The Lincoln assassination flags

[Jim Garrett]

(09-21-2014 08:48 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Nice photograph, and I haven't seen it before. Now that I've seen it, I have serious doubts if that flag was ever in Ford's Theater.
It looks like it would be to small, and did they have grommets back then? I'll try to stop by the GAR Museum when we go to Springfield in 3 weeks to learn more.

I asked Waite Rawls, executice director of the Museum of the Confederacy about grommets. He said that he is not familiar with any flags with grommets dating to the Civil War. He said the closest he has seen are holes that were rimmed in thread, like a buttonhole.

I asked Waite this question because the Museum of the Confederacy has approximately 500 Civil War era flags (mostly Confederate) in their collection. Waite has spent no small amount of time with the collection, and has been a champion of restoration and preservation of the collection.

I would have to say, grommets is a pretty good indicator that a certain flag is probably not going to have any connection to the Lincoln Assassination.