History of Wartime Quilt

A friend who is involved here in Knoxville sent this to me. She found it in her studies of Civil War quilts...... Kate Meyers

Our Army Nurses: Interesting Sketches and Photographs of Over One Hundred of the Noble Women Who Served in Hospitals and one Battle Fields during Our Late Civil War, 1861-1865.

Compiled by Mary A. Gradner Holland, Boston, Press of Lounsbery, Nichols
& Worth, 1897 Page 369

My other Henry was from Kentucky, and was sixteen years old. He had a widowed mother and
one sister, and both were loyal to our flag. Henry obtained his mother's consent to volunteer in his country's service, promising never to desert, and that he would prove true to the last. He was in one battle and was wounded in the lung and brought to our camp with consumption; was sick a long time.

I had a quilt sent to me made of a flag, with the request that it be given to the sickest loyal soldier. Henry was that one. I spread it on his cot when he was asleep. On awakening he was so delighted! He could not express his joy in the thought of dying under the stars and stripes, saying: "Pain will be less now, and, Mrs. Brown, when I am placed in my coffin will you promise that I shall have the quilt placed over me? Cover my face and body with it. I want
my precious mother to know I remained firm to the last. Mother said if I died in the North, my body was to be brought home. When the casket is opened, she will see her boy was true to the flag!"

The dear fellow's request was granted, and the mother was proud of her son.