Jeff and Liberty

           When Fort Donelson fell to the Federal forces on Feb. 16, 1862,
Andrew S. Payne, color bearer of the 14th Mississippi Infantry
Regiment, vowed that he would never give up his unit's flag to the
Yankees. It was a beautiful hand-painted flag, presented by a group
of patriotic ladies to the Shubuta Rifles, one of the regiments
companies. More important, the regiment had fought hard and well
under the flag before being forced to surrender; 17 men were killed
and 85 were wounded in a futile effort to retake a portion of the
entrenchments of the fort. Payne refused to dishonor his comrades
by giving up the flag.

           Before the prisoners were shipped off to Camp Douglas, near
Chicago, Illinois, Payne cut out the center of the flag and sewed it
into the lining of his coat.; thus he carefully preserved the emblems
on both sides of the flag: Lady Liberty, dressed in a toga, holding a
picture of Jeff Davis in one hand and a beribboned sword in the other,
and on the reverse, an eagle with its claws about a snake that had
invaded its nest of eaglets in a magnolia tree. The flag was still
concealed in Payne's coat when, on Oct. 16, 1862, he and most of
his comrades were sent back to Mississippi in an exchange of
prisoners. There, at last, Payne returned the flag to his regiment.

from "The Civil War, The Road to Shiloh, Early Battles in the West"
by Time - Life Books, page 99