Confederate 3′ x 5′ Battle Flag Civil War History

It’s not the original Confederate flag 

The Confederate states went through three official flags during the four-year Civil War, but none of them was the battle flag that’s at the center of the current controversy. The first was the “Stars and Bars,” approved in 1861. Like its Union sibling, it had a dark blue field in the upper left corner — or the canton — and only three stripes, two red and one white. It had seven stars to represent the breakaway states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. And the white stars formed a circle, much like the original Betsy Ross American flag. 

he original Confederate flag’s similarity to the Union flag quickly confused soldiers, who often couldn’t tell the difference between the two on smoke-filled battlefields. Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard wanted something that looked distinctly different. So politician William Porcher Miles came up with the design we know today — the battle flag: a blue St. Andrew’s Cross with white stars on a red field. The Confederacy took the battle flag design and put it on the canton of its next flag, a white one. They called it the “Stainless Banner.” here was a problem. When the wind didn’t blow, only the white was clearly visible, making it look like a white flag of surrender. So, in the third incarnation of the Confederate flag, a red vertical stripe was added on the far end. This flag was called the “Blood-Stained Banner.”

Shortly after that the South surrendered.