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[From the KH Imn.n.l Dispatch, April 26, 1896.]
THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.
An Interesting Letter from General Bradley T. Johnson.
ACTS OF CONGRESS REGULATING IT.
To the I'ditor of tin- Dispatch:
The Confederate flag, with the memories it arouses, is very dear to many people, and we think it but justice to perpetuate a true and accurate description of it "The Stars and Bars." I can find no record of it in the acts of Congress. It was used by companies and regiments in Virginia in 1861, without authority, and just as a mat- ter of taste.
After Manassas, Beauregard had prepared at his headquarters a design for a flag, which was painted in water colors. It was a red square, on which was displayed a blue St. Andrew's cross, bordered with white, and charged with thirteen white, five-pointed stars.
This was adopted in general orders from army headquarters, and became the battle-flag of the Confederacy, which should blaze in many a coming trial, showing its followers the way to duty and to death.
Three flags were made by "the three Cary girls," out of their own silk frocks, one for Joe Johnston, Beauregard, and Van Dorn each, and were always floated at the headquarters of these generals and on the march and in the battle showed where they were.
This was Beauregard 's battle-flag!
ACT OF MAY I, 1863.
May i, 1863, an act of Congress was passed to establish the flag of the Confederate States, and it provided that the battle-flag should be the union of the new flag, and that the field should be white. I never saw this flag with troops. General Lee had one in front of his headquarters. The first time this flag was ever used, and I sus- pect the first that was ever made, was used as a pall over the bier of Stonewall Jackson as he lay in state in the Governor's house in Rich- mond, in May, 1863. But this flag looked too much like a flag of truce, and did not show at sea, so the story went, and consequently
