US Grant claimed 85 flags taken at Vicksburg and none of them were sent to the US War Department. Most of what we know in terms of flag patterns used is based on what was captured at Champion Hill and Big Black River since Pemberton's army came out to fight those battles. There seems to have been several flag patterns used. The two predominant types were the Bowen/Missouri pattern battle flags used by John Bowen's and Carter Stevenson's Divisions. Bowen's troops had a blue flag with red borders and a white Christian/Latin cross on the field while Stevenson's troops seemed to have a red field with yellow borders and white Christian/Latin cross. There is a woodcut of CS troops surrendering at Vicksburg that shows several of these flags being surrendered as well as a period newspaper account.

The other dominant flag pattern was the First National. Examples of these were taken at both Champion Hill and Big Black River from different commands. Mixed in with this are a few Southern Cross styles based in the 42nd Georgia's flag and Waddell's Alabama Battery flag.

Unlike other CS armies, Pemberton's never seemed to care about going with standardized battle flags and the closest they got to that were the Christian/Latin cross flags of two of his divisions. Keep in mind that standardizing battle flags was an army by army decision with a couple corps, divisions and at least one brigade doing standardized flags during the war.

Both Vicksburg and Corinth are flag enigmas, Vicksburg being the greater of the two, since flags taken at both engagements were not sent to the War Department. Some of the Corinth flags were sent to Northern states like Iowa so we can again have a clue of what types were used. At the Cincinnati Sanitary Fair that began in December 1863, two flags taken at Vicksburg were loaned to the event by General Frank Blair. These were a Texas regimental banner and a Louisiana regimental banner. This is typical of what happened to the captured CS flags - they were given to generals, colonels, etc. as souvenirs and sent home to modern obscurity.

Greg Biggs