Flags of the Missouri State Guard

  By James E. McGhee*

Armies have carried flags on parade fields and in battle since almost the beginning of warfare.  As emblems of local or national identity, flags serve as rally points during combat and as treasured symbols of shared valor and sacrifice by veterans everywhere.  More often than not a unit’s banner is the most visible embodiment of its history and experiences in war.

When the General Assembly created the Missouri State Guard in the aftermath of the “Camp Jackson Massacre” of May 10, 1861, the legislation neglected to mandate a distinctive flag for use by Guard units, and Missouri had not adopted an official state flag before the war began.  The issuance of Missouri State Guard General Order No. 8 on June 5, however, corrected the legislative oversight. The order provided that each regiment should adopt a flag made of blue merino, measuring six feet by five feet, with the state coat of arms emblazoned in gold gilt on each side.  Additionally, the law required that each mounted company carry a guidon consisting of white merino, three feet by two feet in size, with the letters “M. S. G.” in gilt on each side.  Flags and guidons were to be attached to a pike nine feet in length, including spear and ferrule.[i] The incorporation of the state coat of arms into the official flag is not surprising, as militia units, especially in the St. Louis area, had used that emblem on their flags for several years.

	Official Flag of the Missouri State Guard

Pursuant to General Order No. 8, Brigadier James Harding, Quartermaster-General of the Guard, employed M. M. Flesh, a Jefferson City painter and paperhanger, to sew and paint ten of the regulation flags for distribution to newly created units. Flesh quickly completed the task and turned over his painted works of art to Harding, who thereafter presented the first stand of the colors to the First Regiment of Rifles, a Sixth Division unit commanded by Colonel John Sappington Marmaduke.[ii]  The regiment likely carried the flag at the battle of Boonville on June 17, 1861, the Guard’s first engagement, and perhaps at later fights as well.  Harding regrettably left no record of what disposition, if any, he made of the nine remaining flags.  It may well have been one of these flags that the Guardsmen hoisted after compelling the Federals to surrender at Lexington on September 20, 1861, for one Missourian present on that occasion wrote that “at six o’clock p.m. the “stars and stripes” were lowered and the blue flag of the State and the Confederate flags were raised from the College building.”[iii] 

Other flags of the Guard likewise incorporated the Missouri coat of arms, although several of these banners differed in significant respects from the flag mandated in General Order No. 8.  When M. Jeff Thompson rallied troops in northwest Missouri just weeks before the Camp Jackson incident, he flew a flag over his encampment that he described as “a plain White flag, with the Coat of Arms of Missouri painted on it in Black.”[iv] As district inspector of the militia in the area, he instructed all units to display a like banner; he also observed  “we can hereafter paint as many stripes [on it] as we please with the blood of our invaders.”[v]  Perhaps some 5^th Division units of the Guard carried this flag when they mustered into state service later that year.

	Flag designed by Colonel M. Jeff Thompson for use in Northwest Missouri, Spring, 1861

In mid-October, 1861, four months after the Guard had taken the field, a Mrs. S. A. Brett of Hernando, Mississippi presented a flag to the First Division of the Guard. Lieutenant Colonel Matthew H. Moore, the division quartermaster, then situated in Memphis, Tennessee seeking supplies, wrote Mrs. Brett a letter of appreciation, complimenting her painting of the state coat of arms as an example of the “finest style of the art”.  The ladies of the St. Agnes Academy, presumably in Memphis, also presented Moore a “magnificent flag with the coat of arms of Missouri richly embroidered upon a field three feet square,” while the wife of Captain John Decker, a Guardsman from St. Louis living in Memphis, made several banners for the Division.[vi]  Lastly, Moore acknowledged the “making of three banners” by C. E. W. Miller and Isadora Miller, both from the vicinity of Oxford, Mississippi.  He provided no description of those flags, but since he had previously volunteered to furnish proper materials and instructions to anyone willing to make flags for the Division, it seems very likely that these flags probably reflected the design and color prescribed in General Order No. 8.[vii]

