Ben,

If the March 1862 presentation flag was a First National it could just as easily had 13 stars on it as well - these flags start showing up in December 1861 and into 1862.

But you bring up a point that I had forgotten - First National flags with the stars in a circle and a larger center star. These indeed exist. Moreover, an essay was written some time ago that I have on secession flags in Texas. The popular motif, according to the author, was a solid blue flag with a circle of stars (up to 15 for the slave states) and one of them was larger central star. He shows that these flags were also called "lone star flags" due to the larger star. That may also be what the Federal officer at Shiloh saw - a First National with a circle of stars with one larger star in the center. Who knows for sure until we find diaries, period newspaper letters etc. One Texas company flag used this as the vertical bar and the red, white and red of the First National flag. This is depicted in the book on Texas flags by Robert Maberry.

As the eye witness did not mention either the unit designation or the "Shiloh" battle honor that means a couple possible things - he did not care, or one or both of them were not on the flag. I lean towards the battle honor only being on the flag because we know for sure that they got it according to Rogers himself. He makes no mention of the unit designation being on the flag.

Greg Biggs