Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/126

 118 Southern J/i'xlnri'-iil ,S'or/V/y /'HJH r.

on March 4, 1865, just twenty-eight days before the death of the Confederacy, Congress passed another act, adding a broad red bar across the end of it. I never saw this flag, nor have I ever seen a man who did see it or who saw a man who did see it with this exception : Colonel Lewis Euker tells me that riding down to Gen- eral Custis Lee's quarters in November or December, 1864, he saw this flag flying over Howard's Grove Hospital, and his companion, a German gentleman then serving in the Ninth Virginia Cavalry, asked him what flag that was, and this incident impressed itself on his memory.

NEARLY CERTAIN TO BE RIGHT.

There is no possibility of doubting the accuracy of Colonel Euker' s memory. He is as nearly certain to be right as any man I know, but there is confusion here. The flag was not adopted until March 4, 1865, and he saw it several months before. I explain this by thinking the design for the new flag was known and canvassed. I have a colored lithograph now, made by Hoyer & Ludwig, at the time, for Major Arthur L. Rodgers, who designed this alteration, and gave me the picture in December, 1864. So, I take it, the doc- tors at the hospital had made themselves a new flag to set the fashion. But that was not a flag authorized by law, and I have yet to see a man who saw such a flag, or saw any man who saw a man who saw one. After March 4, 1865, we were not making flags. Please print the acts of Congress establishing the flags. The last act has never been printed.

BRADLEY T. JOHNSON.

FROM THE RECORDS.

We comply with General Johnson's request by printing the Act of May i, 1863, and the amendment thereto, passed March 4, 1865: An act to establish the flag of the Confederate States: The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That the flag of the Confederate States shall be as follows: The field to be white, the length double the width of the flag, with the union (now used as the battle-flag) to be a square of two-thirds the width of the flag, having the ground red; thereon a broad saltier of blue, bordered with white, and emblazoned with white mullets or five- pointed stars, corresponding in number to that of the Confederate States. (First Congress, third session. Approved May i, 1863.)