This Is What the Confederate Flag Actually Looks Like

As the debate rages on over the Confederate flag’s appearance on government land in South Carolina, it’s important to remember one thing: For all the talk of honoring the Palmetto State’s rich history, that flag isn’t the one they fought under during the Civil War.In fact, there is no single flag that consistently united the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. The three national flag patterns included the Stars and Bars (adopted March 4, 1861), which contained a circle of eight white stars in a blue square on the upper-left corner, surrounded by two red stripes with a white one in the center; the Stainless Banner (adopted May 1, 1863), which used the Army of Northern Virginia’s battle flag (what we commonly think of as “the” Confederate flag today) in the upper left surrounded by white; and the Blood Stained Banner (adopted March 4, 1865), which slightly modified the Stainless Banner by adding a red stripe down the right side.

Nor were these flags alone. Each state and regiment had their own various flags, and for a long time the most popular was the South Carolina Secessionist Flag (seen below), which was flown when South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860.

This isn’t mere historical trivia. The prevalence of the so-called Confederate flag (as we know it today) can be traced back not to the Civil War itself, but to an orchestrated campaign within the late-19th century South to glorify what came to be known as “the Lost Cause.” To quote the historian David W. Blight from “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory”:

“The Lost cause took root in a Southern culture awash in an admixture of physical destruction, the psychological trauma of defeat, a Democratic Party resisting Reconstruction, racial violence, and with time, an abiding sentimentalism… Throughout the spread of the Lost Cause, at least three elements attained overriding significance: the movement’s effort to write and control the history of the war and its aftermath; its use of white supremacy as both means and ends; and the place of women in its development.”

The Stars and Bars isn’t what you think it is

South Carolina Is Actually Flying The Wrong Confederate Flag

Although the individual states in the Confederacy never unified around a single standard, the South that mourned and wished to mythologize its “Lost Cause” recognized the utility of using one particular symbol to galvanize its followers. If this was a normal manifestation of regional pride (such as one might see in New England or California), it would be harmless enough. However, because it is specifically associated with reactionary racial belief systems — to say nothing of the most horrific attempt at treason in American history — it seems downright un-American to fly it over land that represents every taxpaying citizen.This is not the same as saying that the Confederate symbol should be censored (I have argued for the First Amendment rights of Confederate pride movements in the past). That said, it is misleading to characterize the current controversy over the Confederate flag as that of honoring the state’s brief history as a sovereign nation. That flag is being flown because South Carolina, like the rest of the would-be Confederacy, wants to whitewash its history while covertly validating its hideous underbelly. That is all there is to it.