Johnny,

You misread what I have said. I really do not care for the polemic about what the flag means today - what I do care about is its accurate history and the good reverend is very much off base with that.

Let me try this again.

William Porcher Miles is the entire key to this flag and its creation. Beauregard and Johnston merely agreed with the pattern in September 1861 when they discussed the need for what they called a "war flag."

Miles chaired the Committee on Flag & Seal of the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama. As such he was responsible, along with its other members, for choosing a flag for the new Confederate nation. The goal was to have such a flag flying by March 4, 1861, which was when Lincoln was inaugurated as president of the US. The flag committee saved all of the letters and drawings and even small flag models that were received and this book, which the reverend did not consult (neither have many others by the way), is in the National Archives today. I have not only seen every page of this book I have also seen one of the two existing copies written after the war by Philip Thian that have water color drawings of every flag submission.

The flags as submitted broke down into four basic categories. First, and the overwhelming number of submissions, were those that resembled in some way the Stars and Stripes. Second came those that were of what Miles called, "fantastical" in design which were rejected as they would be difficult to make. Third came flags with the Cross of St. George on them, reflecting the South's majority English heritage. Several of these designs came from South Carolina itself. Last, and indeed least, came only six designs with a Southern cross on them, noted in heraldic terms as a "saltier." Miles always called these flags "saltiers" and did not use the term St. Andrews Cross. If the South had been so Scottish in heritage one would think that there were be far more than just six such designs submitted to the committee. The upper crust Southerners were Episcopalian and many of the church diocese back then used the St. George's cross as their symbol. It remains part of the church's heraldry today reflecting its heritage with the English Anglican Church.

Miles received complaints from the influential Charleston Jewish community via a letter written by Charles Moise which can be found in the scrapbook at the NA as well as being cited in Robert Bonner's excellent book "Colors And Blood," about the creation of these flags. The Jews felt that the flag was too Christian and they could not support it. Also complaining were fundamentalist Protestant sects who felt that the flag with the St. George's cross was a misuse of the cross of their church (despite that being the Latin Cross) or even a "Catholic flag." The Latin cross turned up on CS battle flags in the Trans-Mississippi, mainly for two divisions of the Vicksburg garrison. One division bore a blue flag with red border and a white Latin Cross while the other had a red flag, yellow border and white Latin cross. I have a period letter from an Arkansas soldier that had one of these flags drawn on it for his wife and his comment was that he did not like it because it was a "Catholic flag."

Miles had been a champion of the flags with the St. George's Cross on them (as was Christopher Memminger, also of SC and future Confederate Secretary of the Treasury), but when he got these complaints, for the design that he submitted to the committee, he just took the cross of St. George and tilted in on an angle, creating what he called, "the saltier of Heraldry." Miles was an expert in Heraldry and fully knew what this cross was. As I said, it was also a Greek symbol dating back over 2000 years before this time. Miles also clearly stated that the flag design had "nothing ecclesiastical about it." That means that the saltier flag had no basis in any religion whatsoever including Christianity; he was simply using a well known heraldic device, one that would satisfy any religious objections. The statements that the Southern Cross flag was inspired by Christian design is pure mythology and did not begin until the early 20th Century.

Having only seven seceded states at the time, Miles' flag design did not look right bearing only seven stars on the diagonal blue bars. One member of the Congress called it, derisively I might add, a "pair of blue suspenders." This is hardly something that would be said by someone allegedly filled with Scottish blood. Scotland has nothing to do with Miles' design either; by his own words of the time he was using heraldry as his basis.

Jump ahead to September 1861, and Miles is now on the staff of Beauregard. Due to the similarity of the First National (created by the flag committee by the way, not by Orren Smith of NC or Nicola Marschall of Alabama, neither of whose names show up in the flag scrapbook - Miles' own account of March 4, 1861 clearly states that none of the flag submissions were suitable and that the flag was created by the committee - and this was reported in the Southern press of the time. Miles was not a fan of this flag by the way), and the Stars and Stripes in battle, Miles, Beauregard, Joe Johnston and some others met in Fairfax, VA to work on making a "war flag." Miles reported that he could not get the Congress to change the national flag so they had to create something on their own.

Col. Walton, of the New Orleans Washington Artillery Battalion, sent a design from Edward Hancock of New Orleans that was a red flag with a blue Cross of St. George bearing white stars. In the upper left corner, the state coat of arms for the respective unit's state would be applied. Miles informed the officers of the problems of February 1861 that flags with this cross would entail. He then offered his own saltier design which, there now being 12 states in the CSA, looked much better. Beauregard and Johnston liked the flag and so the first Southern Cross flags were born.

