FLAGS, Confederate. Early in the ca reer of secession designs for flags were of fered to the Confederate Congress. Devices were sent in daily and a mass of ideas was col lected, illustrating a still lingering love for the United States flag, while most of them were radical departures from its heraldic character. The entire political, educational and religious spirit of the Confederacy took a deep concern in the proposition of a flag, and even Stephens, Tombs, Clinton, Wickham, and Semmes took the time from legislative and military duties to devise some flag symbols. In the midst of the deliberations a committee, the Confederate Congress, decided to turn the matter, with the hundreds of suggestions, to a committee, which was composed of Miles (S. C.), Mor ton (Fla.), Shorter (Ala.), Barton (Ga.), Sparrow (La.) and Harris (Miss.), which committee reported 5 March 1861. Some of the introductory sentences copied from the original read: attachment may be felt, from association, for the stars and stripes (an attachment which your committee may be permitted to say they do not all share), it is manifest that, in inaugurating a new govern ment, we cannot retain the flag of the govern ment from which we have withdrawn, with any propriety, or without encountering very ob vious practical difficulties. It is idle talk of re taining the flag of the United States when we have voluntarily seceded from them? And this sentence, (It must be admitted, however, that something was conceded by the committee to what seemed so strong and earnest a desire to retain at least a suggestion of the old stars and stripes. So much for the mass of models or designs more or less copied from or •as similated to, the United States flag.' The long report indulges in some historical refer ences and strongly argues that the colonists forgot the glories of the British flag and wound up with this stand: (Yet under that British flag the colonists fought in their in fancy for their very existence, against more than one determined foe. Under it they had repelled and driven back the relentless sav age, and carried it farther and farther into the decreasing wilderness as the standard of civilization and religion. Under it the youth ful Washington won his spurs in the memor able and unfortunate expedition of Braddock, and Americans helped to plant it on the Plains of Abraham when the immortal Wolf fell. But our forefathers, when they separated themselves from Great Britain . . . they cast no lingering, regretful looks behind.' And summed it up: (The committee, on examin ing the representations of the flags of all coun tries, found that Liberia and the Sandwich Islands had flags so similar to that of the United States that it seemed an additional if not a conclusive reason why we should not keep — copy— or imitate it. i ney (me committee) feel no inclination to borrow at second hand what had been pilfered and appropriated by a free negro community and a race of savages.' The committee reported (5 March) the fol lowing which was adopted on same day, but by vote the flag of the Confederacy, as by committee suggestion, was ordered on the books of 4 March, to be of even date with Abraham Lincoln's inauguration. The report and law reads: That the Flag of the Confederate States of America shall consist of a red field with a white space extending horizontally through the center, and equal in width to one-third the width of the flag. The red spaces above and below to be of the same width as the white. The union blue extending down through the white space and stopping at the lower red space. In the center of the union a circle of white stars, corresponding in number with the . States in the Confederacy? This flag with its seven stars (representing the seven states which rebelled) was unfurled over the State House at Montgomery, Ga., on
4 March 1861. But the new flag did not prove satisfactory to many radical politicians, nor was it satisfactory in military or naval actions because of its striking similarity to the Star Spangled Banner; at the first battle, 21 July 1861— Bull Run (called by Southerners as the battle of Manasses), the opposing commanders accused the enemy of displaying the colors of the antagonizing forces. By a strange coin cidence, one of the flag committee, Mr. F. S. Barlow (General at the battle of Bull Run) was killed attempting to serve that duplication. It became evident that a new flag for battle pur poses must be created. A flag of that character was devised by Edward C. Hancock of New Orleans, and by end of October it was in general use as adopted by Confederate officers, and was as followg: "The Battle Flag is square, having a Greek Cross (saltier) of blue, edged with white, with thirteen equal white five pointed stars; upon a red field ; the whole bordered with white? But the southern people demanded a National and not a Battle Flag, with the result that the Con federate Congress adopted the following flag on 1 May 1863: (The Congress of the Con federate States of America do enact, That the Flag of the Confederate States shall be as follows: The field to be white, the length double the width of the flag, with the union (now used as the Battle Flag) to be a square of two-thirds the width of the flag, having the ground red; thereon a broad saltier of blue, bordered with white, and emblazoned with white mullets or five pointed stars, correspond ing in number to that of the Confederate States.' This flag proved most unsatisfac tory because of its too liberal white, would be accepted as a flag of truce and also because it was too similar to the English White Ensign, and both these objections showed in tests of war. This led to new suggestions and the Rich mond Examiner commented: we get our national emblem we must get rid of stars and stripes in all their variations. So too of all arrangements of red, white and blue. . . . The national emblem of the equestrian South is the Horse. Its colors are black and white; its shield is the sable horse of Manassas on a silver field; its flag is the white flag with the black horse. Neither belong to any other nation of Christians.' This proposal met with considerable favor, especially because of the incorporation of the Horse, but it was rejected, only to be later ac cepted on the signature of the South. See GREAT SEAL OF THE CONFEDERACY.
Innumerable were the suggestions, and finally came the short lived National Flag adopted 4 March 1864 by the Confederacy — as follows: width, two-thirds of its length, with the union (now used as the Battle Flag) to be in width three-fifths of the width of the flag, and so proportioned as to leave the length of the field on the side of the union twice the width of the field below it ; to have the ground red and a broad, blue saltier thereon, bordered with white and emblazoned with mullets or five pointed stars, corresponding in number to that of the Confederate States; the field to be white except the outer half from the union to be a red bar exending the width of the flag." What Rear-Admiral George H. Preble, U. S. N., wrote in 1880 has during the World War come true: "Should, unfortunately, our coun try engage in another war foreign or domestic it is to he hoped that our dear old flag the 'Star Spangled Banner'— of The Union, will be soul inspiring to the soldiers of the common country, whether Northern, Southern, Eastern or Western, and that all sectional emblems will be subservient beneath the folds of the United States Flag." This was true in the Spanish-American War but in a more emphatic way today as a United American folk, love and revere the flag of the Revolutionary forefathers.