BUY Rebel Flags For SaleFew Confederate units carry a name as haunting as the Orphan Brigade. Officially the 1st Kentucky Brigade, these men came from a state that never left the Union. When Kentucky fell under Federal control early in the war, the Kentuckians who had gone South to fight could not go home again. They fought for four years as soldiers without a state behind them, and they carried some of the most distinctive battle flags of the war.
Who Were the Orphan Brigade?
The brigade was built from Kentucky infantry regiments, including the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th Kentucky, along with Kentucky artillery. Six different Kentucky regiments served in it over the course of the war. (A Confederate brigade usually held between two and six regiments.) It was first led by John C. Breckinridge, the former Vice President of the United States, and later by Roger Hanson, Ben Hardin Helm and Joseph H. Lewis.
Where the name came from is told a few ways. The most common explanation is simple: with Kentucky held by the Union, these men were cut off from their homes, families and state government for the entire war. Tradition also says Breckinridge rode among the survivors after the brigade’s terrible losses at Stones River and cried out over “my poor Orphans.” That story is widely repeated, but the exact words are unconfirmed by historians.
Their record speaks for itself. The Orphans fought at Shiloh, at Stones River (where General Hanson was mortally wounded in Breckinridge’s charge of January 2, 1863), at Chickamauga (where General Helm, the brother-in-law of Abraham Lincoln’s wife, was killed), and through the Atlanta Campaign. In late 1864 the brigade was mounted and rode against Sherman’s army through Georgia and the Carolinas. What was left of it surrendered at Washington, Georgia, in May 1865.
Kentucky’s Latin Cross Flags
Some Kentucky regiments went to war under flags bearing an upright Latin, or Christian, cross. The best known are the blue 4th Kentucky flags with a large red Latin cross set with 13 white stars, like the surviving example shown above.
The 5th Kentucky carried a different flag of its own, shown above. Kentucky was not alone. Some Alabama regiments also used Latin crosses, and the Missouri Latin cross battle flag is one of the best-known Confederate designs. Many of these flags, including the 19th Alabama, are still reproduced today.
Why the Upright Cross Was Controversial
Latin cross flags drew real objections across the South during the war. Some conservative Christian groups felt that putting their sacred symbol on a battle flag misused it. Some Jewish Southerners, fully loyal to their states, felt an upright cross was not fitting for a flag that was meant to represent all of the people who served under it.*
Feelings ran strong. One letter from an Arkansas soldier complained about what he saw as a “Catholic” symbol, and to make sure his wife understood exactly which flag he meant, he drew it for her in color on the page.
This was not a minor question. It shaped the most famous flag of the war. The Southern Cross battle flag, first adopted in Virginia after First Manassas, began life as a design by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina with an upright cross. Miles turned it on its side into a diagonal St. Andrew’s cross so it would read as a heraldic emblem rather than a religious one. Flag historians often cite correspondence from Southerners, Jewish Southerners among them, who asked that the new national symbol not be a sectarian one. The result was the saltire design that every Southern unit could claim. You can find the battle flag and other historic designs in our Confederate flag collection.
The 5th Kentucky at Chickamauga
The 5th Kentucky saw hard fighting at Chickamauga in September 1863, the second bloodiest battle of the war after Gettysburg. At Chickamauga the regiment served in Colonel John H. Kelly’s brigade on Snodgrass Hill, before it joined the Orphan Brigade later that year. The Kentuckians acquitted themselves well. One of the official Confederate after-action reports records the closing moments of the fight:
On September 18, our forces advanced in several columns to cross the Chickamauga and give battle to the Federal army under General Rosecrans….
It was now moonlight, and Kelly returning to his command after a few minutes’ absence from it, the fire reopened, and continuing for a short time, ceased. It was the last fire of the day, and closed the battle. In the last attack made by Trigg and Kelly, Colonel Hawkins, of the Fifth Kentucky, a brave and skillful officer of Kelly’s brigade, captured 2 colonels, 1 lieutenant-colonel, a number of company officers, and 249 prisoners. The Twenty-second Michigan, Eighty-ninth Ohio, and part of the Twenty-first Ohio Regiments were captured by Trigg’s and Kelly’s brigades, and five stand of colors were taken by Sergeant Timmons, of the Seventh Florida Regiment, and by Privates Honaker, Harris, Hylton, and Carter, of the Fifty-fourth Virginia. Colonels Carlton, Le Favour, and Lieutenant-Colonel Glenn were among the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Orphan Brigade attacked the Union left on September 20 and paid dearly for it. General Helm fell mortally wounded leading them, and the brigade lost about a third of its men. It was the kind of sacrifice that earned the Orphans their reputation as one of the finest brigades in the Army of Tennessee.
*Jewish Southerners and the Confederacy
Jewish Southerners rallied to their states. Jewish settlers were recorded in Charleston, South Carolina, as early as the 1690s, and by 1800 Charleston was home to the largest Jewish community in America. Its congregation, K. K. Beth Elohim, founded in 1749, is one of the oldest in the country. New Orleans also had one of the largest Jewish communities in the South by 1861.
Judah P. Benjamin served the Confederacy as Attorney General, Secretary of War and Secretary of State. Abraham Myers served as Quartermaster General of the Confederate Army, and Dr. David Camden De Leon as its first acting Surgeon General. Many Jewish Southerners gave their lives in battle. Notably, the most infamous official act against Jews during the war came from the Union side: in December 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling Jews from his military district covering parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky. President Lincoln ordered it revoked within weeks.
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