THE LOST REVOLUTIONARY BATTLE FLAGS OF JAMES CARR (July 1778)
As the Kerr’s moved westward across New England in the early 1700’s, in the ensuing seventy years they began to appear here and there in Massachusetts, then New Hampshire, then Vermont and finally into the upstate New York area around Albany. Originally known to have arrived as Kerr’s, a lack of education and confusing spelling of a name long pronounced in Scotland and Ireland as Carr….. but, even then, spelled in a variety of ways: from Car, to Ker, Kerr, Kar, and Karr.
James Karr, in 1778, only weeks before the Battle of Fort Ann in upstate New York, enlisted in the continental Army in Albany. The quartermaster registering him spelled his name as James Carr. A month later in skirmishes with British troops in the forests just north of Fort Anne, James Carr was captured, along with two battle flags, and spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Montreal, Canada.
A British Major who captured James Carr and the two American flags, returned to London with them and recorded a detailed description of them in his diary, and that he believed these two were the first ever captured in combat by the British in the Revolution. The Major’s diary still resides in London’s archives. The flags are believed to be exact replicas of the two flags bravely carried by our forefathers, and which may also still exist somewhere in the long forgotten vaults of some British military museum or archive.
James Karr, in 1778, only weeks before the Battle of Fort Ann in upstate New York, enlisted in the continental Army in Albany. The quartermaster registering him spelled his name as James Carr. A month later in skirmishes with British troops in the forests just north of Fort Anne, James Carr was captured, along with two battle flags, and spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in Montreal, Canada.
A British Major who captured James Carr and the two American flags, returned to London with them and recorded a detailed description of them in his diary, and that he believed these two were the first ever captured in combat by the British in the Revolution. The Major’s diary still resides in London’s archives. The flags are believed to be exact replicas of the two flags bravely carried by our forefathers, and which may also still exist somewhere in the long forgotten vaults of some British military museum or archive.
