History and/or Meaning of the Confederate Flag?

Question

Yeah i just want to know what exactly the confederate stands and why the black community seem to get offended by it

Answer 1

I can only tell you my opinion, it signifies the courage and valour of the men that assaulted Cemetery Ridge (as an example). The KKK gave the flag a negative connotation that the black community is offended by.

Answer 2

I proudly wear and display the Confederate Flag all the time because I am very proud of my Southern Heritage. The Flag has nothing at all to do with slavery. You need to take a couple steps back and reread some history before you start bashing on symbols of my heritage. It sounds to me like you are the one that is racist, not me. The Civil War was not over slavery it was over states rights. There were slaves in Northern and Southern States. Slaves were not freed from Nothern States until after the Civil War. At the beginning of the war the biggest area that slaves were sold was in none other than Washington DC. So with your reasoning now you can go protest the American Flag too. And while you are protesting it why don't you take a look at what the American Flag did to the Native Americans. Being African American you also need to read up on all the blacks that fought for the Confederate Army.... free and slave alike wanted to fight because it was their home that was being invaded too. The Emancipation Proclamation was only a military tactic used by Lincoln to try and keep blacks out of the Confederate Army and hurt the Southern economy because at that point in time the North was losing the war. Again the Emancipation Proclamation did not free Northern Slaves. Lincoln had a radical plan for after the war but it was never attempted because of his assasination. He felt that blacks were an inferier race and had no right to be here in any way shape or form. He wanted to load them all up and ship them to Mexico or South America. Also you say why not wear your state flag instead of the Confederate Flag. Well that dont work either cause my state flag was the Georgia Flag and the NAACP had it changed because the think its racist. The NAACP like many of you are the racist ones. Just let Southerns be proud of where we are froma nd our heritage and leave us alone. Thats all we ask, just to be left alone. The whole reason we went to war is because the North wouldn't leave us alone and let us do our own thing and it still goes on to this day.

Answer 3

There were several Confederate flags but the most known is a 'St George' Cross with stars set diaganol against a red backdrop. Not only Blacks, but many others are offended by The Confederate Flag because The South rebelled against the Federal Union and waged war to assert their independence. The Confederate Flag is a flag of Rebellion suggesting pride in upholding the right to hold others in bondage/servitude.

Here is a blurb Wikipedia style--
"The flag that Miles had favored when he was chair of the Committee on the Flag and Seal eventually became the battle flag and, ultimately, the most popular flag of the Confederacy. Miles' design was, according to Coski, inspired by one of the many "secessionist flags" flown at the South Carolina secession convention of December, 1860. That flag was a blue St George's Cross (an upright or Latin cross) on a red field, with thirteen white stars (for the thirteen states) on the cross and, on the red field, palmetto and crescent symbols. Miles received a variety of feedback on this design, including a critique from Charles Moise, a self-described "Southerner of Jewish persuasion". Moise liked the design, but asked that "the symbol of a particular religion not be made the symbol of the nation." Taking this into account, Miles changed his flag, removing the palmetto and crescent, and substituting a St Andrew's Cross for the upright one. The number of stars was changed several times as well. He described these changes and his reasons for making them in early 1861. The diagonal cross was preferable, he wrote, because "it avoided the religious objection about the cross (from the Jews and many Protestant sects), because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright thus." He also argued that the diagonal cross was "more Heraldric [sic] than Ecclesiastical, it being the 'saltire' of Heraldry, and significant of strength and progress." (Coski, pg. 5)

Although Miles described his flag as a heraldic saltire, it has been described since its creation as a cross, specifically a Saint Andrew's Cross. According to Coski, the Saint Andrew's Cross had no special place in Southern iconography at the time, and if Miles had not been eager to conciliate the Southern Jews his flag would have used the traditional Latin, Saint George's Cross (Coski, pg. 6). Later, Beauregard favored Miles' design and the Saint Andrew's cross. A colonel named James B. Walton submitted a battle flag design essentially identical to Miles' except with an upright Saint George's cross, but Beauregard chose the diagonal cross design."


Peace...

(PS - - - if the die hard rebels out there don't give me at least eight negatives I will be sadly disappointed)

Answer 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_flag

See this source for full history.

The black community is generally offended by the confederate flag because it was the flag of those who previously enslaved their ancestors.

Answer 5

For most people, the image of the Confederate Flag conjures up the "blue cross with white stars on a red background" which is more properly known as the Confederate battle flag, but in fact, there were a number of Confederate Flags used during the war, and many regiments and companies had their own unique flags.

http://www.researchonline.net/gacw/conflag1.htm

Battle Flags of the St. Andrews Cross Pattern
One of the most prevailing myths in America today is that the Confederate Army fought under only one pattern of battle flag - called "The" battle flag. This flag, a red field with diagonally crossed blue bars and 13 white stars, has been hoisted upon America's imagination as the only pattern of flag that ever flew over Confederate soldiers while in combat.

