In the State House in Boston is the battle-flag of the 21st Massachusetts, stained with the blood of Sergeant Thomas Plunkett. Both his arms were shot away in the battle of Fredericksburg, but he planted the flagstaff between his feet and upheld the flag with his two shattered stumps of arms. Massachusetts has few relics so precious as this flag. Clara Barton was with him at Fredericksburg and ministered to him there, and remained his lifelong friend. In many ways she manifested her interest in him, rendering her aid in a popular movement which secured him a purse of $4000. Sergeant Plunkett was in need of a pension, and Clara Barton addressed to the Senate’s Committee on Military Affairs a memorial on his behalf. It was written on Washington’s Birthday, after her return from the field: WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 22nd, ’63 TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MILITARY COMMITTEE, U.S. SENATE. SENATORS: Nothing less than a strong conviction of duty owed to one of the brave defenders of our Nation’s honor could induce me to intrude for a moment upon the already burdened, and limited term of action yet remaining to your honorable body. During the late Battle of Fredericksburg, the 21st Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers were ordered to charge upon a battery across an open field; in the terrible fire which assailed them, the colors were three times in quick succession bereft of their support; the third time they were seized by Sergeant Thomas Plunkett, of Company E, and borne over some three hundred yards of open space, when a shell from the enemy’s battery in its murderous course killed three men of the regiment and shattered both arms of the Sergeant. He could no longer support the colors upright, but, planting his foot against the staff, he endeavored to hold them up, while he strove by his shouts amid the confusion to attract attention to their condition; for some minutes he sustained them against his right arm torn and shattered just below the shoulder, while the blood poured over and among the sacred folds, literally obliterating the _stripes_, leaving as fit emblem of such heroic sacrifice only the _crimson and the stars_. Thus drenched in blood, and rent by the fury of eight battles, the noble standard could be no longer borne, and, while its gallant defender lay suffering in field hospital from amputation of _both_ arms, it was reverently wrapped by Colonel Clark and returned to the State House in Boston, with the request that others might be sent them; the 21st had never lost their colors, but they had worn them out.