Hello,

The Second National flags for the several Mississippi units do not show up prior to December 1863. The unit history of the 3rd Mississippi talks of their flag being done at this time by a soldier in the ranks for whom the materials were purchased. Based on the similarities of the other surviving flags it is my opinion that the rest of these flags were also made by troops with sewing skills (lots of men had them back then).

Based on who the 44th Mississippi was with at Chickamauga it may have been the second version of the Polk Corps flag. Prior to this they probably had a Bragg pattern flag that was issued to units of Polk's Corps after Shiloh and then possibly changed it in August for the second version of the Polk Corps flag that came back into use at that time. The 10th Mississippi, which was affiliated with the 44th at times, had a Polk Corps flag at Chickamauga which is held by the Mississippi State Museum.

In early 1864, these flags were replaced with the Augusta Depot Southern Cross flags for the rest of the war.

Chickamauga featured the biggest hodge-podge of CS flags on any Civil War battlefield of the war. Nine to ten patterns and sub-patterns at least on that field.

Greg Biggs