declared independence from the United States of America in 1861, leading to the American

Civil War. At the end of the war in 1865, the states that had seceded from the Union

were incorporated back into the U.S. The Bonnie Blue Flag was the unofficial flag of the Confederacy

during the early months of 1861, which included a blue field with a single white star. The

first official national flag of the Confederacy included three horizontal bars of red and

white, with a blue canton containing seven white stars as representations of the initial

seven states that seceded from the Union. This soon increased to nine, then eleven,

and finally to thirteen stars as more states joined the Confederacy. Two of the thirteen

stars reflected the Confederacy’s claims to Kentucky and Missouri. Because of the flag’s

similarity to the U.S. flag, confusion occurred on the battlefield and ideological criticisms

also surfaced. Beginning in December 1861, a battle flag was employed by Confederate

troops. This flag included a red field with a blue cross outlined in white. Thirteen white

stars appeared within the cross. The battle flag was a square versus the rectangular navy

jack that used a lighter blue in its coloration. Over time the battle flag became, and remains,

the popular symbol associated with the Confederacy. A new national flag for the CSA came into

being in 1863 when the battle flag was incorporated onto a field of white. While the white coloration

never had an official meaning attached to it by the government of the Confederacy, many

southerners associated it with the commonly held Confederate ideology of white racial

supremacy. In a short time after its adoption, however, this flag was criticized as being

too white as it could be confused as a flag of truce when there was no wind and the flag

lay limp, hiding the flag’s Southern Cross canton. To remedy this, a vertical red bar

was added to the national flag in 1865, just two months prior to the end of the war. This

flag has been nicknamed the blood stained banner. Since the end of the Civil War, the

Confederacy’s national and battle flags continue to appear in some way on a number

of official southern state flags. The battle flag of the Confederacy has also been adopted

by many for personal or unofficial use, especially in the states that made up the former CSA.

The modern use and display of the Confederate flag for various purposes remains a highly

controversial topic because of the different associations that have become attached to

it. There have been varying perceptions of the flag in the twentieth and twenty first

centuries. Some support it as a symbol of the unique cultural traditions and heritage

of the southern states, while others have used it to invoke Confederate racial ideology,

such as when the flag was used by protesters against desegregation in the 1950s.

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