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Custer's last flag: Little Bighorn banner for sale |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 29 June 2010 |
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Custer's last flag: Little Bighorn banner for sale
An American flag found at Little Bighorn after Lt Col George Custer and nearly 270 men were wiped out by Indian warriors is expected to fetch as much as £3.3 million when it goes up for auction.
By Tom Leonard in New York
Published: 6:34PM BST 27 Jun 2010  The swallowtail battle guidon of the 7th Cavalry Regiment was the only military artefact left behind after Custer and his men were defeated by thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne Indians, led by Sitting Bull, in June, 1876.
The battle caused enormous shock in the US at the time - when the young nation was preparing to celebrate its centennial - and has become one of the most celebrated in American military history.
The victorious Plains Indians had stripped the corpses clean of trophies but evidently missed the flag, which was hidden under the body of a fallen soldier.
It was recovered by Sgt Ferdinand Culbertson, a member of a burial party, and was sold for $54 in 1895 to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Another 7th Cavalry guidon was found months later in an Indian village seized by US troops, but is reportedly moth-eaten and in very poor condition.
Three other guidons were never recovered, while the regimental flag was on a train at the time of the battle.
The Detroit institute is now selling it to pay for new art acquisitions, after admitting it barely ever saw the guidon, as it was almost continually on loan to other institutions.
Sotheby's will auction the tattered and blood-stained piece of silk – just over 32 by 26 inches - in October. A star and a patch of the stripes are missing, cut out of the fabric in the 19th century as souvenirs.
The auction house has estimated it will fetch between $2 million and $5 million (£1.3 million to £3.3 million) but hopes it could even exceed the current auction record for a flag – the $12.3 million paid for an American flag captured by the British during a 1779 engagement during the War of Independence.
"It's not a piece of decoration. It's a sacred relic, people died for this flag" said David Redden, a Sotheby's vice chairman.
He described Custer's Last Stand as an "extraordinary clash between the two cultures of America", adding: "Anything connected with that, particularly something that's as significant as a battle flag, also has that kind of iconic stature."
The battle was part of the Great Sioux War, which started after the US government tried to drive the Indians out of the Black Hills region in what is now Montana.
The land had been ceded to the tribes in perpetuity but, following the discovery of gold there, the US insisted the Indians move to a reservation.
The 7th Cavalry surprised the Indians, led by Sitting Bull, in their village only to realise they had considerably underestimated the enemy's strength.
John Doerner, the historian of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, said the guidons - so designed to cut out wind drag – served as battlefield beacons as they marked company positions.
He described the guidon found by Sgt Culbertson as a "national treasure" and suggested it should eventually be returned to the battlefield museum.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7857688/Custers-last-flag-Little-Bighorn-banner-for-sale.html |
