Johnny,

The debate on square and rectangular flags in the South began in the late 19th Century with ANV veterans writing in to the Confederate Veteran and complaining about rectangular Southern Cross flags. The gist of this was the flags in America were typically rectangular so flag makers were only going with what flags were usually made like.

In the early 1900s, the UCV chaired Dr. Samuel Lewis of Washington, DC to research and write what would hopefully be a book on CS flags to solve the problem. He did a pretty good job. His papers, some 27 boxes of them, can be found at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. I went through those about 18 years ago and copied quite a bit for my files.

He reached out to Western Confederate veterans and got a good bit of information not only about their battle flags, but also their HQ flags, which was sent in by a Georgia veteran. Only the AOT had these special HQ flags during the war and for all three corps. Lewis wrote a manuscript and the book was to be illustrated but the UCV had money problems and could not afford to publish the book as Lewis envisioned it. He went round and round with UCV Adjutant William Mickle and was finally forced to write a smaller book that covered on the three national flags, the naval jack (second one only - not the first), a naval pennant and the square ANV flag (listed only as "the battle flag") and that was sold at the Louisville UCV reunion in 1907. This booklet is the source of much of the problem and flag mythology that permeates to today with CS flags. The problem was above Lewis' head. And once again the Western CS veterans got screwed with their flags not being covered (although they were in the manuscript).

The book, according to the correspondence, sold poorly (it was 25 cents) and the UCV took a bath on it having to give away many copies as the UCV members were not buying it. Even worse was the members of the new Sons of Confederate Veterans it seems. I have a letter from either Mickle or Lewis that complained about the SCV as only being interested in partying.

To those that give you crap about saltier flags (as I call them or Southern Cross flags) and the KKK, they can do their own research and check out the newsreels of the 1930s. I have seen several of them and not one CS flag could be found at the march on DC. The KKK stole the flag basically to try and appeal to new members as their membership was dropping drastically after World War 2. The SCV failed to stop them from taking this flag for their own, hence the problem.

John Coski of the MOC has written the best book so far on the modern uses of the Southern Cross flag and it was based on an exhibit they did many years ago that I saw that was very well done. I would commend that book to you for much of the history of the flag in the 20th Century. I contributed research for the 1861 creation part of the book.

Greg Biggs