Custer's 'Last Flag' sold for $2.2 million

[didymus]

Yahoo News:

Custer’s ‘Last Flag’ sold for $2.2 million

BILLINGS, Mont. – After spending much of the last century in storage, the only U.S. flag not captured or lost during Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn sold at auction Friday for $2.2 million.
The buyer was identified by the New York auction house Sotheby’s as an American private collector
.
Frayed, torn, and with possible bloodstains, the flag from one of America’s hallmark military engagements had been valued before its sale at up to $5 million.
The 7th U.S. Cavalry flag — known as a “guidon” and with a distinctive swallow-tailed shape — had been the property of the Detroit Institute of Arts. The museum paid just $54 for it in 1895.

             "We'll be using the (auction) proceeds to strengthen  our collection of Native American art, which has a rather nice irony to  it I think," said the museum's director, Graham Beal.

I wonder if the gov’t or a museum like the Smithsonian even bid on it. Why has it been in storage?

 

[Cactus]

Why is it that Custer who failed badly in his engagement with the Indians is celebrated while Ranald MacKenzie who succeeded in defeating the Comanches is ignored? (BTW, the Comanches were the “baddest of the bad” by far and had repelled the Spanish, Mexican, and US armies for centuries).