The Cary girls made three HQ flags for Beauregard, Johnston and Earl Van Dorn between then and December 1861. They also made a couple other flags of this design, still bearing only 12 stars. Once the design was approved by the generals (the CS War Department had nothing at all to do with it - another myth), three ladies sewing circles in Richmond set about making 120 of these flags for the Confederate Army of the Potomac, as it was called then. The army quartermaster, William Cabell, tasked Capt. Colin M. Selph with buying the silk for these flags. He did so through the dry goods stores of Richmond and pretty much bought the bulk silk supply of the city. Red silk was in narrow bolts then and was used for trim colors in ladies dresses so Selph was forced to buy "rich pink silk," as one of the invoices for it states as well as other soft red colors. Yellow and white silk plus blue silk was also bought. I have his invoices for these purchases which can also be found in the National Archives. Watkins & Ficklin were one of the dry goods stores that sold the bulk silk.

Three styles of silk Southern Cross flags were made, probably one by each sewing group. One type has fringed borders while others have yellow or white silk borders. Two types have white silk stars while one type has gold painted stars. You can read more about this on the Flags of the Confederacy web site - www.confederate-flags.org.

The flags were first presented on November 28, 1861 to the units then stationed at Centreville, VA. The presentations carried on through December 9, 1861. I have period newspaper accounts of all of the presentations and to what divisions, etc.

What would become known as the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia would come in nine versions through the war: silk, wool/cotton issues (also 12 stars only - May 1862); First wool bunting (13 stars, orange borders, June 1862); Second wool bunting (13 stars, orange borders, June-July 1862); Third Wool Bunting (August 1862-May 1864, 13 stars, white borders) and three more after that until March 1865.

The Southern Cross flags for the Western Confederates would not arrive until March/April, 1862 just before the Battle of Shiloh. Only one corps there would carry them, Bragg's. These flags were made in New Orleans by a contractor and also bore only 12 stars, these having six points instead of the typical five. The other three corps bore other battle flags at Shiloh including the Polk Corps flags which were blue/green silk bearing a red Cross of St. George and 13 white stars. Polk was the Episcopal Bishop of the Southwest and in January 1862, created these flags for his Grand Division which were made in Memphis. After Shiloh, his corps would also adopt the New Orleans made 12 star Southern Cross flags but then revert back to the St. George's Cross flags in August 1862. From 1862 and well into 1863, most of the battle flags for the Army of Tennessee were - blue! These would include the Polk flags, Hardee Corps flags, Breckinridge pattern flags and the Army of KY flags, absorbed into the Army of Tennessee after the KY Campaign of 1862. There were still some units using the Bragg Corps Southern Cross flags at the time.

It would not be until late 1863 that Southern Cross flags would come into large scale use again in a Western CS army when the 12 star flags from the Mobile Depot, made by a contractor, would start showing up. Johnston was the prime mover for these flags as he was commanding the department where they were introduced. In early 1864, Johnston now commanded the Army of Tennessee and introduced the rectangular 13 star Southern Cross flags for the battles of that year. Still, one of his divisions refused to carry those flags - Cleburne's. They retained and received new flags of the Hardee pattern - blue with white centers often bearing the unit names.

That's it in a nutshell without going too deeply which can be found on the web site above in great detail with illustrations of the flag types. There really is no such thing as "the Confederate battle flag," because actually, Confederate units used upwards of 20 patterns and sub-patterns, most of which did not resemble the Southern Cross. If you read the post-war veterans publications, the Western Confederates were quite upset that there was little talk of their battle flags as the focus was always on the flags of the Army of Northern Virginia. This was the cause of the 1907 UCV booklet that attempted to fix the problem and, due to lack of funds, utterly failed. I own one of these in my large flags library.

Mythology, once rooted, is often hard to change. But if the good reverend had gotten into Miles' papers, period newspapers and the flag scrapbook at the NA, he would have found that much of his thesis is simply historically incorrect. Once upon a time I believed what the reverend stated, as have so many others, but as I got more into serious flag research visiting may repositories across the country over the last 25 or so years, I found that the story did not hold up at all and, in fact, was simply wrong. I also learned what really happened - and I have stated that above.

Hope this helps.

Greg Biggs