There is always one thing to fall back on with regards to a unit losing a flag that might not have had a replacement - the drill book of the era!

If you read Hardee's or Casey's Tactics, the drill books of the era (along with Gilham's) the flag plays a vital role in guiding the regiment on the battlefield. If you have no flag (and its attendant flank markers, always an overlooked part of "driving" the regiment) then how do you tell your regiment where to go on the field? You don't basically. The colors play a vital role in that movement as men on both sides of the color guard, posted six paces in the front if the regiment was advancing, making sure they were heading where the colonel wanted the unit to go. If you have re-enacting experience, and I do, then this is well known.

So it is more than safe to assume that something was used as their unit colors if a unit lost a flag. It may have been a shirt on a stick but something was used.

Greg Biggs