Capture the Flag, Cont'd

In response to the previous post regarding a biker gang's seemingly childish obsession with stealing their rivals' sew-on patches, a few sharp readers pointed out that this game was once the essence of warfare. One, in particular, mentioned the following:

I'm definitely no Civil War expert, but I believe more medals were awarded during the Civil War for capturing or saving flags than for any other reason.

We're no Civil War experts, either—we always defer to more learned scholars of the...