"What flags did Confederate Regt.'s carry?" Topic

Did they carry both a state and national flag?

Just a state flag?

Sometimes one or the other? And if so, why?

Thanks.

If you mean the 3rd Confederate and 5th Confederate of Bragg's army, they carried Hardee pattern flags (blue, white border, white circle).

Now that I think of your question a bit more, if you mean Confederate units in general there are books written on the subject. But most western units carried only a regimental, and the Army of Northern Virginia banned state flags in early 1863 with the exception of the Texas brigade. Most carried only the battle flag.

In most cases Confederate regts. carried one battle flag.

In the ANV (Army Northern Virginia) this would be the now recognized Confederate Battle Flag of the St. Andrews cross style.

In the Army of Tennessee, early war saw regts. carried a "Corp" flag. They were the Hardee, Van Dorn and Polk types. In early 1864 the Army of Tennessee switched to the above listed battle flag, but it was bigger than the ones carrried by the ANV. Except the Division of Pat Cleborne who maintained carring their Hardee flags.

Now, that being said, some regts. also carried a state flag with the battle flag (Texas at Sharpsburg) or in the early part of the war only a state flag or the First National Confederate Flag (the true Stars n' Bars).

So, really anything that you like is going to be good to go.

Myself, I painted up 5 Confederate brigades based around 1863 OB's. In Cleborne's division most regt. have the single Hardee flag, but I have at least one regt in each brigade also carry a state flag.

In the other two brigades I have the regts. carry the 1st National Flag and again at least one regt.

There are some very good Ospry books on Confederate flags that will give you some guidance on the different types of battle flags.

Ok, sorry for not being more specific.

I'm interested in the flags that would have been carried by the Alabama Regiments in Wilcox's brigade at the Battle of Salem Church, May, 1863.

Thanks.

The website of the Alabama Civil War Period Flag Collection contains photographs of the actual battle flags of four of the five infantry regiments in Wilcox's brigade; the 8th, 10th, 11th, and 14th Alabama infantry regiments. Since they are all the standard 4' by 4' white bordered ANV battle flag, it would be a safe bet that the missing battle flag of the 9th Alabama infantry regiment would have been the same style flag.

The website of the Alabama Civil War Period Flag Collection

That's a great website. Thanks for alerting me to its existence.

You know what's funny. The real life flags don't seem to look anywhere near as spiffy as the wargames flags done by GMB, Flag Dude, etc. :)

That's 'cause real life flags weren't done by artists like the Flag Dude and weren't taken care of by OCD mini-modellers – real life flags got dropped and shot at!

Here are the links to the Alabama Archives flag collection about which mosby65 referred:

link
link

Jim

In his article "Unit Colors of the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg", Journal of the Confederate Historical Society, Summer 1988, pp. 42-46, Howie Madaus states "Wilcox's Alabama Brigade (8, 9, 10, 11, 14) evidently carried the unmarked third pattern battle flags that had replaced those lost on the Peninsula."

Note that in the Alabama Archives site the flag of the 8th Alabama is a first pattern flag, the 10th Alabama is a second pattern flag and the 14th Alabama flag is the seventh pattern. Only the flag of the 11th Alabama is a third pattern flag. Thus, according to Madaus, all the flags carried by Wilcox's brigade would have been identical to that of the 11th Alabama.