Two young women, Rebecca C. Ferguson and Mollie A. D. Sinclair, in the art department of the Tuscogee Female College, sent in seven designs. In their letter they said that "amidst all their efforts at originality, there ever danced before them visions of the star-gemmed flag, with its parti-colored stripes, that floated so proudly over the United States. Let us snatch from the eagle of the cliff our idea of independence, and cull from the earth diamonds, and gems from the heavens, to deck the flag of the Southern Confederacy. With cotton for king, there are seven States bound by a chain of sisterly love that will strengthen by time, as onward, right onward, they move up the glorious path of Southern independence."
In the seven devices offered, the principal members were an eagle and a cotton bale. These devices were presented by Mr. Chilton, of Alabama.
A public man notes in his diary, under date "Washington, March 6, 1861: At Montgomery I found the women much more violent and disposed to mischief than the men, many of the ladies almost openly expressing the wish to see the 'Confederate flag' planted at Washington."
It appears, too, that of this same Confederate flag, a number of models have been furnished by ladies.
Copies of some of these had brought on, and he exhibited them to me.
Nothing can be imagined more childish and grotesque than most of them were. The older men at Montgomery, he tells me, are urgent that the seceded States should claim the flag of the United States as their own,—a proposition which I should suppose would be quite agreeable to Mr. Sumner and others who have not gotten over their disposition to denounce the Union as a "covenant with death and an agreement with hell."
On motion of Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, the subject of a flag for the Confederacy was referred to a committee of six members, one from each State represented in the 'convention, viz., Messrs. Miles, of South Carolina; Morton, of Florida; Shorter, of Alabama; Burton, of Georgia; Sparrow, of Louisiana: and Harris, of Mississippi; and on the 5th of March, Mr. Miles, the chairman of the committee to whom the subject was referred, submitted the following report:
