R.D. posts:

>>>>>Oh I forgot they could bring it to the Knoxville Operations, but not Fishing Creek or Perryville. >>>>

No Hardee flags were at Fishing Creek/Mill Springs. All of the flags there were First Nationals, many of which were captured (mostly from the camp sites - company flags). This was a different army from that based in Bowling Green where the Hardee flags were issued. The remnants of the army from Mill Springs devolved into Breckinrige's Reserve Corps for Shiloh and retained First Nationals there. The first known combat use of Hardee flags which were the early models designed by Buckner at Bowling Green was at Fort Donelson.

At Perryville you would have the August 1862 Polk flags, whatever Hardee flags were at hand (2-3 versions by then) and a smattering of Bragg and First Nationals. Stones River offers these flags plus Army of Kentucky patterns and some others (most of the CS flags there were blue) but the real CS flags mix was at Chickamauga where the Second and Third Bunting ANV flags of Longstreet's Corps were added to the various Western flags in use.

While Beauregard was a stickler for flags patterns Braxton Bragg was not and when he took over the Army of the Mississippi it basically exploded. By 1864 the Army of Tennessee had carried nine flag patterns and sub-patterns into battle.

This, again, comes down to units doing research and asking questions.

Greg Biggs