'Big Red' flag that flew in Fort Sumter battle to return to The Citadel

"Big Red," a historic South Carolina flag, will fly again.

The flag -- colored red and with the crescent moon facing inward, signifying secession -- flew over the 40 to 50 Citadel cadets who fired 17 cannon rounds at the Union cargo ship Star of the West. The ship was attempting to resupply Union troops at Fort Sumter on Jan. 9, 1861. The cadets hit the ship with three rounds and it turned around.

"Most people say those were the first shots of the war between the states," said Ted Curtis of Hilton Head Island, a 1964 Citadel graduate and chairman of The Citadel Historical Council.

When the flag returns to Charleston on the 150th anniversary of its creation, the bell that rang in that ship the Citadel cadets fired upon also will be on loan, Curtis said.

"Big Red is a national treasure," Curtis said.

For three years, Curtis and several other Citadel graduates have researched the Big Red flag found in Iowa. They discovered that the red flag with a white palmetto was made by Hugh Vincent. This flag's white crescent moon faced inward to represent the state of South Carolina's secession from the Union on Dec. 20, 1860. Two weeks later, the flagmaker presented it to the cadet battery on Morris Island, off of Charleston, on the way to Fort Sumter.

The flag was discovered in an Iowa museum and has been conserved through the Iowa Battle Flag Project, which includes 307 flags from the South. Research indicates the flag was captured in 1865 in Alabama by Private Willard Baker of the 20th Iowa Infantry, who, upon his deathbed, donated it in 1919 to the Iowa State Historical Society.

"All the flag researchers have started looking at it and we started analyzing it, and testing the thread," said Sheila Hanke, Battle Flag Project conservator and collections manager for the Iowa State Historical Society. "It is definitely from that time period, but the history is contested by some."

Curtis said DNA tests have been conducted on the flag to determine its age and another person on the research team traced the flag's journey from Morris Island to Alabama, then to Iowa.

"This is the original Citadel flag," said Curtis, a retired U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. "It is 150 years old and symbolizes dedication to duty, courage and discipline of Citadel cadets."

FLAG RETURNS HOME

Curtis said the flag is priceless, but that the group has raised about $50,000 in two weeks to get the flag back to South Carolina and put it in a climate- and lighting-controlled environment in the alumni building on The Citadel campus. The Class of 2010 has pledged $5,000 to the "Recover Big Red" effort.

Flags with the inward-facing horns of the crescent moon may have disappeared after the Civil War, but makeshift Big Red flags reappeared at The Citadel's homecoming weekend, Nov. 5-7. Licensed Big Red products such as T-shirts, lapel pins as well flags are in the works.

"Everybody thought The Citadel copied the state flag," Curtis said. "The Citadel's flag predates the state flag and our horns on the crescent moon make it totally unique to The Citadel, it is the only flag of its kind -- ever."