American Confederate Flag

Price range: R650,00 through R800,00

The American Confederate flag, available as a desk flag in packs of 10. Digitally printed on both sides onto durable polyester, so the design reads correctly from either side.

Priced from R650, with delivery anywhere in South Africa. Need a custom or branded flag instead? Request a quote.

Size

10 x 15cm Desk Flag (10 units)
22 x 15cm Desk Flag (10 units)

Clear

Description

The American Confederate flag is available from Flags Online as a desk flag in packs of 10, printed on both sides and made to last outdoors.

About the American Confederate Flag

The American Confederate flag is not one single design but a name popularly given to several flags used by the Confederate States of America between 1861 and 1865, and it is most closely associated today with the battle flag carried by Confederate armies. That battle flag, a blue saltire edged in white and set with thirteen stars on a red field, is the image most people picture, even though it was never adopted as the Confederacy’s official national flag. Understanding the American Confederate flag means separating the government’s formal banners from the military emblem that outlived them.

Colours and Symbolism

The battle flag’s red field, blue cross and white stars borrowed directly from the colour scheme used across the Confederacy’s own official flags. The stars stood for the eleven states that seceded from the Union, plus Kentucky and Missouri, whose secessionist factions were recognised by the Confederacy even though both states remained divided and stayed in the Union. The diagonal cross is often linked to the Cross of Saint Andrew, reflecting the Scottish and Scots-Irish ancestry common among white Southerners at the time. The Confederacy’s first official national flag, the Stars and Bars, instead used horizontal red and white bars with a star-filled blue canton, styled deliberately on the United States flag it replaced.

History of the American Confederate Flag

The Confederacy adopted the Stars and Bars as its first national flag in March 1861, but its resemblance to the Union flag caused confusion on the battlefield, prompting military commanders to introduce the distinct battle flag later that year. A second official national flag, the Stainless Banner, placed the battle flag in the canton of a white field in 1863, and a third national flag added a red vertical bar in 1865, shortly before the Confederacy’s surrender. The battle flag was never itself the Confederacy’s state flag, yet it became the most widely reproduced Confederate symbol after the war, revived through the twentieth century by a range of organisations for a range of purposes.

Flying and Displaying the Flag

The American Confederate flag remains one of the most contested symbols in the United States today. For some it is presented as a marker of regional heritage; for others it is inseparable from the Confederacy’s defence of slavery and from its later adoption by segregationist and white supremacist movements. Many American states, cities and institutions have removed the design from official flags, licence plates and public buildings in recent decades, and a number of major retailers no longer stock it. Anyone considering displaying it should understand this history and the strongly differing reactions it provokes.