Priscilla Richardson

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If you attended the Civil War weekend this spring in Buchanan you may not have met Buchanan's Jerry Huff, 69, but you along with over 2,000 others enjoyed his concept. Three days of living history let people understand Civil War nitty-gritty. They saw what it was like back then to be a soldier or someone enduring on the home front. Neither was easy.

Huff, as a news photographer for United Press International and then the Raleigh News & Observer, covered racial turmoil in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. His photo of an encounter between police and a black man during a Nashville riot won a national award for the third best spot picture.

Huff said he covered every president from Eisenhower to Jimmy Carter and both Bushes.

There's strong security around a president. "You have no idea unless you're involved," he said. "You have to have all kinds of passes and clearances. And it was a complicated procedure, actually military clearance, done in advance."

But then Huff, now 69, retired from the glamour of news. He came to Buchanan because his wife, Debra, is from this area. Here he started his second career as a Civil War buff. He took advantage of his great-great-grandfather's service in the Confederate States Army to join the local Sons of Confederate Veterans group. If he had moved up north, he could have joined a Union organization, since he has ancestors who fought on that side, too.

But by living in Botetourt and becoming captivated by the history here, he delved into a mystery he hopes readers can solve.

As he explained it, Buchanan residents formed a militia in 1859 after John Brown's raid on the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. This group called themselves the Mountain Rifles. They were accepted into Virginia's military service, marching off to war in May 1861 under the command of Capt. Joseph W. Anderson.

"The Mountain Rifles carried with them a Virginia flag supposedly made from the wedding dress of their commander's wife," Huff continued. "This flag stayed with them after they became part of the 28th Virginia Infantry, and after they adopted a new name, the Botetourt Artillery. They kept that name for the rest of the war.

"The Botetourt Artillery was the only Virginia unit involved in the Battle of Vicksburg, in Mississippi. After a 46-day siege, Vicksburg surrendered. The night before the actual surrender, on July 4, 1863, the men of the Botetourt Artillery cut their flag into pieces and divided it up among the men of the unit. They did this rather than surrender their flag," Huff said.

So that brings us to the great mystery: "Who has a piece of Botetourt history, a piece of the flag?" Huff asked. "Somewhere among the treasured belongings of your great-great-grandfather, maybe stuck in a book or the family Bible, is a little piece of cloth. That piece of cloth may be a piece of the Virginia flag that the Botetourt Artillery marched off to war with. It may be part of a great big puzzle.

"The Botetourt Artillery, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Camp 1701 in Buchanan, is attempting to find pieces of the flag to try and put it back together and preserve it for future generations. Somewhere, someone has a part of this flag," he concluded.

If readers do have something they think is a piece of the flag, the Sons want to see it. "If you don't want to part with the original, then we'll photograph and measure it and give you and your ancestor credit in any exhibit," Huff said. The plan is to display the flag, if they can put it back together, in the museum Buchanan hopes to open.

If you think you might have piece of the flag, Huff asks that you call him at 254-3304. There's no sketch or plan of the flag left, but surely any remnant would have been cherished by its owner.

So descendants of Botetourt Artillery members should dig through their attics to find this mystery flag. There's no telling what other history treasures they might uncover, too.