Billy Bearden's 4 June post (1st NC at Bethel Flag) prompted me to pull and share something "new" to me and perhaps with others(?). At least I tried to do a little searching here (and on the GA message board) and uncovered Greg's Sep 2010 exchanges with Andrew Johnson concerning "early war" VA flags. Here's the quotation from p. 230 of John W.H. Porter's 1892 "A Record of Events in Norfolk County, Virginia from April 19th, 1861, to May 10th 1862 ... ." (Author was a Portsmouth, VA, native who served in Co. K, 9th VA Inf and Milligan's Indedpendent Signal Corps."

He describes one of those "minor incidents" on 19 May 1861, involving the Blues (later Co. H, 16th VA Inf), the Juniors (later Co. H, 12th VA Inf), and Wood's Rifles (later Co. C, 6th VA Inf) all of Norfolk, and the Columbia [GA] Light Guards, manning a battery at Seawell's Point, north side of Norfolk, and firing on USS Monticello (Capt. Henry Eagle) and another US ship that date.. "Capt Colquit of the CLG commanded the Confederates and, for want of a CS flag, the battle was fought under the Georgia State flag, belonging to the Light Guard." (The action is briefly noted in the "Civil War Naval Chronology.")