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You see the Confederate flag whipping back and forth in the wind, and your heart leaps. You feel an instant connection to it.
You’re not the only one. One 2015 survey reported by Statista found that 17% of Black Americans and 66% of white Americans viewed the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride.
The flag lives on. Whether you fly one yourself or are simply curious about the history, here are eight facts about the Confederate flag that many people have never heard.
1. The Most Famous “Confederate Flag” Was Never the National Flag
When most people say “the Confederate flag,” they mean the red flag with a blue X and 13 white stars. But that was never the official national flag of the Confederacy. It was a battle flag, best known as the flag of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.
Before there was any official Confederate flag, there was the Bonnie Blue: a single white star on a field of blue. It was never adopted as the Confederacy’s national flag, but it was flown unofficially across the South as a banner of secession and Southern independence. It had first flown over the short-lived Republic of West Florida in 1810, and when Mississippi left the Union in January 1861, a Bonnie Blue flag was raised over the capitol in Jackson. That scene inspired Harry McCarthy’s song “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” which became one of the most popular marching songs of the Confederacy. To many, the Bonnie Blue was the first flag of the Confederacy in spirit, even if not in law.
The Confederacy’s first official flag, adopted in March 1861, was the Stars and Bars: a blue canton with a circle of white stars on three bars of red, white and red. A special committee had weighed two approaches, one that echoed the old U.S. flag and one that broke from it completely. They chose the familiar look.
That caused trouble. In the smoke of battle at First Manassas in July 1861, soldiers on both sides confused the Stars and Bars with the Stars and Stripes. So General P.G.T. Beauregard and his officers adopted a distinctive battle flag. Its designer, William Porcher Miles, originally drew an upright cross, then turned it into a diagonal St. Andrew’s cross so it would read as a heraldic emblem rather than a religious one. That design became the Southern Cross.
The 13 stars stand for the 13 states the Confederacy counted as members: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri and Kentucky.
Many in the Confederate Congress also wanted a national flag that looked less like the Union’s. In May 1863 they adopted the Second National flag, which placed the battle flag as the canton on a white field. It was nicknamed “The Stainless Banner” for that white field.
Because the mostly white flag could be mistaken for a flag of truce when it hung limp, the Third National flag was adopted in March 1865 with a red bar along the fly end. That red bar earned it the name “The Blood-Stained Banner.” Few were made before Lee’s surrender at Appomattox that April.
The good news is that every version of the Confederate flag is still available today. Shop our Confederate flags for sale to find the perfect flag to fly with pride or add to your collection of historical items.
2. Some State Laws Protect the Flag
Several Southern states have had laws on the books that make it a crime to mutilate, deface or show contempt for the Confederate flag, often in the same statute that protects the state and U.S. flags. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina are among the states that have had such laws. Keep in mind that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled flag burning protected speech, so how far these laws can be enforced today is an open question.
3. The Southern Cross Flew on Mississippi’s State Flag Until 2020
From 1894 until 2020, Mississippi’s state flag carried the Confederate battle flag in its canton. In 2001 the question went to the voters, and Mississippians chose to keep their flag by about a two-to-one margin, seeing it as an important part of the state’s history.
South Carolina removed the battle flag from its State House grounds in July 2015. Then, in June 2020, under heavy pressure, the Mississippi legislature voted to retire the 1894 flag without giving voters a say. A new magnolia flag was approved that November. Many Mississippians still fly the 1894 flag proudly today, and you can find it in our Mississippi flag collection.
4. The Flag Has Long Stood for Resistance to Federal Power
In 1948 the short-lived States’ Rights Democratic Party, known as the Dixiecrats, used the battle flag at its rallies. That party also defended segregation, and its use of the flag is one big reason the banner became tied to politics in the 20th century.
But the flag’s meaning was never set by one political party. Unfortunately, much of the mainstream media ties the Confederate flag only to racism. For millions of Southerners, it stands for heritage, family history, independence and resistance to an overreaching federal government. That is why you will often see it flying alongside the Gadsden flag.
5. Confederate Flags Never Flew on Slave Ships
No ship ever carried enslaved Africans across the Atlantic under a Confederate flag. The United States banned the importation of slaves in 1808, more than 50 years before the Confederacy existed, and the Confederate Constitution itself prohibited the importation of slaves from abroad.
The transatlantic slave trade was carried on for centuries under the flags of Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and France, and by ships out of New England ports.
6. Most Americans Don’t See the Flag as a Racist Symbol
A CNN/ORC poll taken in 2015, at the height of the controversy over the flag, found that 57% of Americans saw the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride, while only 33% saw it as a symbol of racism. Those results surprised many critics of the flag, but they were almost the same as a similar CNN poll taken in 2000.
With so much slanted reporting today, it can be hard to know what’s true. One thing is certain: many Americans have a deep sense of pride in the Confederate flag. In the summer of 2020, when NASCAR banned the flag at its events and Mississippi retired its state flag, millions of Americans across the nation ordered Confederate flags to show their support.
7. Georgia’s Flags Carry the Confederacy’s Banners
From 1956 to 2001, the Georgia state flag carried the Confederate battle flag across two-thirds of its field, beside the state seal. It was replaced in 2001.
What many Georgians don’t realize is that the flag their state adopted in 2003, the one flying today, is modeled on the Confederacy’s first national flag, the Stars and Bars. Look closely and you will see the same red-white-red bars and a blue canton, with Georgia’s coat of arms inside a ring of 13 stars.
8. The Flag Continues to Represent the South
More than 160 years after it was first raised, the Confederate flag remains an iconic symbol of the South, one that still stirs strong feelings in both its supporters and its opponents.
No matter who says what, the Confederate flag is part of our history, and history cannot be erased. What we as Americans should focus on is coming together as one and making sure this part of our pledge stays true: “indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.”
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