Civil War flags come back home to Michigan Capitol after building renovations

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

In 1909, veterans of the Civil War stood for a photo on the Michigan Capitol steps 40 years after the war had ended, carrying the flags they fought under as the banners were taken to be on display in the Capitol building.

And those flags hung inside for more than 80 years, with the weight of the silk bearing down from the staffs, tearing at the fibers and sunlight sprayed across each detail withering away the pigment. The flags were replaced by 80 replicas about 30 years ago and the originals were moved to the Michigan History Museum.

Over the weekend, descendants of some of the Michiganders that fought in the Civil War, along with supporters of the flags’ preservation, carried replicas of the original flags to once again be hung in the Capitol after being removed for about a year as the building underwent a $3 million restoration .

The descendants posed on the steps Saturday, just as their ancestors did more than a century prior, recreating the photo before bringing the replica flags back home to the Capitol.

The event Saturday, where each person carrying a flag was named and the contributions of Michigan, including the First Michigan Colored Infantry , were recognized, was a warm welcome back for the flags and a fun gesture towards everyone who has contributed to their preservation, Conservation specialist for the Capitol May Oyler said.

“It’s a nice kind of thank you to them, and lets them get a little bit involved in the history of the flags,” Oyler said. “Michigan had about 90,000 men fight for the Union Army, a big piece of our population and they had the intention of showing that history in the building when it first opened. There was actually a military museum in the building at the time.”

Oyler told the Michigan Advance how time had taken its toll on the original flags and how now the building’s more than 110,000 annual visitors can once again enjoy the visual representation of Michigan’s sacrifice in the war.

“The visitors … the majority are kids, third and fourth grade, especially because that’s when they’re learning Michigan history and civics and of course, part of what they’re learning is going to be about the Civil War and the role that Michigan played in that. So going in here they see the replicas on display upstairs, it kind of is a nice message about how important the remembrance of that war was to the people who built the building, and it still is to us in Michigan,” Oyler said.

Students will also be able to see some of the original flags in the Capitol Building’s Heritage Hall where there’s a viewing window at the latest restoration projects.

“They can see us working on those and kind of caring for that history,” Oyler said.

Currently, the remains of a large blue flag carried by the 15th Michigan Infantry lays in the lab’s table. About a third of the flag is still intact after being flown on the battlefield, but a few months ago, a small piece of blue textile was donated, sitting now with the flag.

“It was in a frame and it had a note on the back, a handwritten note that was talking about how this man who fought for the 15th picked this piece of their flag off a battlefield and so we were able to take this little fragment down to some of those conservators we work with and they examined it. They got it out of the frame to look at it, and they think there’s a chance that it belongs with this flag,” Oyler said. “So now we get to reunite them.”

As the original flags are getting a much deserved opportunity to sit in the shade and be celebrated a half-mile down the road from this new generation of stars and stripes, Oyler said, perhaps these new flags will wear, just as the rest of the building is destined to. And maybe in 30 years or another 100 years, descendants who aren’t yet born yet will put new replicas on their shoulders and carry them to a Capitol that is once again repaired and made new.

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Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

An Army National Guard Band plays at an event where descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Conservation specialist for the Michigan State Capitol May Oyler (left) helps distribute replica Civil War flags to descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts on Aug. 16, 2024 for the flags to be put back on display in the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

Descendants of Michigan's Civil War veterans and other supporters of restoration efforts carry replica Civil War flags to the Michigan Capitol on Aug. 16, 2024 to be put back on display inside the building after being removed while restorations took place. | Photo: Anna Liz Nichols

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