The Civil War Flags Message Board

About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!

Hello,

The good reverend is totally wrong about the origins of the Southern Cross flag. The thesis that the flag was inspired by that of Scotland has been completely disproven and can be easily disproven by reading the words of the man that designed that flag - William Porcher Miles - as well as examining the scrapbook of the Confederate Committee on Flag & Seal of the Confederate Congress which rests in the National Archives.

A few things:

Over 200 flag designs were sent in to the flag committee, which Miles chaired. In have been through this book and the copy of the book done after the war by Philip Thian, which can be found at the Library of Congress and Duke University. Only two copies of this book with the illustrations, exist.

If the flag of Scotland, and so many Southerners were of Scottish descent, as is often claimed (incorrectly by the way according to the several genealogists that I know), then why, out of the over 200 flag submissions, only SIX - SIX - bear the St. Andrews cross? There are much more than bear the cross of St. George, which was more popular due to America's overwhelmingly ENGLISH heritage. The vast majority of the designs were patterned after the US Stars and Stripes by the way.

Several of the submissions with the English crosses came from South Carolina, Miles' home state. Miles got letters from two religious groups - the influential Jewish community of Charleston, and some fundamentalist Protestant groups. Both complained that the English cross was either, a) a Christian symbol they could not support (from the Jews) or, B) a misuse of the Christian cross (from the protestants). Their letters can be found in the scrapbook in the National Archives as well as being cited in Robert Bonner's excellent book "Colors and Blood," which was about the creation of the early CS flags in 1861.

Miles, an expert on heraldry, took the cross of St. George and tilted it on an angle. He did this and submitted it to his own committee. Bearing only seven stars it did not look symmetrical and was derisively called, "a pair of blue suspenders," by one member of the CS Congress. Miles wrote that his flag satisfied the religious objections to the English cross and that his tilted cross design had, "nothing ecclesiastical about it." This means that it has nothing to do with Christianity at all. Miles never, ever, stated as such and, as I have mentioned, stated the opposite - that religion had nothing to do with it. He designed the flag - he should know what the thought process behind it was.

He also called it "the cross of heraldry." I have all of Miles documents pertaining to the creation of this flag in my files. Scotland had zero to do with it: Miles was of French Hugenot descent and an Episcopalian (his brother was SC's state bishop). "X" shaped heraldry can be found across Europe in the days when such devices were created to signify dukedoms, principalities and early nations (the concept of which died when the western Roman Empire fell). It even dates back a couple thousand years to Greece.

WIlliam Porcher Miles is the key to this flag's design and creation. What he wrote and said about the flag is the only source worth noting in terms of its creation and inspiration. He submitted it to Beauregard for use in the Army of Northern Virginia and that army adopted it. The Western CS armies continued to use other patterns, some using Southern Cross flags while others rejected it and used something else entirely. In actuality the Confederate Army used upwards of 20 patterns and subpatterns of battle flags, many of which did not look like the Southern Cross, through the war. Those flags were just as sacred to them as the ANV flags were to that army's veterans.

I appreciate the good Reverend's passion but he is dead wrong about this flag. It is more than apparent that he has not seen the flag committee scrapbook nor dug into Miles' papers at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill.

Greg Biggs

Messages In This Thread

The Truth About The Confederate Battle Flag
About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: Englishmen versus Scotsmen in the armies
Re: Englishmen versus Scotsmen in the armies
Scotts/Irish Heritage of the South
Re: Scotts/Irish Heritage of the South
Re: Foreign-born southerners at Gettysburg
Re: Foreign-born southerners at Gettysburg
Re: Foreign-born southerners at Gettysburg
Re: Foreign-born southerners at Gettysburg
Re: Foreign-born southerners at Gettysburg
Re: Englishmen versus Scotsmen in the armies
Re: Englishmen versus Scotsmen in the armies
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!
Re: About The Confederate Battle Flag - Nope!