Oddly enough, there is evidence that the headquarters flag of Major General Sterling Price, overall commander of the Guard, did not comply with General Order No. 8.  Once observed by Private Ephraim McD. Anderson, a Third Division soldier, he later penned the following description of the flag:

“It is emblematic of our coat of arms, and exhibits a part of the blazonry, though the escutcheon, with the bear on each side, rampant and quadrant, in heraldic terms, is not represented, and perhaps would not be appropriate, yet the ascending star, upon the azure ground, is there, and something else, which is not distinctly visible.”[viii] 

Some Guard units carried flags that employed the state coat of arms in a decidedly individualistic manner.  The banner of the Saline Jackson Guards featured a white field, bordered in blue, and displayed a centered coat of arms in blue as well. Further, the corners of the flag included the names of the local ladies who made the banner. The Guards attached their colors to a staff decorated with a blue cord and tassels.[ix]
 
          An Audrain County company carried a flag described in glowing terms as follows:

“It was sixty inches long and its width was three-fifths of its length, or thirty-six inches wide.  A red stripe one foot wide at the top, a white stripe one foot wide under the red one, and another red stripe of same width at the bottom …...A blue field two feet square in the upper corner, or flag-staff corner, with the coat of arms of Missouri worked out in silk in the different colors in the lower part of the blue field; and at the top of the blue field were eleven silver stars, nine inches in circumference from their five points, representing the eleven sister Southern States of the Confederacy. The material was the best satin obtainable, and the needlework was superb…. George Bomar and old man George Burhop swiped a ten or twelve foot seasoned straight grain rail…and it was taken to Bryan, in Callaway County, who, with turning lathes, fashioned the staff out of the rail and varnished it.  It had a great flat spear head at the tip of the staff, on which was printed “Missouri” with the county and company in red letters….”[x]

	Audrain County Company Flag, 2nd Division

           Elements of Colonel Martin E. Green’s command of the Second Division hoisted still another variant of a Missouri flag over the courthouse at Edina after they occupied the town on August 1, 1861.  That flag reportedly bore three stripes, fifteen stars, and displayed the grizzly bears of the state coat of arms.[xi]

            Other evidence supports the popularity of incorporating the state coat of arms into the flags Guard units carried. Following the battle of Boonville on June 17, 1861, Thomas Knox, a reporter for a northern newspaper, recorded his observations regarding the flags captured by the Federals there:

 “The flags captured in this affair were excellent illustrations of the policy of the leading secessionists.  There was one rebel flag with the arms of the State of Missouri filling the field.  There was a State flag, with only fifteen stars surrounding the coat of arms. 

           Further details of the make-up of one the flags Knox saw appeared in a newspaper following its capture at Boonville. The flag described as bearing the state coat of arms surrounded by fifteen stars reportedly “represented the Southern states with two broad red bars on the outside and one white bar in the center.”  The banner, made of cotton cloth, measured six feet by two feet and was painted in oil colors.[xiii]

           Other flags of the Guard have been identified as “Missouri” flags without further descriptive detail, but a reasonable assumption would be that the coat of arms was the logical emblem associating those flags with the state.  In 1897 a former trooper of the First Iowa Cavalry Regiment reported that he had in his possession a “Missouri” flag made by the ladies of Sarcoxie and presented to an Eighth Division unit.  He alleged that Guardsmen carried the flag at the battles at Carthage, Wilson’s Creek and Lexington.[xiv]  Likewise, a Miss Minnie Withers, among others, made “a beautiful Missouri flag” for Captain Henry L. Routt’s mounted company in Clay County before that unit reported for duty at the state capital in May.[xv]  And on June 11, 1861, Captain Dick Campbell and his Independent Scouts Company of the Seventh Division raised a “Missouri” flag over the courthouse at Springfield in Greene County.[xvi] Finally, when the Guard fought the Federals at Carthage on July 5, 1861, a Fort Scott, Kansas newspaper reported "The rebels had three flags, one of the State of Missouri, which was unharmed, and two secession flags, which were twice shot down and raised no more."[xvii]