A simple examination of surviving Confederate flags will prove that this is historically incorrect. Confederate units served under a myriad of battle flags, some of which do not resemble the more famous "battle flag", as well as all three Confederate national flags. But there was an attempt to create a single battle flag for all Confederate troops to follow.

Three men are behind the most famous of Confederate battle flags; William Porcher Miles, a congressman from South Carolina; Gen. Joseph E. Johnston; and Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard. The latter two men were the ones who perpetuated the design throughout areas of the South as they were transferred to those respective areas. It was indeed the intentions of these two generals to standardize the battle flags for Confederate troops. Upon reaching certain commands, however, they met with resistance from other Confederate officers that had already created, on their own, distinctive battle flags for their respective forces. These usually occurred on the corps level, but some divisions and brigades also chose battle flags to follow. As such, the attempts of Johnston and Beauregard were often rebuffed. It would not be until 1864 that the two generals would come closest to realizing their dreams of a single pattern battle flag - and even then they would not be 100 per cent successful!

But why create a special battle flag? What was the purpose behind these colors and what is a battle flag?

Battle flags are, basically, any flag that a combat unit chooses to follow into battle. It could be, and often was, the flag of the nation the troops defended. Sometimes, as in the case of the British Army, these were flags created for regiments that incorporated the national flag as well as distinctive regimental colors and symbols. The U.S. Army copied the British system somewhat, issuing national colors (which were the Stars and Stripes after 1834, and then for only the artillery; the infantry received them in 1841 and the cavalry temporarily in 1862, but not officially until 1895!) and special regimental colors to all regiments. The Confederate Army did things a little differently.

The first battle flags that Confederate units followed were locally made company level flags, often of unique design. As regiments were formed from these independent companies (10 companies to a regiment), the new command often had 10 flags available to use. This created an identification problem as other friendly units would not be aware of the flags a specific regiment would use - and in some cases a regiment used all ten flags in battle (for example - the 15th Mississippi Infantry at Mill Springs, where they lost 7 of their ten flags, 1 captured in combat and the others probably taken from their camps).

Some states issued flags to their units as battle flags. Some of these were officially adopted by legislative action while others were flags based on older militia colors. Only Virginia and North Carolina fully equipped their troops with state flags. Other states ceased doing so in the early phases of the war or did not even attempt to do so.

When the Confederate States of America formed a provisional government in February, 1861, one of the first items on the agenda was the creation of a new national flag. Submissions poured in from all over the South (as well as some from up North) for the new national standard Congressman William Porcher Miles, the chair of the Flags Committee, even submitted his own design for consideration. Based on the sovereignty flag of South Carolina that flew over that state's secession convention, his flag was a red, rectangular field with diagonally crossed blue bars edged in white with 7 stars on the bars (for the then number of seceded states). The proposal was rejected as the stars were asymmetrical, one congressman calling it "a pair of suspenders."

The winning design was made by Nicola Marschall of Alabama, and was consciously based on the flag of the United States. Called the "Stars and Bars", the Confederate First National flag featured red, white and red horizontal bars and a blue canton with the number of seceded states represented by white stars. Adopted by the Congress on March 4, 1861, the first example was hoisted over the capitol dome in Montgomery, Alabama.

Now that the Confederacy had a flag, many military units on both regimental and company levels, quickly adopted it for use as a battle flag. Using this pattern, the earliest battles of the war, like Rich Mountain, Bethel, Scary Creek, Phillipi and finally First Manassas would be fought. Confederate troops, in many cases, also still used state flags as well as their special company level colors. With the smoke of battle often obscuring the field this made identification between friend and foe very difficult. In some cases the Stars and Bars so resembled the U.S. flag that troops fired on friendly units killing and wounding fellow soldiers.

As such, Confederate army and corps level officers all over the South began thinking about creating distinctive battle flags that were completely different from those of the Union Army, which would help make unit identification a lot easier. The first of these - and the most famous - was created in September, 1861 in Virginia.

Gathering at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac (later renamed the Army of Northern Virginia) were generals Joseph Johnston, Pierre Beauregard, Gustavus Smith and Congressman William Miles, then an aide on Beauregard's staff. The conversations turned around the idea of creating a special "battle flag", to be used, in the words of Gen. Beauregard, "only in battle" for their army. Miles offered the design with the St. Andrews cross he had submitted for consideration as a national flag. The competition was a design from Louisiana with a St. George's cross (horizontal/vertical). With the number of states that had seceded now reaching eleven (and with Confederate recognition of Missouri as well), 12 stars were now available for use on a flag. Thus, it looked a lot better than it had in February when only seven stars were added. Miles design was adopted by the council. One source states that Gen Beauregard at first suggested the colors be a blue field with a red cross, but Miles countered that this was contrary to the laws of heraldry.

