Ben,

Actually, where flags are captured can also be clues as to where they were made.

We know that the Confederate forces at Third Winchester, for example, came from two armies - the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Valley. The flags taken from units of each force are different in materials used in part of their construction.

Madaus deduced that the Richmond Depot only supplied the ANV and, a bit later, the District of North Carolina. He came across this by inductive research into flags used by specific units.

The Valley troops, on the other hand, were supplied from Staunton as early as 1862 with flags being made in Summer 1864. The 20 or so ANV wool/cotton flags ordered by Jackson for his Valley army in April/May 1862 (smaller ANV style with only 12 stars and orange tape borders), although made in Richmond by a sewing circle, were sent to his army through Staunton.

If you study the CS depot system, and I have for things other than flags, you will learn that you had major depots (Richmond, Nashville - later Atlanta, Charleston and Mobile) and then had smaller depots closer to the front lines to save time in shipping supplies to the troops in the field. Such depots included Dalton, Staunton, Enterprise, Meridian, Selma, Columbus, etc. All types of things were made at these depots in addition to being trans-shipment sites for things from the major depots.

These smaller depots also served as collecting points for raw items like cotton, leather/hides, bulk cloth, wool, etc. which were then sent to the major depots to be made into finished goods. Richard Goff's excellent book, "Confederate Supply," goes into all of these depots in detail in terms of how the whole structure worked.

So if you have units from an army that is supplied from a specific depot, like Staunton and the Valley Army, and examples of these flags exist and some were captured at Third Winchester from units of that army, that indeed helps tell us where these flags were made. It is not the end all to be all, but solid evidence nonetheless. The same can be said for units with Charleston Depot flags taken from units of the Dept. of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, as indeed some were including at Fort McAllister south of Savannah. This city was within that department hence the units defending it were equipped with these flags.

As I have stated, the Richmond Depot at this time was making the large ANV 4th Bunting flags which look nothing like the ANV style flags made in Staunton other than style. They are larger, have wider crosses and bigger stars than the ANV style flags from Staunton which equipped some of the Valley Army units. I have never seen any ANV flag from Richmond with anything but wool bunting save for the hoist edge, stars and fimbration. When they lacked this cloth they did not make flags as happened in 1863. No substitute cloth was used that I have ever seen so they could keep making flags.

Greg Biggs