Critic's Corner

Kent Masterson Brown’s The Confederacy’s First Battle Flag

By Stephen Davis · Originally published October 2018 · pp. 38–39

“It is upon the back of a true giant in Civil War vexillological inquiry, Howie Madaus, that this book has been written.” So Kent Masterson Brown begins The Confederacy’s First Battle Flag, using one of my favorite words from the Latin (vexillum, for standard, banner or flag). Howard Madaus, who passed away in 2007, was co-author, with Robert Needham, of The Battle Flags of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, published more than forty years ago. That was ten years before Devereaux Cannon’s The Flags of the Confederacy (1988). Since then, a brace of books has narrated the Confederate battle flag’s tempestuous role as cultural symbol up to the present in the South (and nation): Robert E. Bonner, Colors and Blood: Flag Passions of the Confederate South (2004) and John M. Coski, The Confederate Battle Flag: America‘s Most Embattled Emblem (2005). You might remember that when the battle flag emerged at the center of national debate after the Charleston shootings, it was Dr. Coski who wrote the lead article, “Embattled Banner,” in Civil War Times (October 2015). So how did Kent Masterson Brown, Lexington attorney (now retired) and well-known author of Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (2005), come to write a book on the Confederate battle flag? Kent is now head of a company that makes documentary films. After Howie discovered the story of the battle flag’s origin among papers at Tulane University, and found the very first such flag, his friend Lon Keim acquired the banner. That led Dr. Keim, Kent’s friend, to become executive producer of a documentary on that very first flag and its seamstress, Mary Henry Lyon Jones of Richmond. (The film is entitled The Southern Cross: The Story of the Confederacy’s First Battle Flag, which Kent says “can be seen on public and cable channels.”) Along the way, Keim did more research, building on Madaus’, even tracking down Mary Jones’ descendants. Then he commissioned this book, which Kent terms “the companion book” to his documentary. “This is the first book ever written on the subject,” he writes. Because Brown’s focus is on the battle flag (as opposed to the Confederacy’s various other ensigns, such as the “Stainless Banner,” or the battle flag’s subsequent use in Southern political rallies of the 1950s, or at Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts later), he’s right. Growing up during the Centennial, like of lot of today’s buffs, we learned that the first Confederate battle flags were made by Hetty and Jennie Cary—see B. A. Botkin, A Civil War Treasury of Tales, Legends and Folklore (1960). Reading about Mary Jones as the first flag’s seamstress was for me like overturning fifty years of history. The author begins his story with the Stars and Bars, the Confederacy’s first national flag. Its confusion with the Stars and Stripes in the smoke and dust of Manassas is well known, but he gives particular instances during the battle. Col. Jubal Early, for example, wrote in his after-action report how he mistook an enemy regiment for Southern troops because of its flag (OR, vol. 2, 557). Years after the war, Early wrote Jefferson Davis, “I realized that day that it was exceedingly difficult to distinguish the ‘Stars and Bars’ from the ‘Stars and Stripes,’ when both hung down around the staff.” Madaus, maybe Keim, found this letter in the Louisiana Historical Association Papers at Tulane’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (showing once again, how more than a century after the war, we’re still turning up new documents about it). After the battle, Gen. Beauregard, commanding the Confederate Army of the Potomac (as it was then named), recognized the need for an alternative to the Stars and Bars before the next battle. William Porcher Miles, a member of the Confederate Congress from South Carolina, Chairman of the House Military Committee (and Beauregard’s Congressional liaison), informed the general that he had been unsuccessful in getting the House to consider his favored flag design, one that featured the St. Andrew’s Cross. On Sept. 4, 1861, Beauregard wrote Miles that a solution would be for commanding generals in the field to adopt battle flags with Miles’ design: “a red ground with the two blue bars crossing each other diagonally, on which shall be the white stars.” The next day Beauregard wrote General Joseph E. Johnston about his idea: How would it do for us to address the War Department on the subject of regimental war, or badge flags, made of red with two bars crossing each other diagonally, on which shall be introduced the stars—the edge of the flag to be trimmed all around with white, yellow, or gold fringe? We would then, on the field of battle, know our friends from our enemy. Johnston quickly agreed to the idea of a war flag, but not to the idea of approaching the War Department. Beauregard, Johnston, and other officers soon met in Beauregard’s headquarters (the Wilmer McLean house at Manassas). Several flag designs were discussed; other meetings were held on the vexillological subject. By mid-October Johnston (who held seniority over Beauregard) had decided on a square St. Andrew’s Cross with slightly different dimensions for infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Johnston ordered 120 such banners, enough for each regiment in his army to have one, to be produced by his Quartermaster Department. The QM officer in charge, Lt. Colin M. Selph, was given money to buy the necessary red, white and blue silk in Richmond. Then he asked Mary H.L. Jones, wife of the distinguished Richmond attorney James Alfred Jones, to stitch together the first St. Andrew’s Cross battle flag. Brown makes a good case that Lieutenant Selph knew Mrs. Jones from her work in Richmond hospitals; as quartermaster officer, he oversaw their establishment and provided medical supplies. Working from Beauregard’s watercolor sketches, Mary finished the flag in a week. It was 30” square (Johnston’s specified size for a cavalry flag) and bore twelve stars—Kentucky had “seceded,” but Missouri had not yet done so, hand-painted by Richmond artists. Johnston approved the banner after it was shown to him on October 21. Selph then arranged for women in the capital’s Ladies’ Aid Society and in Richmond churches to sew the rest of the requisitioned colors. Brown surmises the reasons for hiring these seamstresses: contracting with a commercial enterprise would be more expensive, but it would also be leaky; Johnston and Beauregard had by-passed the War Department, which had authority to shut down the generals’ flag project if the bureaucrats found out about it. Among the women Selph asked to help were eighteen-yearold Constance Cary and her two cousins, Hetty and Jennie Cary, all residents of Richmond. The captain gave the Carys the flag Mary Jones had stitched to use as a model. Other women, eventually more than 400, were called in as well for the flag work. The 120 battle flags were finished by the third week of November, when Lieutenant Selph delivered them to the Confederate Army at Centreville. Generals Johnston and Beauregard presented them to their regiments on November 28. In a general order of that date, Beauregard enjoined the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac to revere their new banners and never to surrender them. “Under its untarnished folds beat back the invader and find nationality, everlasting immunity from an atrocious despotism, and honor and renown for yourselves…,” he urged, “…or death.” The flag presentations made for an elaborate ceremony, with each colonel coming forth when his regiment was called to receive its new banner from General Beauregard. Units of Johnston’s army stationed beyond Centreville received their flags in the following weeks. The three Cary girls made three special St. Andrew’s flags for Generals Johnston, Beauregard and Earl Van Dorn (who was then commanding a division in the Virginia army). Mary Jones’ original flag was not one of the 120 distributed to the troops; the seamstress kept it. From a letter written in 1905 by Colin Selph to J.A. Chalaron of New Orleans, Brown learned that Mary gave it to Maj. James Walton. Walton in turn gave it to the Fifth Company of the Washington Artillery, the Crescent City’s famous battalion, which fought in the Army of Tennessee. For this reason, Mrs. Jones’ original flag (in Dr. Keim’s possession) has “Shiloh” and “Perryville” stitched on it. Brown, to overuse the word, sews this story together from a variety of sources. Papers at

