The Conquered Banner

The Conquered Banner

by Father Abram Joseph Ryan

Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary;

Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary;

Furl it, fold it, it is best;

For there's not a man to wave it,

And there's not a sword to save it,

And there's no one left to lave it

In the blood that heroes gave it;

And its foes now scorn and brave it;

Furl it, hide it, let it rest!

Take that banner down! 'tis tattered;

Broken is its shaft and shattered;

And the valiant hosts are scattered

Over whom it floated high.

Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it;

Hard to think there's none to hold it;

Hard that those who once unrolled it

Now must furl it with a sigh.

Furl that banner! furl it sadly!

Once ten thousands hailed it gladly.

And ten thousands wildly, madly,

Swore it should forever wave;

Swore that foeman's sword should never

Hearts like theirs entwined dissever,

Till that flag should float forever

O'er their freedom or their grave!

Furl it! for the hands that grasped it,

And the hearts that fondly clasped it,

Cold and dead are lying low;

And that Banner, it is trailing!

While around it sounds the wailing

Of its people in their woe.

For, though conquered, they adore it!

Love the cold, dead hands that bore it!

Weep for those who fell before it!

Pardon those who trailed and tore it!

But, oh! wildly they deplored it!

Now who furl and fold it so.

Furl that Banner!

True, 'tis gory,

Yet 'tis wreathed around with glory,

And 'twill live in song and story,

Though its folds are in the dust;

For its fame on brightest pages,

Penned by poets and by sages,

Shall go sounding down the ages,

Furl its folds though now we must.

Furl that banner, softly, slowly!

Treat it gently, it is holy,

For it droops above the dead.

Touch it not, unfold it never,

Let it droop there, furled forever,

For its people's hopes are dead!

50th Georgia Infantry Regiment

The 50th Georgia Infantry Regiment was formed in March, 1862, in Savannah, Georgia. It served with the Army of Northern Virginia from July, 1862 until it's surrender at Appomattox Court House, except during Longstreet's 1863 expedition to Georgia and Tennessee. Upon reaching Virginia, it was assigned to Drayton's Brigade. During the Battle of Antietam, the regiment was assigned to Toomb's Brigade. After the battle, the 50th Regiment was permanently assigned to Paul Jones Semmes's Brigade. The subsequent brigade commanders were Goode Bryant and James P. Simms.



Organization: The regiment was organized as follows:
Field staff and band

Colonel William R. Manning (March 22, 1862 thru July 31, 1863, Resigned)
Colonel Peter Alexander Selkirk McGlashan (July 31, 1863 thru end of war [captured at Sailor's Creek, Virginia, April 6, 1865, Released from Johnson's Island, Ohio, July 25, 1865])
Lieut. Colonel Francis Kearse (March 22, 1862 thru July 2, 1863, Killed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Lieut. Colonel William O. Fleming (July 31, 1863 thru December 22, 1863, Resigned)
Lieut. Colonel Pliny Sheffield (December 21, 1863 thru November 28, 1864, Resigned [Wounded in right arm necessitating amputation at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864])
Major Phillip Coleman Pendleton (March 22, 1862 thru October 8, 1862, Resigned)
Major Duncan Curry (October 8, 1862 thru February 24, 1863, Resigned)
Major William O. Fleming (February 24, 1863 thru July31, 1863, Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel)
Major Pliny Sheffield (July 31, 1863 thru December 21, 1863, Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel)
Major John M. Spence (December 21, 1863 thru February 14, 1865 when granted a leave of absence)

Adjutants:
James M. Fleming (March 22, 1862 thru March 23, 1863, Died)
James P. Graves (March 23, 1863 thru September 17, 1863, Resigned)
R. T. Roberds/Roberts (September 17, 1863 (?) thru November, 1863, Killed at Knoxville, Tennessee)
A. McGlashan (April 12, 1864 thru October 19, 1864, captured at Cedar Creek, Virginia [Released at Fort Delaware, Delaware in June or July, 1865])

Companies:
Company A - Satilla Rangers (Pierce County)
Company B - Ware Volunteers (Ware County)
Company C - Coffee County Guards (Coffee County)
Company D - Valdosta Guards (Lowndes County)
Company E - Thomas County Rangers (Thomas County)
Company F - Decatur Infantry (Decatur County)
Company G - Clinch Volunteers (Clinch and Echols Counties)
Company H - Colquitt Marksmen (Colquitt County)
Company I - Berrien Light Infantry (Berrien County)
Company K - Brooks Volunteers (Brooks County)


Assignments:
Mercer's Brigade, Military District of Georgia, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (April-June 1862) Military District of Georgia, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida (June-July 1862) Drayton's Brigade, Drayton's Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (July 1862) Drayton's Brigade, D. R. Jones' Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (August-October 1862) Drayton's Brigade, McLaws' Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (October-November 1862) Semmes'-Bryan's Brigade, McLaw's Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (November 1862-September 1863) Bryan's Brigade, McLaw's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Tennessee (September-November 1863) Bryan's Brigade, McLaw's-Kershaw's Division, Department of East Tennessee (November 1863-April 1864) Bryan's Brigade, Kershaw's Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (April-August 1864) Bryan's Brigade, Kershaw's Division, Valley District (August-November 1864) Bryan's-Simms' Brigade, Kershaw's Division, 1st Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (November 1864-April 1865)


Campaign and Battle Participation:
Second Bull Run (Manasses),(August 28-30, 1862)
South Mountain (September 14, 1862)
Antietam (September 17, 1862)
Fredericksburg (December 13, 1862)
Chancellorsville (May 1-4, 1863)
Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863)
Chickamauga [not engaged] (September 19-20, 1863)
Chattanooga Siege (September-November 1863)
Knoxville Siege (November-December 1863)
The Wilderness (May 5-6, 1864)
Spotsylvania Court House (May 8-21, 1864)
North Anna (May 23-26, 1864)
Cold Harbor (June 1-3, 1864)
Petersburg Siege (June 1864-April 1865)
Cedar Creek (October 19, 1864)
Sayler's Creek (April 6, 1865)
Appomattox Court House (April 9, 1865)

Ancestors and Kin:
The following ancestors and kin of the Coleman-Young family served in the 50th Georgia Infantry:
Private Samuel W. Register , Clinch co. GA., Company G.
(Wounded at Battle of Manasses Aug. 30th, 1862.)
Private John Taylor Register, Clinch co., GA., Company G.
Private Guilford A. Register, Clinch co., GA., Company G.
Private Oliver Perry Register, Clinch co., GA., Company G.


