Hi Ben,

More below:

>>>I have read where Vincent was one of the official flagmakers for the Confederate gov't. Obviously the Confederacy had standards for producing their flags. Do you know if flags produced by Hugh Vincent would have had identification marks or characteristics that could have distinguish them from those manufactured by other official flagmakers such as Henry Vaughan of Mobile, Al?>>>>>

Since few of known Vincent made flags survive, and those that do are not marked so far as I have heard/seen, it is hard to say - but it would seem that he did not. By contrast Henry Vaughan, Henry Cassidy and James Cameron did mark SOME of their larger flags.

As to if Vincent was on "official" flag maker, he was one of them from Charleston. Bee & Silcox was another as was Hayden & Whilden (made SC unit flags). Pretty much any flag maker contracted for making flags by an area quartermaster officer I guess was "official."

>>>>As a prominent ship chandler in Charleston, Hugh Vincent may have supplied a majority of flags for sea vessel in that area. He may have been involved directly in shipping himself owning several vessels. According to the US Coast Coast Guard, Vincent sold a schooner-cutter "William Aiken" to the US Revenue Service in 1855 for $4500. The Aiken was the first federal boat seized by the seceding states.>>>>

He was one of them - again Bee & silcox got some of this trade as well. The CS Navy, with regards to supplying their warships, was easy - they created locally based systems of supply by squadron port of call. Thus, the CS warships based in Charleston were only supplied from there; Savannah's squadron was supplied from there, etc. This includes flag makers, who also made ID flags of the various nations for blockade runners.

>>>>It seems that more examples of Vincents works would be around today, considering the demand before and during the war for his flags by major shipping merchants, the Confederate gov't, military regiments/units like the Citadel, Palmetto Guards and others along with local individuals and businesses that were struck with secession fever in 1860. >>>

Without them being marked it is hard to say. The Charleston Daily Courier has a number lf flag articles about Vincet in March-April, 1861 and he was makign flags at the behst of Gov. Pickens as well as for Ft.s Moultrie and Caswell (in NC).

He does not seem to have made many military unit flags - that trade comes more from other flag makers like Hayden & Whilden. Ship's chandlers were used to working with much bigger pieces of cloth than smaller flag makers were - so they pretty much stayed with what they could do best - making large flags for ships, forts and buildings and left the unit colors trade to others. Some of these firms were doing other things before the war and got into making unit flags with the secession era. Hayden & Whilden were still making First National battle flags until early 1863 for units around Charleston in fact. The firm dissolved not long after.

Greg Biggs