American Historical Ephemera and Early Photography, including The Larry Ness Collection of Native American Photography

18 x 23 3/4 in., swallow-tail flag printed on tightly woven cotton with 42 stars configured in alternating indented vertical rows giving the impression that waves of stars are moving across the canton. The flag is over printed with the symbols of Company D, 6th US Cavalry Troop: "6" above crossed sabers and "D" at center of field. Guidon hand sewn to mounting board covered in cotton fabric.

These specific flags were initially used officially during a very narrow period of 11 November 1889 and 4 July 1891; the period paralleling the admission of Washington, our 42nd state, into the Union and the subsequent date that our 43rd state, Idaho, had its 43 star flag officially approved by Congress.

In 1889, the 6th US Cavalry was stationed in the deserts of the Arizona and New Mexico Territories. From December 1890 to early 1891, the regiment was sent by rail to South Dakota to participate in the Ghost Dance War against the Sioux people.

A group of these parade guidon flags were found in a wooden storage crate at Fort Sheridan, outside of Chicago, in the early 1970s. The crate was among materials that were being discarded and destroyed. An officer stationed there was able to acquire the entire group of flags as surplus. It is believed that these parade guidon flags were originally made to be used in recruitment efforts at the Presidio, in San Francisco, California, ca 1889. Sometime after that, likely in the early 1900s, they were transferred to Fort Sheridan. The Commander there began to use these guidons as part of parades and ceremonies at the Fort when some of the regiments of infantry, cavalry and/or artillery officially passed through the Fort. One of the common ceremonies, during the late 19th century, would have been the “Pass in Review” that periodically occurred on the Fort’s parade ground. The Fort was eventually decommissioned in 1993. 

Provenance: Collection of Jeffrey Kenneth Kohn, MD.