8-star First National Confederate Flag. Original dark blue worsted wool bunting canton measuring 48" x 52", with eight (8) white single-appliqued cotton stars (applied to one side with blue fabric cut from behind and under-hemmed). Field with three (3) original horizontal stripes, red and white worsted wool bunting. With white canvas heading, approximately 1 3/4" wide. Overall 136" x 81".

Provenance: Joseph Henry Hayes, by descent to grandniece; Compton LaBauve, Jr. (Includes documentation from LaBauve, the Louisiana State Museum, a record of oral history, and H. Michael Madaus, Asst. Curator of History at the Milwaukee Public Museum.)

A remarkable First National Confederate flag with provenance connecting it to the Capture of New Orleans in April 1862 by Joseph Henry Hayes, a private in the U.S. Marine Corps. 

Joseph Henry Hayes (b. 1842) enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 2 July 1861 as a "landsman" and served on the U.S.S. Pensacola. The steamship departed Alexandria, Virginia on 11 January 1862 and joined Admiral Farragut's West Gulf Blockading Squadron. She was part of the fleet that dashed past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and engaged the batteries protecting New Orleans. On 26 April 1862, a landing party of marines raised the United States flag of the mint at New Orleans on 26 April 1862. The Pensacola remained in the area, guarding the lower Mississippi River for two years before returning to the New York Navy Yard in April 1864. Hayes later died on 13 May 1864 while on board the U.S.S. Monongahela. 

H. Michael Madaus, Asst. Curator of History at the Milwaukee Public Museum, speculated in 1984 that the flag was produced by "H. Cassidy of New Orleans, who was a prime supplier of flags both to the state of Louisiana and the Confederacy prior to the capture of New Orleans." Cassidy was a sailmaker who made flags for the Louisiana State Army, gunboats, forts, and the Confederate government in the greater New Orleans area. An invoice held in the National Archives dated 29 March 1862 records that he manufactured 123 flags for Bragg's Corps, most in nearly square shapes.

A fine example of the First National Confederate Flag with fascinating provenance. 

[Civil War, Union, Confederate] [Flags, Patriotic Textiles]