>>>>Why would most units not follow the prescribed standards set out? Is it that they felt the cavalry and artillery sizes were not sufficient during the din of battle to be readily identified when required? Why have standardization at all? Given the war measures to conserve materials it would have made sense to abide by the prescribed dimension set out, yet the infantry size flag was used for all branches.>>>>

Because the units themselves had nothing to do with the flags except for ordering them when needed through proper QM channels. The flags came from the Richmond Depot. The wool bunting bolts were 18 inches wide and it was much easier to just cut and make infantry sized flags than three sizes of flags especially when the ANV was being equipped with them in 1862 for the first time (the three bunting issues of that year - this does not count the silk issues of late November/early December, 1861). The CS War Department had nothing to do with these flags at all - it was an army by army deal and each supply depot that took care of that army supplied the flags and did so as quickly and cheaply as possible.

>>>>Question: were there any 24x24 cavlary flags ever generated. I can only think from memory that the 1 NC Cav. had a 24-26x24-26 ANV with 6 pointed stars, not depot but variant. Do you know of any examples that were to the gov. specs and depot made if any? >>>>

I did a post on this here to Ben some weeks back so check for that as it had a number of ANV cavalry unit colors listed and most were infantry sized if I correctly recall.

Hope this helps.

Greg Biggs