Regardless, actual combat units carried their regimental flags and state flags. Army and Confederate flags were only used by headquarters. Corps commanders had their own flags, and used them instead of the Army flags.
Flags really were battle signals, and no one was going waste more than two people to carry flags, and some only used their regimental flag.
]]>In any event, needless to say, this flag never flew on any flagstaff anywhere — it was hand-carried into battle, not raised over anybody’s capitol. It’s just hilarious to me that the Confederate government was so lame they couldn’t even adopt a clearly popular flag as their national flag out of outrage that it had been improvised by a general on the field, not by them.
]]>I don’t know why the Confederate Congress never just gave up and adopted the AoNV battle flag as the “official” flag of the Confederacy. Every flag design they created as their “official” flag was a disaster. The original Stars’n’Bars was too close to the US flag and too easy to confuse when flown by units or ships, the second “Stainless Banner” was ridiculously close to being a surrender flag. And the final Confederate flag was just a mess, most of the few that were made were done by taking existing flags with a square jack and adding a red stripe to them, meaning that virtually nobody ever flew the “official” flag with the jack in the correct rectangular (not square) shape.
Meanwhile, everybody loved that Army of Northern Virginia design… except their Congress, and probably Jefferson Davis, Jefferson Davis being such a cranky contrary person he hated everything that anybody else loved.
The fact that the KKK adopted a variant on the Army of Northern Virginia design as their “official” flag after the war, and made it known as the “Confederate flag” even though it wasn’t, is just a final sad commentary for how lame the “official” Confederate flags really were….
]]>Florida initially used the naval ensign of the Republic of Texas for Confederate troops, but changed later.
The flags for the Army of Northern Virginia, and the Army of Tennessee were only used to mark the headquarters. Individual regiments had their own distinct flags, and carried their state flags. Individuals corps had their own separate flags that were flown at the corps headquarters. The only common flag that the troops of any state in the Confederacy would have had would have been their individual state flag for that period.
]]>Interestingly, South Carolina is flying the historically correct square white-fringed Army of Virginia battle flag over their Confederate Soldier’s Memorial on the capitol grounds, not the rectangular KKK flag. I have to give them props for at least flying the correct flag at the correct place to fly that flag, though they’ve only been doing so since 2000, when they took down the incorrect KKK flag that was flown immediately below the US flag on their main flagpole and instead erected this historically correct flag on a small pole attached to the actual memorial.
Still, I wonder. How many states are flying Nazi flags? Zero. Why not? a) Because we fought the Nazis in a war and beat their butts, and b) because it would be very offensive to our Jewish population, which would correctly point out that it is the flag of a nation which considered them subhuman and enslaved them and, if they became non-productive or dared speak out about how they were being treated, killed them. Sort of like the same relationship blacks have to any Confederate flag. Hmm….
And Steve, it’s one letter difference, so a penguin can be easily mistaken on it 🙂
]]>Hmm…
Come and listen to my story ’bout a man named Jeb,
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family feb…
Close but no cigar, ‘Tux! 🙂
Jeb is just another ignorant son-of-a-Bush; we don’t need another of those for prez.
]]>Uncle Billy was entirely too kind to Charleston on his last visit.
]]>Somebody needs to dig up William Tecumseh Sherman’s mouldy corpse and tell him that the Confederate flag is flying over the South Carolina capital again. ‘Cause we know what he did the first time. He burned that sh*t down, big-time.
– Badtux the Southern Penguin
(Who knows *all* the dog whistles).
South Carolina was the instigator of the Civil War. It was started in the city of Charleston; they still fly the flag of one of the Confederate armies; they name their streets after Confederate officials and officers. They promote racism, just like they always have, but call it “heritage, not hate’.
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