It’s difficult to overstate the importance a unit’s colors to a Civil War soldier. To capture those of the enemy was the pinnacle of achievement; to lose one’s own, a source of shame. Typically, the national flag and a distinctive regimental banner marked the center of a regiment’s line of battle, while smaller guidons like this one from the 16th Ohio Volunteer Infantry indicated individual company locations. Four of the 16th Ohio’s 10 companies (C, G, H, and K) were raised entirely in Wayne County, while two others (A and I) contained smaller contingents of men from the county.
On December 29, 1862, the 16th Ohio took part in Gen. William T. Sherman’s assault on the Confederate lines defending Vicksburg at Chickasaw Bayou, Miss. The result, writes historian Steven Woodworth, was “as spectacular and complete a failure as any major operation of the war.” The regiment lost 117 men killed and wounded, and another 194 captured. The man who carried this guidon was one of those killed, but the banner was saved and carried off the field by John McElroy of Co. A. He died in 1869, but his family kept the guidon until 1898, when they presented it to the 16th Ohio Regimental Association during their reunion in Zanesville on August 3.
The guidon ended up in Wooster and was probably kept at Memorial Hall, home of the Given Post of the G.A.R., on South Buckeye Street, from whence it migrated at some point after 1904 to the Wooster Museum on the second floor of the old library, and then to the historical society. The guidon’s condition continued to deteriorate until 2001, when funds were raised to have it conserved by Textile Preservation Associates in Keedysville, Maryland. It returned to the historical society in 2002 and is now part of the permanent collection, on display in the case in which the 16th O.V.I.’s battle flags were originally displayed in Memorial Hall.
