19th Virginia Infantry Regiment

Bullet holes as well as moth damage are visible in this wool and cotton flag of the 19th Virginia Infantry. The flag was captured by Private Benjamin Falls of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry during Pickett's Charge, on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment raised during the American Civil War, fighting for the Confederacy.

The 19th Virginia, organized at Manassas Junction, Virginia, in May, 1861, contained men recruited at Charlottesville and in the counties of Albemarle, Nelson, and Amherst. It was then disbanded in April of 1865.

Organization

The 19th Virginia Infantry service begins on April 17, 1861, at Charlottesville, Virginia, when Virginia secedes from the United States. Two militia companies, the Monticello Guard and the Albemarle Rifles, along with two companies, the Southern Guard and the Sons of Liberty, formed in front of the Albemarle County Court House. The field officers were Colonels P. St. George Cocke, Henry Gantt, Armistead T.M. Rust, and John B. Strange; Lieutenant Colonels John T. Ellis, Charles S. Peyton, and Bennett Taylor; and Majors Waller M. Boyd and William Watts.