Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/263

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Flag of the Confederate States of America.
249

An Alabama State flag, originally white, having on one side the State arms and motto, and on the other a scroll, inscribed "Our Homes, Our Rights We Entrust to Your Keeping, Brave Sons of Alabama," surmounted by seven stars linked together, is preserved in the War Museum at Wilmington.

In the Virginia Convention an ordinance was passed that the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia should hereafter be bunting, "which shall be a deep blue field with a circle of white "in the centre, upon which shall be painted or embroidered, to show both sides alike, the coat of arms of the State, as described by the convention of 1776 for one side of the seal of the State, viz., Virtue, the genius of the Commonwealth, draped like an Amazon, resting upon a spear with one hand and holding a sword in the other and treading a tyranny, represented by a man prostrate, a crown fallen from his head, a broken chain in his left hand, and a scourge in his right. In the evergreen the word Virginia over the head of Virtue, and underneath the word, Sic Semper Tyrannis.

The flag, thrown to the breeze from the flag-staff of the State Capitol of Georgia, when an artillery salute announced that the Ordinance of Secession was adopted, bore the coat of arms of the State, viz., the arch of the Constitution, supported by the three pillars of Wisdom, Justice and Moderation, on a white fold. The flags used by the State troops during the Civil War bore the same device, with the name of the regiment on the reverse.

These were the State flags before, as well as during the war. No State secession flag was adopted by Georgia.

In the Washington Museum there is a "Stars and Bars" flag with the coat-of-arms of Georgia in the centre of the union, surrounded by silver stars, and beneath a scroll, inscribed on one side, "Presented by the ladies of Henry"; on the other, 'Lackey Rangers, Victory or Death."

The flag adopted by the Convention of North Carolina, May 26, 1861, .consisted of a perpendicular red bar with the staff, in width one-third the length of the flag, the fly of the flag being-divided equally in two horizontal bars—white and blue—the white