Company A - First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry 1861-1866

The company's flag survives at History Nebraska. Mrs. O. F. Johnson sewed it, and she was said to have the only sewing machine in town. It carries 34 stars, Kansas having joined the Union in January 1861. The flag reached History Nebraska many years later in fragile condition, and its remaining stars were mounted, not very neatly, on a new backing. The regiment's later 35-star battle flag names Milford, Donalson (so spelled), Shiloh, Corinth and Cape Girardeau, then, under 1st Regt. Nebraska Cav., Chalk Bluff, Red Bank and Jacksonport. The regiment was mounted as cavalry in 1863.

What the plaque says

Company A - First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry 1861-1866 When the outbreak of war between the states became imminent in the spring of 1861, the citi- zens of Plattsmouth were quick to respond to the impending crisis. Without waiting for President Lincoln's call for volunteers, Dr. Robert R. Livingston organized a company of infantry to be held in readiness for Federal service. The men elected Livingston their captain and the women of Plattsmouth sewed a flag which they presented to the company. On June 11, 1861, the Plattsmouth volunteers were mustered in as Company A, First Nebraska Volunteer Infantry. For three years the regiment campaigned in the South, participating in major battles at Fort Donelson and Shiloh in Tennessee. Returning to Nebraska in 1864, the regiment (by then a cavalry unit) was sent to Fort Kearny. From there, small detachments were deployed to protect emigrant wagon trains, mail and passenger coaches, and road ranches against the threat of Indian attack. The regiment continued in service on the plains until July, 1866, when it was mustered out at Omaha. Robert R. Livingston rose to command the First Nebraska, with the rank of Brevet Brigadier General, before returning to private life at Plattsmouth. Plattsmouth Lions Club Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 17 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 17 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• Malcolm X Birthsite — 20 mi
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum — 23 mi
  Two hangar-sized halls beside I-80 near Ashland holding the bombers and reconnaissance planes of the command that ran America's nuclear force from Offutt, south of Omaha, from 1948 to 1992.

More markers nearby

• Lewis and Clark Campsite: July 21, 1804 — 2.8 mi
• Oto Mission — 4.9 mi
• Fontenelle Bank - County Courthouse — 8.7 mi
• First Presbyterian Church — 8.9 mi