I am the one that did the original research years ago showing that this flag is indeed tat of the 9th Texas Cavalry (Dismounted) captured by the 27th Ohio at the Battle of Corinth in October, 1862. This flag bears the blood of both the color bearer and the captor, Orrin Gould, who was wounded while taking it. There is a lot of detail on its capture in the "History Of Fuller' Ohio Brigade," as well as Ohio newspapers of the era.
Th flag is an Army of Nothern Virginia, 12 star silk issue flag from the late November, 1861 issues. The 9th Texas Cavalry never served in that army but QM oficer William L. Cabll, had transferred to the Army of the West as a brigade commander and, we suspect, took some of these flags with him. He stated, in a post-war interview, that 120 of these silk flags were made but the army in Virginia at the time was not that large o there must ave been some spare flags. We do not know how many flags Cabell may have taken nor do we know how many he gave to units, if any.
The flag was sent to Ohio instead of the War Department and was in their collections as late as 1889 when the National Tribune did a three part article on the relics collection of the Ohio state capitol, which, at the time, included a number of captured CS flags (many now missing sadly). The flag of the 36th Georgia/1st Georgia Confederate, taken in the Battle of Atlanta by an Ohio regiment
in July, 1864, was also part of this collection.
From the NT article - "The large flag above has the greatest history of any we have in the room, but space will not permit me to give it in full at this time. Those dark spots are blood stains, which gives it the name of the "Blood-Stained Flag." It belonged to the 9th Texas, and was captured by Orion (sic) B. Gould, 27th Ohio, at the battle of Corinth. The printed history is from the letter sent to Gov. Todd by the Colonel of the regiment with the flag. This is what was known as their battle flag; it has red ground with blue cross bars and 12 stars."
Gen. Van Dorn's Army of the West used Van Dorn pattern battle flags in this fight along with some First Nationals and as many of the ANV silk flags as Cabell brought with him (assuming this theory is correct), all of which are battle flags actually, but not as famous as the ANV style Southern Cross. I have seen this flag up close several times and it does bear blood stains in the lower quadrant. The flag is depicted in Mary Livermore's, "My Story of the War" in color (in the original late 1800s version, black & white in the reprints) and the blood stains are very evident.
For the 1st Georgia Confederate/36th Georgia, from the National Tribune, "The next flag was captured by the 81st Ohio at Atlanta, GA., ad belonged to the 1st Regular CSA Regiment. It is three by five feet, red, with blue cross-bars, from corner to corner, with 11 stars." This describes perfectly an Augusta Depot flag issued to the regiment in the late Winter of 1864 while the Army of Tennessee was at Dalton, GA. The flag originally had 2 more stars but it seems that the flag lost two of them as souvenirs. This flag is missing today and somehow its history got placed with the 9th Texas flag. I started this research when I still lived in Ohio and have been to the Ohio Historical Society a number of times working on this and that is the conclusion that I have drawn.
So, in 1972, Ohio, using this mistaken history, sent the flag to Georgia thinking that it was the 1st Georgia Confederate's flag when it was actually that of the 9th Texas Cavalry. As I have stated, the 1st GA Confederate flag is now missing and we can tell from the 1889 description that it was rectangular rather than square, which the 9th Texas Cavalry flag is.
I have sent all of my research to the Georgia Capitol Museum a number of years ago so they should have all of my work in a file somewhere, hopefully in the one for this flag. I would be happy to help anytime with this as it should be sent to Texas in my opinion.
Greg Biggs