At a meeting in late August or early September, 1861, army quartermaster William L. Cabell found himself in Gen. Beaurgard's office along with Gen. Johnston discussing the flag. According to his account in the Southern Historical Society Papers, Cabell states that, "Gen. Johnston's flag was in the shape of an ellipse...Gen. Beauregard's was rectangular." His account is geometrically flawed and he probably meant that the flags were rectangular and square respectively. Johnston's letter to Beauregard in 1872 states, "All of them were oblong. I selected the one you offered but changed the shape to square...," and in his own narrative of 1874, "I modified it only by making the shape square instead of oblong..." Gen. Johnston's alteration in the shape probably came at Cabell's behest since making it in a square would save scarce silk as well as ease manufacture. Beauregard suggested that a color exterior border be added for decorative reasons, but this also served to thicken the outer edges of the flags and prevent fraying. The flag was supposed to come in three sizes - 48 inches square for infantry units, 36 inches square for artillery units and 30 inches square for cavalry - but as the war progressed this was not always followed. In fact no artillery sized silk flags have been discovered, so it seems the plan may not have been followed when it came to making the flags.

The design having been approved, three prototype flags were made by Constance, Hetty and Jennie Cary, ladies of high society in Richmond. These were made from red silk for the fields and blue silk for the crosses. Constance, writing after the war, stated that finding suitable material was difficult and that a lining had to be sewn to one of the flags for strength. The story of using their dresses is just a myth. The exterior borders were sewn on fringe and the stars were painted on by a male friend. The flags were then presented to Generals Earl Van Dorn, Joseph Johnston and Pierre Beauregard respectively beginning in October and ending in December when Beauregard received his banner.

The generals ordered 120 silk battle flags for issue to the army. Quartermaster Colin M. Selph bought the entire silk supply of Richmond for making the flags (and the only red-like colors available in bulk were either pink or rose, hence these flags being of lighter shades). The flag making was contracted to some Richmond sewing circles. In lieu of gold fringe a silk yellow border was used instead as well as a blue hoist sleeve for the flag pole.

Starting in late November, 1861, the new battle flags were then presented to the Confederate units at Centreville and into December for other units in nearby parts of Northern Virginia. The flags were presented to each regiment by Gens. Beauregard and Johnston, as well as other army officers, in elaborate parade ground affairs. The Richmond Whig newspaper article of December 2, 1861, tells of the presentation at Centreville on November 28:
"The exercises were opened by Adjutant General Jordan, who, in a brief but eloquent address, charged the men to preserve from dishonor the flags committed to their keeping. The officers then dismounted and the colonels of the different regiments coming forward to the center, Gen. Beauregard, in a few remarks, presented each with a banner, and was eloquently responded to. The regiments then came to 'present', and received their flags with deafening cheers."
So was issued the first of the battle flags for what would become the famous Army of Northern Virginia. Despite the creation of this (and other) battle flags, the First National flag would not fall from use in battle. Examples of it being used for the rest of the war by Confederate units, including Lee's army, are numerous.

By the Spring of 1862, battle damage and weather exposure had worn out many of the silk battle flags received in late 1861. With silk now becoming very hard for the blockaded Confederacy to supply in bulk, another flag making material was sought. One of the primary concerns was for a cloth of greater durability. As such, a dress material of a tightly woven cotton/wool mix was used for the next issue of ANV style battle flags.

This new issue was very limited, being received by only three brigades; those of Gens. Arnold Elzey, George Steuart and John Bell Hood. Still having only 12 stars on the cross (despite Confederate recognition in December, 1861 of Kentucky), these flags were crudely made and lacked the edging along the sides of the cross. The dyes used were so poor that the blue cross soon faded to almost tan. In size, these were the smallest of the ANV flags issued, only averaging 42 inches square. Provenance for the flag of the 31st Virginia Infantry, of this pattern (United Daughters of the Confederacy Headquarters, Richmond, Virginia), states that that flag was made by a group of patriotic ladies using materials supplied by the army quartermasters. This was probably the case for the others of this issue.

These limited replacement flags were first issued starting in April, 1862 and continuing into May. Lieutenant James Lemon, of the 18th Georgia Infantry (who received their flag on or about May 7th) wrote upon his unit receiving their cotton flag, "It is a beautiful crimson flag with blue bars and 12 stars."

