THE BLACK FLAG OF QUANTRILL

There are different views concerning the famous Black Flag of Quantrill. In March, 1863, Union General Halleck commanding in Missouri had declared Confederate guerrillas and guerrilla commands to be outside the laws of war.

A few days later while Quantrill's command was camped near Sni-a-Bar Township, Jackson County, Missouri, pickets reported Annie Fickle approaching the camp. Under her left arm was a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. Allowed into the camp she bowed to Quantrill and asked the men to gather around her. She unrolled the bundle and made a short speech:

It is a hard fate which awaits every brave Southern soul in Missouri fighting for a cause as sacred to every true man as is the love of God. To falter now, she said, is to betray the holier instincts of love and liberty, and in the peril which this infamous and bloody order (Halleck's order, note) imposes upon the noblest sons of Missouri, I can see shaking this oriflame, and she unrolled the Black Flag, which though black as death, is purified by the righteous cause it represents. Let the border ring with the cry of freedom, Quantrill and the sunny South, one and indivisible for ever, and to you, in whose hands I entrust this banner, let me nerve you with my prayers and entreaties never to lower it so long as there is a hand to clutch the staff, or until the principles of the Confederacy are decided by the sword and the bayonet, when there is no longer hope for appeal and ever let your battle-cry be Quantrill and Southern rights.

The flag was spread on the grass and she now produced hammer and nails. She fastened the flag to a hickory pole in a dozen places. The flag was made by herself of quilted Alpaca, for thickness, and the dimensions were three by five feet. In coloured letters in the centre was the name "Quantrell" running endwise through the middle of the flag. The pole was eight feet in length.

The men lifted their hats and gave three cheers for Annie Fickle and Quantrill thanked her heartily and promised that the flag would be carried and protected. Jim Little, who was second lieutenant to Quantrill, was chosen colour bearer. He was born 1844 in Jackson County and is buried in the Lobb Cemetery near where the flag was handed over.

Some say there was no flag. William H. Gregg, who wrote extensively on his Confederate guerrilla experiences, has stated that Quantrill's Confederate command never carried a Black Flag. Well known author and journalist John N. Edwards, on the other hand, said the flag was unfurled on the march to Lawrence, Kansas.

Above information is from an article by Donald Hale, well known historian of Missouri's Confederate guerrilla war residing in Lee's Summit, Missouri, in The Guerrilla War 1861-1865 newsletter of the William Clarke Quantrill Society, Vol. 2, No.2, 1990.

The above article appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, Summer 2007