Thanks Greg. I knew you would know when and where the Van Dorn patterns were first issued. Thus, these banners could not have been carried by Missouri units at Prairie Grove, AR on Dec. 7, 1862. Would you agree that first national patterns were probably the flags the Confederate Missouri units carried at Prairie Grove?

As for the flags carried by the Confederate Missouri infantry in the TMD during the second half of the war (white Latin cross, blue field, red trim), Mosby M. Parsons' second Missouri brigade (10th, 11th, 12th, 16th Infty, Pindall's MO SS Bttn) received them on April 18, 1863. A member of the 16th MO Infty. described in his diary that the brigade received their new flags on that date at a review in Little Rock.

I've not found any evidence that the units that would later become Parsons' first brigade (8th & 9th MO Infty.) ever received this pattern. In April 1863, the 8th & 9th MO Infty were under the command of Maj. Gen. D. M. Frost at Pine Bluff, AR in April 1863; in October 1863 these units were under the command of Brig. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton. They would not be incorporated with the other MO infantry units into Parsons' Missouri division until March 1864. In February of 1864, a member of the 8th MO sketched the unit's flag, which was a first national pattern. Whether the 8th & 9th ever received the distinctive Latin cross banners remains to be determined. If you run across any information related to the flags of the 8th & 9th MO infantry, please let me know.

I know that 2nd national patterns were issued to many units in the TMD, any idea when this occurred?

Always good to converse with you.

Regards,

Bill