           In addition to the flags that displayed the state coat of arms, sources reveal a variety of other designs adopted by local Guard units.  Captain William Brown’s cavalry company, a Saline County organization, proudly carried a banner that bore fifteen stars on a blue canton, while the remainder of the flag was white.[xviii] 

	Company Flag of the Saline Guards, 6th Division

            A unique flag captured by the Fremont Rangers in Bollinger County in the fall of 1861, the ensign of a company of the 1^st Cavalry Battalion in General M. Jeff Thompson’s First Division, consisted of a red cross on a black silk banner.[xix]

	Unknown Company Flag, 1st Cavalry Battalion, 1st Division

 Some ladies of California, in Moniteau County, presented the visiting Howard County Volunteers, a Third Division outfit, a “beautiful flag with a single star,” while the Polk County Rangers of the Eighth Division, having returned a United States flag previously presented to them, received a flag from the young ladies of Bolivar that consisted of “three stripes with fifteen stars.” [xx]  

	Howard County Volunteers Company Flag, 3rd Division

Other flags with distinctive patterns include a banner captured by Illinois troops at Utica, in Livingston County, that had been made for the 1^st Cavalry Regiment of the Fourth Division. White with a red border, it featured a centered palmetto tree, bearing two shields, at the base of which were five arrows and a rattle snake, and bore the motto “Constitutional Rights”.[xxi]  

In an elaborate ceremony in Plattsburg, the “southern ladies” presented Colonel John T. Hughes’ command with a banner very similar to the Confederate first national flag that consisted of three wide bars, two red and the center one of white satin, with a canton of blue bearing seven bright silver stars.[xxii]

	Flag of 1st Infantry Regiment (Hughes’), 4th Division

          Another variant of the Confederate first national, captured at the engagement at Athens, Missouri, on August 5, 1861, from an element of Colonel Martin Green’s 1^st Cavalry Regiment of the Second Division, featured two red stripes and center white one, with a blue canton containing a number of white stars. The motto “Southern Rights” appeared on the center white stripe in red lettering.[xxiii]

	Captured Flag of the 1st Cavalry Regiment (Porter’s), 2nd Division

           A Guard flag, attributed to Colonel James J. Clarkson’s 5^th Infantry Regiment of the Eighth Division, displays many of the characteristics of a type of flag carried by United States troops in the war with Mexico.  A large hand-stitched silk flag, measuring 70 inches on the fly and 38 inches on the staff, Mary Wilson and Virginia Willick of Independence presented it to the regiment. The flag, although now terribly faded, appears to have had six white stripes, divided by seven pieces of red edging.  The dark blue canton, seventeen inches square, contains a gold and black spread eagle and twenty-seven gold stars.  It is likely that this particular banner was a Mexican War relic or other pre-war issue.[xxiv]

          One final flag, allegedly carried by Lieutenant Colonel Theodore T. Taylor’s 1^st Infantry Battalion of the Seventh Division, was a United States flag with all of the stars removed save one.[xxv]

	Flag of 1st Infantry Battalion, 7th Division

            Thus, it is apparent that the flags of the Missouri State Guard included many that employed the state coat of arms in their design, and several others imitated the Confederate first national flag, but other banners adopted by Guard units were as diverse as the men who made up that army.  While few of the Guard flags survive, sufficient information is available to preserve, at least in word pictures, the banners around which the Guardsmen rallied in the fight for Missouri in 1861.

Note: The flags depicted here are not drawn to scale and are merely the author’s concept of their appearance based upon word descriptions provided in the available sources.  The actual flags doubtless differed from these depictions in various details, some significant and others minor.

 

 

[i] General Order No. 8, Letter and Order Book, Missouri State Guard, 1861-1862, Missouri State Museum, Jefferson City, Mo., 7-8.

[ii] James E. McGhee, ed., Service With the Missouri State Guard: The Memoir of Brigadier General James Harding (Springfield, Mo.: Oak Hills Publishing, 2000): 22-23.

[iii] Unknown to Editor, Democratic Herald, Louisiana, Mo., October 10, 1861.