While the cotton replacement flags were being issued, the first of the governmental depot issues was taking shape. The Richmond Clothing Depot had been established in late 1861 for the manufacture of uniforms, shoes, accouterments and flags for the troops of the now named Army of Northern Virginia (as well as the Department of North Carolina later on). By May, 1862 the depot was making flags from wool bunting captured initially from the former Federal navy yard near Norfolk, Virginia, and supplemented for the rest of the war by supplies brought through the blockade from Great Britain, where the bunting was made. A more durable material, this was the cloth used for the rest of the war to make flags for the ANV.

Flags historian Howard Madaus has determined that there would be seven wool bunting issues during the course of the war. The first of these were manufactured by the depot in May, 1862, according to depot records in the National Archives. These flags featured 13 stars for the first time and substituted orange wool for the borders. The blue crosses were 8 inches wide and featured white cotton stars that were only 3 inches across. These were set on red fields that were 48 inches square for infantry flags. The first examples of these new battle flags were issued in June to troops of Gen. James Longstreet's Right Wing.

In June, the Richmond Depot made another wool issue for the army. Running short of blue bunting, the width of the cross was narrowed to only 5 inches and the white stars were enlarged to 3 1/2 inches. These were still bordered in orange wool. Flags of this pattern were first issued to some units of Gen. John Magruder's Army of the Peninsula (which had merged into the ANV and had created their own distinctive battle flag in April, 1862), as well as new regiments of Longstreet's Wing.

Beginning in July, 1862, the Richmond Depot started making the largest of the ANV flag issues in terms of number of flags made. The orange bunting for the borders having run out, the borders for the remaining wool bunting flags would now be white. This version of the flag was the same in terms of dimensions as the previous Second Bunting. Though a newer pattern, the issuance of flags to the army often crossed over in terms of which version actually was sent to the field, since both flags were made so close together. The depot stockpiled flags, as they did uniforms and other supplies, and as orders for flags came in whatever was first in the pile was used to fill the requisition.

Entire brigades would receive these new flags in the Fall of 1862, and starting in 1863, entire divisions at a time would get them to replace older or worn out and captured colors. The production of this version would continue through May, 1864, when it was replaced by the Fourth Bunting flags.

The Fourth Bunting flags jumped to 51 inches overall with 7 inch wide crosses and 5 inch wide stars. A few months later the flags dropped back to their 48 inches overall size and the cross was again reduced to 5 inches in width. The stars, however, would be made in a new 4 1/2 inch size for the remainder of the war. The later bunting issues also experimented with the spacing of the stars on the cross. The earlier bunting issues spaced the stars every 6 inches. The Fourth Bunting placed the stars at 8 inch spacing, the Fifth Bunting at every 9 inches, the Sixth Bunting at every 8 inches and the last issue, the Seventh Bunting dropped the stars to every 7 inches. The Fourth Bunting flags were first issued in June, 1864, the Fifth Bunting flags in October/November, 1864, the Sixth Bunting flags over the winter of 1864/1865, and the Seventh Bunting flags in March, 1865.

The Richmond Depot and Flag Making.

Richmond Depot production figures show about 208 wool bunting flags of the first three types being made from May to August, 1862, but starting in October the number manufactured jumps dramatically. Records for October, 4th show the manufacture of 118 flags! November 11th's figures show a further 165 flags. While some of these might be headquarters flags or fort flags, the numbers in any case show an elaborate manufacturing system that was quite efficient. The design of the Richmond Depot made ANV flags lent itself to that rapid production pace.

Made of three panels of red bunting (usually two of 48 inches by 18 inches and one 48 inches by 12 inches) for the field, these were sewn together in an overlap fashion. The cross, also made from three pieces of blue wool sewn in an overlap fashion, was then laid on the field. The field was then cut away to fit the completed cross and the cross sewn to the field. The white polished cotton edging along the sides of the cross were then laid over the seams of the cross and field using one long piece folded in the apex of the angle and sewn down. Besides providing decoration, this reinforced the flags at their seams.

The orange or white exterior borders were them sewn down in an overlap fashion. The pieces were 48 inches long and 4 inches wide, then folded in half over the outer edge with 2 inches per side and sewn down typically with the top edge first. The fly edge was then sewn down followed by the bottom edge. Last to be sewn to the flag was the cotton canvas hoist edge with the three whipped eyelets for attachment to the pole.

No other Confederate flag pattern was designed so efficiently for mass production. Other flags inspired by the ANV battle flag, manufactured by other depots or manufacturers, were made differently and would create some supply problems for the army.

The Richmond Depot used a very efficient and skilled labor force to manufacture flags, uniforms and other implements for the troops. Writing the Richmond Whig on November, 18, 1862, depot quartermaster W.G. Ferguson stated,

more on this at this website
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-csah.html#battle