44 Star U.S. Flag, 1891, Fort Keogh, MT, named for General Custer's Adjutant killed at Little Big Horn.
This hand-sewn, wool 44 star United States flag was used from 1891 to 1896 at the Fort Keogh frontier post. The post was originally founded in 1876 as the Cantonment on the Tongue River and by 1878 it had grown in size, warranting the name Fort Keogh.

The post was named for Captain Myles Keogh, whose troops of the 7th US Cavalry comprised a part of Lt. Col. George Custers ill-fated battalion at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25th, 1876. Keogh was a fort without walls or a stockade; laid out in an irregular diamond shaped quadrangle around which were built officers quarters, enlisted troopers barracks, multiple outbuildings, stables and other military structures. At the southern extreme of the parade ground was Forts Keoghs tallest feature, an enormous flag pole, over 100 high from which this flag flew.

This 50 x 96 flag is a military anomaly because it does not comply with the U.S. Army standard flag dimension regulations of the day. As it is slightly larger than the regulation Storm Flag it likely that this oversized flag was locally acquired for use as a Storm Flag at Fort Keogh.

In 1896 the 45th state was added to the Union, thus rendering Fort Keoghs flag obsolete. The flag was preserved, in line with the tradition at the time when officers preserved flags as mementos from posts at which they had been billeted. Similar flags in the ZFC collection include ZFC2257, a 28 star United States flag that was preserved by Major Eliphalet Rowell after he left Fortress Monroe in Virginia, and ZFC0418, the regimental standard of the 18th US Infantry, which was preserved by Lieutenant G.S. Carpenter after he departed Fort Phil Kearney in 1866.

The flag eventually became part of the acclaimed collection of noted New York City antique dealer Mr. Boleslaw Mastai and his wife Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai. Their collection was the result of fifty years of collection, research, and study. Mastai started his collection in the 1940s, and amassed the greatest private flag collection in the United States, which he personally detailed in his book The Stars and the Stripes; the American Flag from Birth of the Republic to the Present. With its publication in 1973 the book drew attention to the American Flag as a symbol of not only history, but art as well.

Display/Presentation History:
This flag's image was displayed in the presentation at the 6th Annual Flag Symposium sponsored by The Flag House and Star Spangled Banner Museum, in Baltimore, MD, April 9, 2005. The presentation was made by Howard Madaus on The Other 48s a look at the evolution of the 48 star US Flag and the various star patterns it engendered.

Publication History:
Mastai, Boleslaw & Marie Louise, The Stars and The Stripes: The American Flag from Birth of the Republic to the Present, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1973, p. 222.

ZFC Significant Flag

Provenance:
• Ft. Keogh, Montana, 1891/96.
• Acquired by Mr. & Mrs. Boleslaw & Marie-Louise d'Otrange Mastai, New York City, and Amagansett, NY, The Mastai Collection, until 2002.
• Sold via Sotheby's Auction in New York City to the Zaricor Flag Collection, 2002.


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