Description:

This silk national flag has a canton painted with two crossed sabers.  The number 3 is painted above the sabers and “Mich.” is painted below.  Surrounding the design are 34 painted stars.  Battle honors are painted on all the white stripes of the flag except for the last.  In order, they read, “Oxford. Dec. 2. ’62.” “Island No. 10. ‘62” “Jackson. July, 13. ’63.” “Holly Springs. Nov. 7. ’62.” “Coffeeville. Dec. 5. ’62.”  The battle honors are painted with a gold with black outlining.  The flag is in very good condition with almost no loss of the silk.  A gold bullion fringe is attached to the top, bottom, and fly edge.  The fringe on the fly edge is missing numerous strands.  The hoist end was fashioned into a sleeve for attachment to the staff.

The staff, which measures 91” by 1.25”, is topped by an eagle finial.  The staffs of flags returned to the state at the 1866 Detroit ceremony marking the end of the war all bear identical brass plaques.  The brass plaque reads in Spencerian script “3rd Mich. Cavalry”. 

In 2008 the flag was conserved by Fran Faile at The Henry Ford.  It was delicately cleaned to remove dust and humidified in a humidification chamber.  The flag was then encapsulated by being sewn between Stabiltex fabric.  Different colors of Stabiltex were hot melted together to match the underlying fabric before the flag was encapsulated.