Public pressure amid protests over racial inequality forced Mississippi to furl its Confederate-inspired state flag for good, yet Georgia’s flag is based on another Confederate design and lives on. Why the difference?
The Confederacy used more than one flag while it was fighting the United States to preserve slavery, and most of the designs are largely forgotten more than 150 years after the Civil War ended. Here are some facts about the flags of the Confederacy and how those symbols are viewed today.
HOW MANY FLAGS DID THE CONFEDERACY USE?
It depends on how you count, but lots. The Confederate States of America had three different national flags during its brief existence from 1861 through 1865, and multiple other flags were used by individual states, army and naval groups.
The flag that’s best known today – a red background split by a blue X that’s decorated with white stars – is often called the “Confederate battle flag.” It originated in late 1861 as the fighting flag of the nation’s main eastern force, the Army of Northern Virginia, said John M. Coski, a historian and author with the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia.