The Plates
Ai National Colour, jd L'S Infantry Regiment, 861 The national colour carried by the country's oldest continuously serving infantry regiment, the 3d, was made under federal contract through the Philadelphia Depot. It displays one of three known patterns of stars in its canton. The lower star is missing from the lower ring in the 34-star variety, while the 35-star variety has no central star but has 21 stars in the outer ring. .12 National Colour, tst Battalion, 1 ith LS Infantry Regiment, 1863...
The Army Of The Potomac
As the Union's field armies grew in size, various of their commanders attempted to make units easy to identify in the field through systems of unique flags carried by each formation and unit. The Army of the Potomac's General Orders No. 102 was issued 24 March 1862, under Major-General George B. McClellan's direction, and gave the Union Army its first comprehensive army-wide flag designating system. According to the sections which provided instructions on flags, the army's general headquarters...
Cavalry Flags
Originally, Union forces divided cavalry units up among corps, which were largely infantry with artillery support. I lowcver, combat soon taught them that cavalry was best used independently and each army soon adopted cavalry corps, marked by their nu n flags. According to General Orders No. i it , 30 April t8fu, in the Army of the Potomac, the Cavalry Reserve headquarters was to have a yellow rectangular flag with a blue St. Andrew's cross the 1st Brigade, a blue star and the 2d Brigade, two...
Regulation Flags
The Army of the United States basically had two colours per dismounted regiment, which were issued according to army-wide regulations issued 10 August 1861. From the Revised Regulations for the Army of the United States, 86r. '1436. The garrison flag is the national flag. It is made of bunting, thirty-six feet fly, the twenty feet hoist, in thirteen horizontal stripes of equal breadth, alternately red and white, beginning with the red. In the upper quarter, next to the staff, is the Union,...
Army Headquarters Flags
No special colours were authorized under the regulations for army headquarters. Yet there was a precedent for having a special flag for marking the headquarters of a commanding general during the War for American Independence, George Washington's headquarters w-as marked by an all-blue flag hearing 13 five-pointed stars. In fact, the first flag selected to mark the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, under General Orders No. 102, 24 March 1862, was a plain national flag. The national flag...