Tulane were essential; one example is a letter Colin Selph wrote late in life about Beauregard and the flag. Some documents remain in private hands (such as the original copy of Beauregard’s order of November 28); these too Brown has sought out. Published sources include Alfred Roman’s biography of Beauregard (1884) and Constance Cary Harrison’s Recollections Grave and Gay (1911). I had forgotten that Mrs. Harrison contributed an article to Battles and Leaders in which she refers to her flag-making activity (vol. 1, 160-66). I was pleased to learn from the author’s bibliography of three other articles on the origin of the Confederate battle flag in Confederate Veteran and the Southern Historical Society Papers. One of the delightful features of The Confederacy’s First Battle Flag is its wonderful sixteen-page section of full-color illustrations and photographs. Among them are likenesses of Jennie and Hetty Cary, neither of which have been previously published; they are today owned by a resident of Fredericksburg. The three flags made by the Carys for Johnston, Beauregard and Van Dorn are also pictured, held today by museums in Richmond and New Orleans. Don Troiani gave permission for his fine oil painting to be featured as well; on the book’s front cover, it shows General Beauregard handing a flag to a regimental commander on November 28, with the army’s winter quarters (rows of log cabins) in the background. This rich pictorial section complements Kent Masterson Brown’s amazing research and able writing. Above all, The Confederacy’s First Battle Flag tells its story definitively. We can all thank the author for a most memorable labor amoris—a labor of love. Stephen Davis of Cumming, Ga., is Book Review Editor for Civil War News. He is currently writing a study of how the Atlanta Intelligencer, the city’s leading daily newspaper, covered the war, 1861–1865. His co-author is Bill Hendrick, veteran journalist of forty years, writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Associated Press and many other publications. Their book will be published by the University of Tennessee Press.