AUGUSTA (AP) – A remnant of a Civil War flag donated to the Maine State Museum was more important than previously believed.

The 6-by-5-inch piece of silk was one of the scraps from a flag that was torn to bits by soldiers from the 16th Maine Infantry Regiment to prevent it from falling into Confederate hands on July 1, 1863, the opening day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

It belonged to Private Isaac Monk of Turner, whose great-grandson Neil Brown of Norway donated it to the museum on Thursday.

Museum officials had said before the transfer that they were thrilled to be getting another 16th Maine flag remnant.

But they said this piece is more important than previously thought because it came from a second flag that was destroyed that day.

“This is particularly exciting because now we have pieces from both of those flags,” said Laurie LaBar, the curator of historic collections at the museum. “This is the only piece I have seen so far from the other flag.”

Like other Maine regiments in the Civil War, the 16th Maine carried two flags – the U.S. flag and a regimental flag.

The latest remnant came from the regimental flag, which some historians believe was a blue flag bearing the state seal.

No one knows how many pieces of either flag survived or where they all are, so historians get excited whenever a fragment turns up, especially if the state museum is able to acquire and display it.

This one came with a handwritten, perfectly legible note signed by “I.J. Monk,” attesting to its authenticity.

Like other soldiers in his unit, Monk grabbed a shred of one of the flags and hid it in his clothing. Monk, who was captured that day and imprisoned for three months, later left the fragment to his family.

Neil Brown, who inherited the framed fragment after his mother died, said turning it over to the museum after all these years was the right thing to do.

“I don’t feel a sense of loss. It’s still in the family, really. It’s just being better served and preserved here,” said Brown, 64.

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