorman] who also was interested in writing about the 8th and we decided to show up in our uniforms.  We caused quite a stir when we walked around the corner of the Courthouse into the square.  We were immediately enlisted to "guard" the flag and unveil it during the event.”

Rob also shared one important explanation about the flag’s appearance. “As someone in the past painted the flag so that 8th Virginia was visible” the opposite side of the flag is displayed “to show its original condition.  And its years in the frame have led to its faded rectangle appearance.” The flag was purchased anonymously and is once again owned by a private collector. It was briefly displayed again at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware and is presently on display again in Philadelphia.

​The Muhlenburg flag resurfaced six years after another set of Virginia flags reappeared. The flag of the 3rd Virginia “detachment” was put up for auction in 2006 by a descendent of Banastre Tarlton. It is probably the only surviving Virginia regimental flag and is reportedly the oldest existing 13-star flag. It features a beaver (America) felling a tree (the empire) and the motto Perseverando (“By persevering”) in Latin.

The "3rd Virginia Detachment" banner captured by Banastre Tarlton in 1780.

With it were two smaller, plainer flags of identical design but different colors. The 3rd Detachment was an ad hoc unit cobbled together under Col. Abraham Buford in 1780 from new recruits and soldiers who had avoided capture at Charleston earlier that year. The flags were used at the Waxhaws in South Carolina on May 29 when Tarlton defeated Buford there. It is unlikely that the flags were made specifically for the detachment. The regimental flag is described in detail in a 1778 inventory of then-new flags known as the “Gostelowe Return.” The flags were probably, therefore, inherited from a regiment that was folded into Buford’s detachment. Buford had been colonel of the 11th Virginia, and a number of the men in his detachment were reportedly from the 2nd Virginia. The flag could have come from either of those, or from another.

The two “grand division” flags from the Buford detachment are almost identical, except for their colors, to the Muhlenberg flag. Buford’s maneuvering flags are blue and yellow. The Muhlenberg flag is a beige color today and was described as a “salmon” color in 1847. A fabric expert advises that the original color was red. The flag has faded considerably just from its time in the frame. It is not hard to imagine it having faded from red to a salmon color over the century or so before it put under glass.
​
​The scrolls on the blue and yellow flags contain only the word "regiment." The word is not centered in the scroll, suggesting that a space was retained to the left  on both flags to be filled in when they were assigned to a specific regiment. The writing in the 8th Virginia's scroll is illegible now. It was retouched on one side by Mr. Goetz or a previous owner to say "VIII Virg Regt." The 1847 account in the Richmond Whig says the scroll was styled a bit differently as "VIII Virga Regt."

The grand division standard as it likely appeared when new, recreated by 8th Virginia Regiment reenactor Nathan Gibson. (Courtesy of Nathan Gibson)

A comparison of this flag to other Virginia standards could not be done until after it and the Buford flags had all resurfaced. Now that a comparison is possible, it is quite clear that the Muhlenberg flag was in fact one of two divisional standards. Though a maneuvering banner and not the regimental standard, the flag is still a treasure. It was on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia in 2022.

More from The 8th Virginia Regiment