CONFEDERATE TWELVE-STAR SOUTHERN CROSS BATTLE FLAG, LIKELY MADE IN OR NEAR MOBILE, ALABAMA, CIRCA 1863–1864

Mobile [Alabama] Depot. Circa 1863-64. Rectangular battle flag of red and blue wool bunting with twelve white cotton stars, approximately 28 1/4 by 40 1/2 in., the blue St. Andrew’s cross edged with narrow white fimbriation and enclosed within a broad white border that measures ~four inches on three sides and is folded at the hoist to form a sleeve, giving the flag a construction distinct from standard Belknap or Cameron associated Mobile Depot examples. The flag is made of wool bunting throughout the red field, blue cross, and white exterior borders, with a 3 1/4-inch-wide blue saltire edged in narrow white wool fimbriation. Its white cotton stars, each about 2 3/4 inches across and spaced roughly four inches apart, are sewn to both sides of the cross rather than cut through in the more typical Mobile Depot manner. The broad white border measures about four inches on three sides and is folded at the hoist to form a sleeve, giving the flag a construction distinct from standard Belknap- or Cameron-associated Mobile Depot examples.

Accompanied by provenance and reports from flag experts Howard Madaus, Fonda Thomsen, and Greg Biggs, who detail the flag’s construction, provenance, and authenticity.

A rare and visually impressive Confederate field flag, this banner belongs to a very small and elusive group of twelve-star Southern Cross flags associated with Mobile and the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana. Its compact scale suggests use by a mounted or artillery command. The flag was examined by flag expert Howard M. Madaus, who noted its close affinity to the non-regulation flag of Lumsden’s Alabama Battery and suggested a Mobile-area artillery association. Gregory G. Biggs later advanced the broader view that it was most likely made in Mobile by a craftsman working within, but not strictly bound by, the conventions of depot production. In that sense, it survives as a vernacular example, embodying the improvisation and local manufacture that characterized Confederate supply in the Western Theater during the later years of the war.

The flag’s importance begins with its place in the history of Confederate battle flag development. The first national flag of the Confederacy, the so-called “Stars and Bars,” adopted in March 1861, quickly proved unsatisfactory in battle, where its resemblance to the United States flag could cause dangerous confusion amid smoke and distance. In response, Confederate commanders, particularly P. G. T. Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston, championed the adoption of a more distinctive emblem for field use: the Southern Cross battle flag. The earliest versions, associated with the Army of the Potomac and later the Army of Northern Virginia, typically bore twelve stars after the Confederacy’s recognition of Missouri, and were often made in silk in late 1861 before later standardized wool-bunting forms emerged.

Yet the story of Confederate battle flags in the Western Theater followed a more varied and improvised course. Western armies and departments continued to use a wide range of local and regional patterns, from Polk’s blue flags with red St. George’s cross, to Bragg’s distinctive flags made in New Orleans, to later depot-produced variants adapted for service in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and beyond. Especially significant among these later Western issues were the rectangular Southern Cross flags produced in and around Mobile after the fall of Vicksburg, when Joseph E. Johnston sought to spread a more uniform battle flag system across his command in the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana.

These Mobile-related battle flags form one of the most fascinating surviving groups of Confederate field colors. Produced for use by commands under William Hicks Jackson, Stephen D. Lee, Leonidas Polk’s army, and later Nathan Bedford Forrest, they represented a Western Theater continuation of the Southern Cross idea, but in a distinctly regional idiom. Rather than the square or nearly square Army of Northern Virginia type, Mobile-made flags were often somewhat rectangular, tailored for cavalry or artillery service and for the practical needs of active field use. Research summarized by Gregory Biggs that accompanies this lot suggests that at least several dozen rectangular Mobile Depot flags once existed in a number of related patterns, though only a fraction survive today.

Both Madaus and Biggs in their accompanying reports strongly suggest that the flag was used by a mounted command or artillery battery rather than infantry. Madaus specifically noted its similarity to the non-regulation battle flag of Lumsden’s Alabama Battery and therefore proposed that it may well have belonged to an artillery unit from, or serving in, the Mobile area in 1864. Biggs agreed that the size points to either mounted or artillery use, the latter being particularly plausible in light of its design affinities.

One of the rarest surviving expressions of the Southern Cross tradition from the Civil War.

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