Harrison Jeffords

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Harrison Jeffords (August 21, 1834 – July 3, 1863) was the Colonel of the 4th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War.

While Jeffords was back in Michigan on a recruiting trip, the ladies of Monroe, Michigan presented him with a new national flag to replace the unit's original flag, which had been badly damaged in recent battles. Jeffords stated that he would defend the flag with his life.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, the color-bearer of the Regiment dropped this flag, and Jeffords advanced to retrieve it. He is reported to have shot a Confederate soldier who had seized the flag and grasped them himself. In the ensuing melee, another Confederate soldier bayonetted him, mortally wounding him. Soldiers in the Regiment carried both the flag and their fallen commander out of the Wheatfield. As he was dying, his only words were of his mother.

After the war, the Regiment erected their monument on the battlefield near the point at which their Colonel fell. Despite a regulation against the depiction of any individual soldier on Regimental monuments, Colonel Jeffords is shown on the side of the monument, holding the flag for which he died.