Source: (Extract: From the Compendium of the Confederate Armies: South Carolina and Georgia, by Stewart Sifakis, Copyright 1995.

Abednego Greene Malcolm

Major Abednego Greene Malcolm, 1st Battalion, (McNairy's), Tennessee Cavalry:

Abednego Greene Malcolm, known also as Greene Malcolm and in some records as Greenbury Malcolm, was born September 18, 1821 near Frankfurt, Kentucky. Orphaned at nine years of age, he was the son of a Veteran of the War of 1812 and grandson of Revolutionary War Veteran, Nathanial Greene, of Revolutionary War fame. By profession, Greene Malcolm was a Physician, having graduated from the School of Medicine at Edinburg, Scotland. He traveled extensively over Europe, parts of Asia and the Fiji Islands and once declined an offer from Commodore Perry to accompany him to Japan.
On June 9th, 1846 he enlisted for service in the Mexican War at Louisville, Kentucky serving with the 1st Regiment (Marshall’s) Kentucky Cavalry. Stationed initially at Camp Patterson, Texas on October 31st, his unit was ordered to Monterey, Mexico in December 1846. During his Mexican War service he saw action in the Battle of Agua Nacoa and was with General Taylor at the Battle of Buena Vista. He carried a scar from that battle where he received a wound inflicted by a Mexican Cavalryman. He was afterwards with General Scot at the fall of Mexico City and was the second man over the wall at the fall of that fortress city. He was discharged from service following the war on June 1st 1847 at New Orleans. During the war he contracted chronic dysentery which he never got over.
In 1848, he went to California where he amassed a fortune and lost it all by the causes of fire , flooding and Indian raids and spent the next two years on the Texas frontier fighting Indians.
On June 15th, 1861, at the opening of the War Between The States, he enlisted in the 1st Battalion, (McNairy’s), Tennessee Cavalry serving in the rank of Major. His campaign participation included operations in Kentucky and Tennessee and he carried the last train out of Atlanta, Georgia just before its fall into the hands of Federal troops.
Following the War Between The States and the South’s defeat, rather than endure the persecution and humiliation of “Reconstruction,” he traveled to Mexico, where with other like-minded Confederate soldiers, he helped to plant a Confederate colony. Following the plantation of his colony in Mexico, he returned to Atlanta, Georgia where he planed and organized another colony of ex-Confederate soldiers and their families. Setting out in the Spring of 1867, his colony of thirty families made their way to New Orleans where they booked passage for Spanish Honduras (The Republic of Honduras). Despite their difficulties, upon arrival at Fortress Omoa, near Puerto Cortes, Major Malcolm led his colony of Southern refugees into the interior of Honduras where at Comayagua, Honduras he met with representatives of the Republic and presented a letter for President Medina of the Republic of Honduras explaining their reasons for emigration and an offer of services in exchange for citizenship, certain considerations and concessions:

“GENTLEMEN: The undersigned respectfully submits to your consideration that on the 10th of April, after a passage of ten days, I arrived in the city of Omoa with seventy souls, emigrants to your beautiful land. These persons consist of men, women and children who are what might be termed the forerunners of perhaps thousands of the best citizens of the Southern States, of the United States. We wish to make this our home.
To find in this that which we have lost in our own native land, liberty.
To make this what our country was before it was destroyed by our enemies.
Our desire is to become citizens of the Republic at once, to be a part of your people, to claim your protection, to defend you with our lives from foreign invasion, and to do our whole duty to our adopted country.
In coming among you we would state that on account of our recent great misfortunes, many of us are greatly impoverished, and without going into further preliminary remarks, would give this as our reason for asking you to grant the following privileges and donations. ...With the highest consideration, I am gentlemen, your obedient servant.(Signed) G. MALCOLM.Comayagua, Honduras, C.A., May 3, 1867.”

Soon after establishing their colony near San Pedro Sula, and naming it the colony of “Medina”, in honor of the President of the Republic of Honduras, it was decided to place the government of their local interests under the control of a council, in order to avoid the necessity of assembling the entire colony when any question of interest or expediency should arise likely to affect their welfare. At a public meeting, an election was held of the following representatives:

Major Malcolm as their presiding officer, L. G. Pirkle, H.H. Briers, George W. WaltersJ.H. Wade, and P. Goldsmith, Secy.

Major Malcolm was later appointed Minister of Immigration by the government of the Republic of Honduras in order to facilitate their transition of new arrivals to the colony.

About 1870, Major Malcolm removed to Texas where he remained till his death on December 11th, 1906 in Malakoff, Henderson county, Texas. Major Malcolm was twice married, first to Nannie Roark and second to Susan Francis Lee, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Strong) Lee of San Jacinto county, Texas. From these two marriages spring many descendants. Major Malcolm is buried in the Post Oak Memorial Cemetery in Malakoff, Henderson county, Texas.