Veteran Dart’s Flag

An Iowa Soldier’s Banner That Signaled the Collapse of the Confederacy.

George W. Dart, the man who placed the stars and stripes on the confederate capitol at Columbia, S. C., and thus virtually announced the final collapse of the confederacy, is an inmate of the soldiers’ home at Marshalltown, Ia.

Mr. Dart, who formerly lived at Attica, N. Y., enlisted at Clinton, Ia., in 1861, in company G of the Thirteenth Iowa, one of the regiments of the famous Crocker brigade. His term of service expired at Vicksburg, Miss., in December, 1863, when he reenlisted as a corporal and served until July 24, 1865.

Dart was a color guard of the Thirtieth Iowa on Sherman’s famous march to the sea. When the troops arrived near the confederate capital Dart, accompanied by the lieutenant colonel of the regiment and a few others, entered the outskirts of Columbia, with colors flying. The streets were lined with confederate soldiers, principally the southern troops of cavalry, who had been expecting an assault upon the capital for days. When the small squad of unionists appeared the confederates thought the entire union army must be near, and fled in great haste and disorder. At the capitol building Dart passed the guards and climbed to the roof, where he swung the stars and stripes to the breeze from the staff on the top of the building.

Dart’s deed has a prominent place in the records and the histories of the Army of the Tennessee, and is mentioned as one of the most brilliant acts of the campaign.

Among his keepsakes Mr. Dart highly treasures and prizes a little faded rag, which is all that is left of the banner used at Columbia that bright May morning. It came into his possession through Adjt. Gen. George Baker, who had charge of Iowa’s military operations during the civil war. Dart says he wouldn’t exchange the little piece of silk for the best farm in Iowa.

[The Biloxi Herald, Biloxi, Mississippi, Published July 29, 1900] Submitted by Cathy Danielson