Civil War Primer — by Pat Granstra

You know that Civil War soldiers by the thousands rallied behind their respective flags, but did you know that the Union and the Confederacy each flew three national flags during the conflict?  

 

Billy Yank and Johnnie Reb both fought for the red, white, and blue.  The Union’s Stars and Stripes date to June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress passed a Flag Act describing a banner of 13 alternating stripes of red and white with a union (canton) of 13 stars on a blue field.  Following the admission of Vermont and Kentucky into the union, a second Flag Act, passed on January 13, 1794, added two stars and two stripes. 

Legislators apparently realized following that precedent could ultimately result in an unwieldy flag and passed a third act on April 4, 1818.  It reduced the number of stripes to 13, symbolizing the original colonies, but permitted the addition of a star for each new state.  Each new flag would become official on the July 4th following the admission of a new state or states. 

Thus, on July 4, 1859, a 33-star version became the official flag of the United States, following Oregon’s statehood on February 14th.  This flag represented the United States at the start of the Civil War.  Although eleven southern states seceded between December 1860 and June 1861, President Abraham Lincoln believed they had done so illegally.  As his goal was to preserve the union, he insisted that the rebel states’ stars remain on the Union’s flag.  It was, therefore, a 33-star flag Major Robert Anderson raised over Fort Sumter in late December 1860.

The bloody, contested Territory of Kansas became a free state on January 29, 1861.  The new flag carrying a 34th star for the plains state became the official banner of the United States on the Fourth of July.  Less than three weeks later, the first major land battle of the Civil War, now known as the First Battle of Bull Run or First Manassas, took place. 

On June 20, 1863, the remote, rugged pro-Unionist area previously known as Western Virginia became the new state of West Virginia.  On July 4th, the same day that Vicksburg surrendered to General Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee’s battered Army of Northern Virginia withdrew from Gettysburg, the official flag of the United States carried 35 stars. (Nevada also achieved statehood during the Civil War, entering the Union on October 31, 1864.  However, the war had wound down by July 4, 1865 when the 36-star flag became official.)

The 1818 Flag Act called for the addition of stars to reflect the admission of new states of the Union, but it did not address their placement within the canton, leaving individual flag makers free to create their own designs.  As a result, not all official flags at any given time were identical.  Standardization did not occur until June 24, 1912, when President William Howard Taft issued an executive order describing the canton of the 48-star flag.  Similarly, President Dwight Eisenhower used executive orders to standardize the 49- and 50-star flags. 

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The Confederate States of America  also flew three national flags during its brief existence.  The Provisional Confederate Congress began its first session in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861.  It quickly drafted the Confederate Consittuion, elected and inaugurated Jefferson Davis as President, and appointed a Committee on Flag and Seal.  The Committee opened the design of the fledgling country’s flag to competition. On March 4, as Abraham Lincoln began his term as President of the United States, a flag of the chosen design was raised over the capitol building in Montgomery by Letitia Christian Tyler.  Her grandfather, a member of the Provisional Congress, was among those viewing the ceremony.  Ironically, he was former United States President  John Tyler.  

The First National Flag featured a dark blue canton with a circle of seven white stars, one for each of the states that had seceded by February 4, 1861, when the Provisional Confederate Congress began its first session in Montgomery, Alabama.  As additional states joined the Confederacy, stars were added to the circle; 7-star, 9-star, and 11-star versions of the First National were produced between March and November 27, 1861.  However, the final version of the Stars and Bars, as the flag came to be called, carried 13 stars.  The two additional stars represented the border states of Missouri and Kentucky.  Although neither seceded, both were slave states and each had attempted to install Confederate state governments, mostly in exile.  The South, of course, hoped they would eventually join the CSA in fact as well as spirit.

In the first major battle of the war, First Manassas (or Bull Run) on July 21, 1861, many rebel regiments used the National Flag as their battle flags.  Confusion reigned as inexperienced soldiers fighting in clouds of black poweder smoke had difficulty distinguishing between the red, white, and blue flags of the Confederacy and the Union. 

As a result, Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard asked his government to redesign  the flag.  When his request was refused, he suggested that a separate, distinctive battle flag be designed.  This plan met with approval, and the now familiar battle flag often called the Southern Cross appeared in the fall of 1861.

 Although General Beauregard had failed to convince the Confederate government to abandon the First National Flag after its confusing battlefield premier at Manassas during the summer of 1861, the First Confederate Congress did address the issue when it convened in Richmond in February of 1862.

The Congress, made up of senators and representatives elected the previous November, appointed a Joint Committee on Flag and Seal and charged it with designing a new flag.  The Committee responded quickly and presented a proposal in April.  However, the House tabled the bill and did not forward it to the Senate.

A year passed before a second design was submitted in Senate Bill No. 132.  It consisted of a white field bisected with a blue bar and the Southern Cross in the canton.  The Senate passed the proposal, but the House eliminated the blue bar and established the flag’s length as double its width.  (These dimensions resulted in a larger-than-usual flag and were often ignored in practice.)  Following Senate approval of the modification, this design became the Second National Flag of the Confederate States of  America on May 1, 1863. 

By order of President Davis, the first use of the new flag was to drape  the casket of General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson laying in state in the CSA House Chamber on May 12.  For this reason, the Second National Flag is sometimes called the JacksonFlag.

The flag is also known as the Stainless Banner because its long white  field was intended to symbolize the purity of the Southern cause.  The battle flag in the canton honored the soldiers who carried it into combat, its red background symbolizing the blood they shed.

The Second National Confederate flag would not be confused with the Union’s Stars and Stripes, but it was sometimes mistaken for another type of flag.  On December 23, 1864, Louisiana Senator Thomas J. Semmes introduced a bill for a new flag on behalf of naval officers who complained the Stainless Banner resembled a flag of truce when hanging in calm weather.  The proposed new design added a red bar to the fly end of the old flag.

After consulting officers from both the army and the navy, the Confederate Senate approved the design on February 5, 1865, and sent the bill to the House where it was passed on Febrary 27.  Jefferson Davis signed the bill into law on March 4, 1865.  Then only a few weeks from the government’s evacuation from Richmond and Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the Confederacy was in a shambles.  Very few Third National Flags were made.  Of the few flown, many were stainless banners onto which red bars had been stitched.