The Mississippi Civil War Sesquicentennial continues and in the coming months we will be highlighting Museum Division collections related to 1864 and the Civil War. Special thanks to Nan Prince, assistant director of collections, for writing this series.

The Battle of Nashville was fought on December 15–16, 1864, between Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Army of Tennessee and the federal force under Major General George H. Thomas. Hood began the Franklin-Nashville campaign in the fall of 1864, in an attempt to disrupt General Sherman’s supply line and draw him out of Georgia. A series of engagements led up to the Battle of Nashville, including the Battle of Franklin on November 30, which resulted in a devastating loss of over six thousand Confederate casualties. Thomas’s army soundly defeated Hood’s battered troops during the Battle of Nashville, forcing the Confederates to retreat to Tupelo, where Hood resigned his post.
This 2nd National Pattern flag of the Second Mississippi Infantry was captured at the Battle of Brentwood Hills near Nashville on December 16, 1864. Writing to Major J. Hough of the Army of the Tennessee, Lt. Col. J. H. Stibbs of the Twelfth Iowa Infantry described the capture of the flag: “The large one belonged to a Mississippi regiment, I think the Forty-fourth, and was captured by Corpl. Luther Kaltenbach, F Company, Twelfth Iowa Infantry. The color-bearer had been shot down, and as my regiment advanced Corporal Kaltenbach ran forward and picked up the flag.” The flag was returned to the state of Mississippi by the War Department in 1905.
Sources:
http://www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/tn038.htm
Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. 45, Pt. 1, p. 464