Hayes Lowe
New Confederate flag information.
Tue Jun 12 22:25:44 2001


Over the past weekend, I located some previously unknown Confederate flags. At least one is from an Alabama unit.

The guidion of the 4th Alabama Infantry was captured at Gettysburg at Little Round Top. It is about 1 foot tall by 1 1/2 foot wide. It is green with a white number "4". It is in a private collection (which is displayed occassionally). I have full information on the owners, who I have spoken with directly. The flag is fully documented. The owners are open to academic study of the flag.

One of those owners also informed me that he has personally seen a huge storage facility full of captured Confederate flags. The facility is owned by the State of Illinois. He says that the flags are literally being eaten by rats and mice. Some were stored in tubes by the C.C.C., while others are strewn about the floor of the facility. He says that the last attention that the flags received was by the C.C.C. (1930's) and that they are deteriorating fast. Many have been "appropriated" by previous Illinois officials and are now "lost" [read that as stolen].

I have done a little research on this, and the State of Illinois does not admit to this holding. Here is their official line on Confederate flag holdings:

Captured Confederate Flags
The State of Illinois has in its collection captured Confederate flags where were not returned to the former Confederate states. During the Civil War, there was no specific directive concerning the disposition of Confederate flags captured by the Union troops. In some cases the flags were passed up through the ranks to army command while at other times the flags were retained by the men in the company or regiment who had captured them. By the end of the War there were at least 500 Confederate flags in the possession of the U. S. Government. In 1887 President Grover Cleveland ordered the return of the captured flags in possession of the U. S. Government but the order was rescinded following political pressures from Union veteran organizations. However, in 1905 the government returned the captured Confederate flags to the Governor of each of the former Confederate states and to the appropriate border states. Those flags which were not associated with a specific State or where the State of origin was unknown were deposited at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond.
Many of the Confederate flags in possession of the Northern States were also return, but Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin along with the Chicago Historical Society retained possession of some of the captured flags.

The following photos and information details the ten captured Confederate flags still held by the State of Illinois. The flags in the collection are of two types -- First National Flags and Battle Flags.


First National Flag
"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 of the width of the flag, and red spaces above and below to 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 of the Confederacy." (Congress of the Confederate States of America, March 3, 1861; depiction of the First National Flag) Illinois does not have in its collection any of the Confederate Second or Third National flags.

Battle Flags
The Confederates used a number of battle flags. The majority were patterned after those of Virginia - a square flag with a blue cross and white stars. Four of the flags in the Illinois collection are of this type while the remaining two have other, very distinctive patterns.