[iv] Donal J. Stanton, Goodwin F. Berquist and Paul C. Bowers, eds. The Civil War Experiences of General M. Jeff Thompson (Dayton, Ohio: Morningside House, Inc., 1988): 52.

[v] General Order No. 1, 4^th Military District, April 23, 1861, in History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Co., 1886): 174.

[vi] Memphis (Tenn) Daily Appeal, October 19, 1861.

[vii] James E. McGhee, Voices of the Swamp Fox Brigade: Supplemental Letters, Orders and Documents of General M. Jeff Thompson’s Command, 1861-1862 (Independence, Mo.: Blue & Grey Book Shoppe, 1999): 14-15, 24-25. 

[viii] Ephraim McD. Anderson, Memoirs: Historical and Personal, Including the Campaigns of the First Missouri Confederate Brigade (Dayton, Oh.: Press of the Morningside Bookshop, 1972): 47.

[ix] History of Saline County, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Co. 1888): 276.

[x]  Joe Lee Bomar, “The Audrain County Flag,” Confederate Veteran, 36 (1928): 98-99.

[xi] History of Lewis, Clark, Knox and Scotland Counties, Missouri (Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth Pub. Co., 1981. Reprint of 1887 edition): 678.

[xii] Thomas W. Knox, Camp-Fire and Cotton Field: Southern Adventures in Time of War (Philadelphia: Jones Brothers & Co., 1865): 49.

[xiii] Detroit (Mi) Daily Tribune, July 20, 1861.

[xiv] Carthage (Mo) Press, July 12, 1887.  The Baltimore (Md) Sun, June 25, 1861, described the flags captured from the Guard at Boonville as consisting of “one secession flag, one lone star flag, and one State flag with 15 stars.”

[xv] Liberty (Mo) Weekly Tribune, May 24, 1861. History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri (St. Louis: National Historical Co., 1885): 202.

[xvi] History of Greene County, Missouri (St. Louis: Western Historical Co., 1883): 286.

[xvii] Quoted in Howard Michael Madaus, “The Missouri State Guard and Other “Secession Flags” in Missouri, 1861.”  Monograph found at www.confederateflags.com.   See also Baltimore (Md) Sun, July 12, 1861.

[xviii] History of Saline County, Missouri, 277.

[xix] Lindsay Murdoch, “Narrative of the Services of Lindsay Murdoch in the War of the Rebellion from 1861 to 1865, and some Subsequent Services in the Interests of Honesty in the Business of Government.”  Unpublished typescript.  University Archives, Kent Library, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 4.

[xx] California (Mo) News, May 18, 1861; Bolivar (Mo) Weekly Courier, May 4, 1861.

[xxi] Morning Constitution, Chillicothe, Mo., March 13 & 20, 1890.  John Schmale to James E. McGhee, e-mail, September 15, 2003.  This flag is currently in possession of the State of Illinois and is preserved in Memorial Hall at Springfield.  It may be viewed online at www.civil-war.com/index.html.

[xxii] Florence May Porter, “Our First Flag,” in Missouri Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, comp., Reminiscences of Women of Missouri During the Sixties (Jefferson City, Mo.: United Daughters of the Confederacy, 1911): 10-14.

[xxiii] The remnant of this flag is in the possession of the State Historical Society of Iowa and may be viewed on its website at www.iowaflags.org/.  Part of the flagstaff portion of the flag is missing, making it impossible to determine the exact number of stars in the canton, but from what has been preserved it appears that it was likely thirteen or fifteen. 

[xxiv] Ron Field, “The Flag of the Missouri State Guard,” Journal of the Confederate Historical Society, 18 (Spring 1990): 14; Greg Biggs e-mail to James E. McGhee, 17 December 2001. This flag is currently on display at the General Sweeney Museum, Republic, Missouri.

 
[xxv] Henry Clay Warmoth, War, Politics and Reconstruction: Stormy Days in Louisiana (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1930): 12-13: History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1889): 132.

 

 

* WebMaster Note:

Jim McGhee is a member of the Mid-Missouri Civil War Round Table and is the author of several books and articles on various Civil War subjects..