The rectangular Bragg pattern flags were made in March 1862 and issued to units after Shiloh and through the summer of that year. I have the 57th GA book as well and do not recall if it says when they received this flag but they certainly had it in hand when they were sent to Vicksburg.

The 57th GA was part of Carter Stevenson's Division and after being part of the KY Campaign they were sent to Mississippi missing the Battle of Stones River in Tennessee. Based on an existing flag of the 39th Georgia, also of the same division, it has been speculated that Stevenson's Division were issued their own version of the Bowen/Missouri battle flags - blue field with red borders and white Latin/Christian cross. The Stevenson's Division version was red field with yellow borders and white cross. So, if this was a division-wide issue then the 57th GA should have been issued one of these as well.

If the 57th Georgia had a First National it had been replaced long before by the Bragg pattern flag but it is possible that they kept it with regimental baggage.

The problem with Vicksburg CS flags is that so few are out there for historians to work with. What we know were used were captured at Champion Hill and Big Black River. Three patterns were taken at these fights - First Nationals, Bowen patterns (blue field) and a Southern Cross flag (homemade - the Fowler Guards of GA). Other First Nationals were taken at Jackson. Grant reported 85 flags taken at Vicksburg and NONE of them were sent to the War Department! Two, from Gen. Frank Blair, were loaned to the Cincinnati Sanitary Fair in December 1863 (a Louisiana and a Texas unit) and have since disappeared.

Greg Biggs