'Stonewall' Jackson Harpers Ferry flag leads Heritage's Nov. 11-12 Political Americana Auction

DALLAS, TX.- Led in value by an eight-star Virginia Confederate flag flown at Harpers Ferry circa April–May 1861 during Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s first command, Heritage Auctions’ Nov. 11–12 Political Americana Signature® Auction presents a broad and compelling selection spanning presidential campaigns, the American West, maritime history and pivotal moments in the nation’s political and military past.

Completely handsewn and constructed in the pattern of a Confederate First National Color, this Harpers Ferry flag features eight white wove cotton stars hand-stitched and applied to a two-width flat-fell and seamed navy-blue wool canton, stitched with three horizontal wool bunting bars.

One of the rarest and earliest of authenticated Confederate flags, this particular eight-star pattern represented Virginia’s secession on April 17, 1861 and technically was only in vogue for a mere three weeks before Arkansas became the ninth state on May 6, 1861.

“This is an intensely pivotal moment in U.S. history reflected symbolically in an object,” says Caroline Tamposi, Managing Director of Historical at Heritage Auctions. “The isolated testing measures taken to seek the truth and prevent biased findings uplifts the academicism of American historic textiles and vexillology, and the thoroughness, reversibility and attention to detail of the restoration furthermore brings this flag back to life without erasing its history. Both acts are truly admirable. I wish there were more reports and preservation to this extent, but it takes a great deal of dedication and funding to accomplish this, especially on a 10-foot-long flag. Therefore, I feel very fortunate to have been able to examine and study this piece myself.”

Harpers Ferry, of course, had been the site of the defiant yet doomed raid led by abolitionist John Brown on Oct. 16, 1859. He planned to launch an expanding campaign against slavery with the captured federal weapons, but local militia and townspeople trapped him and his survivors in the United States Armory’s fire-engine house. When he refused to surrender, a Marine detachment stormed the engine house, capturing the severely wounded Brown. Sixteen people died during the raid and its immediate aftermath, including 10 of Brown’s men and two of his sons.

After he was hanged Dec. 2, 1859, for murder, treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia and conspiring with enslaved people to rebel, he became a martyr to many opponents of slavery. By the summer of 1861, Union soldiers were singing “John Brown’s Body” as they marched. His defiance is profoundly captured in an oil portrait reportedly painted by Helen Tanner Brodt in 1864, working from photographs of the slain abolitionist and advised by Brown’s widow, Mary Ann Day Brown. The oil on canvas portrait mounted to an oval board has been exhibited by the Liberty Heritage Society Museum in Warrenton, Virginia, and is now among the most significant lots in the auction.

Western Americana includes outstanding material associated with Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, John Wesley Hardin and George Armstrong Custer. Oakley highlights include her beaded performance leggings from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, signed photographs, correspondence, promotional material and two photo albums devoted to her beloved dogs, Dave and Bob White.

The highlight of the Buffalo Bill material is a remarkable bear-claw necklace presented to Cody by Sitting Bull and descended through the Julia Cody Goodman Collection. Other highlights include photographs, letters, Wild West programs, tickets, souvenirs and a rare early poster design.

Material connected with Texas gunfighter John Wesley Hardin reflects the violence and notoriety that helped shape the popular image of the American frontier, including a king of spades playing card he shot through five times and signed with the date July 4, ’95 — just one month before he was gunned down by Constable John Selman in El Paso’s Acme Saloon.

“Hardin was one of the most notorious Texas outlaws of the Wild West era, and that is saying something,” says Ray Farina, Director of Americana. “In his final months, after more than 15 years in prison during which he studied law, he was trying to present himself as a lawyer and businessman. But he would also take saloon playing cards, empty his six-shooter into them and sign them as mementos symbolizing the dangerous world of barroom gambling that was his true habitat.”

Highlights of Custer-related offerings include period photography, books signed by wife Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer and a remarkable 1874 discharge signed by Custer and his brother-in-law, James Calhoun, for Arikara scout Whistling Bear two years before the two 7th Cavalry officers were killed at the Little Bighorn.

The Larry Leedom Collection, comprising 134 lots of presidential campaign ribbons, is full of political history highlights. An extraordinary 1852 Scott and Graham under-over jugate, a rare 1860 Bell and Everett Constitutional Union ribbon and designs associated with Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, John C. Frémont, Ulysses S. Grant and other candidates are among the highlights. An extensive collection of Harry S. Truman campaign buttons traces his rise from Missouri politics through the 1948 presidential campaign and 1949 inauguration, together with an exceptional group of Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington “Equality” buttons inspired by their controversial 1901 White House dinner.

A sought-after 1860 “Abram Lincoln” campaign flag is a highlight for Lincoln collectors, and a Congressional Klipper desk brought home in 1901 by Pennsylvania Democratic U.S. Rep. Stanley Woodward Davenport when the end of his term coincided with the House of Representatives upgrading its furnishings is a rare opportunity to own an example of the last individual desk model designed for the House Chamber.

The auction includes several significant World War II lots, including a group of items from the personal archive of Major Gen. Philip B. Fleming, a career Army engineer and Federal Works Administrator under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. Fleming material includes a V-E Day Proclamation signed and inscribed by Truman to Fleming and his wife; three signed presidential commissions for Fleming with related correspondence; Fleming’s Distinguished Service Medal and Presidential Archive with Truman and Roosevelt autographs and his U.S. Army Model 1902 officer’s saber and scabbard; and an extraordinary photograph signed by Roosevelt and 15 members of his wartime cabinet.

The emotional centerpiece of the WWII material, though, may be the letter written Dec. 11, 1942, by the grievously wounded 1st Lt. Hershel G. Horton to his family from New Guinea, where he was stranded near Japanese positions and coming to accept it would take an unlikely miracle for him to be rescued before he succumbed. The archive includes his handwritten final letter, his prayer book with combat entries, various enlistment and service correspondence and papers and other effects.

Master woodcarver “Whittlin’” George Absalom Hughes, famed for extraordinary intricate creations made almost entirely with a simple jackknife, is represented in the auction as well. Hughes presented Henry Ford with a walking stick featuring a Model-T Ford carved in the round above carvings of doves, a hunting alligator, a portrait bust of General Ulysses S. Grant and full-body carved portraits of General Custer holding rifle and General Dewey resting on a sword.

Maritime artifacts are highlighted by a black leather medical bag attributed to Dr. Frank H. Blackmarr, the Chicago physician who was a passenger aboard the Carpathia and helped treat survivors of the Titanic with the aid of this bag. Along with providing medical attention, Blackmarr gathered survivors’ accounts, took records that continue to help historians and advised on James Cameron’s 1997 movie dramatization of the disaster.