Test Your Knowledge: Week of 8/20/07

What was the first official national flag of the Confederacy?

First national flag ('the Stars and Bars')
 
First national flag of the Confederacy ('the Stars and Bars')The first official flag of the Confederacy, called the 'Stars and Bars,' was flown from March 5, 1861 to May 26, 1863.

The first national flag of the Confederacy was designed by German-Prussian artist Nicola Marschall in Marion, Alabama. The Stars and Bars flag was adopted in Montgomery, Alabama, March 4, 1861, and then raised over Dome of that first Confederate Capitol. Marschall also designed the Confederate uniform.

One of the first acts of the Provisional Confederate Congress was to create the Committee on the Flag and Seal, chaired by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina. The committee asked the public to submit thoughts and ideas on the topic and was, as historian John M. Coski puts it, 'overwhelmed by requests not to abandon the 'old flag' of the United States.' Miles had already designed a flag that would later become the Confederate battle flag, and he favored his flag over the 'Stars and Bars' proposal. But given the popular support for a flag similar to the U.S. flag ('the Stars and Stripes'), the Stars and Bars design was approved by the committee. When war broke out, the Stars and Bars caused confusion on the battlefield because of its similarity to the U.S. flag of the Union Army.

Eventually, a total of thirteen stars would be shown on the flag. Its first public appearance was outside the Ben Johnson House in Bardstown, Kentucky.