Little more than two months after the battle flags transferred to the Wisconsin Historical Society building near the University of Wisconsin campus, debate in the Assembly began on a bill introduced by GAR members to return the battle flags and relics to the capitol. The Assembly had received “petitions from scores of army posts from every part of the state…asking that the bill be passed.”

“Where they (the flags) should repose is a question for the soldiers to decide” the paper reported David Evans, Jr saying to Assemblyman Keen of Milwaukee.

“Assemblyman Coapman demanded that the flags be placed where they can be seen. ‘When a veteran of the civil war (sic) comes to the city,’ said he,’ let it be possible for him to take his friends to the capitol and say: Beneath this flag I stood when a solid shot tore that rent in its folds.’” Wisconsin State Journal, February 27, 1901.