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>>>>The Magruder Flags sound like a variation of South Carolina flags presented in Glenn Dedmondt's "The Flags of Civil War South Carolina" (Pelican Publishing, 2000) on pages 31-32, and 124. Glenn identified these as "Mercury pattern" flags in honor of a "Charleston Mercury" newspaper proposal in early 1862. Is there a connection to the Magruder flags?>>>>

No connection whatsoever. Howard Madaus actually made the connection years ago for the SC flags and the Mercury article based on the flags of the pattern he found in Charleston museums and then the article itself. My lecture on CS flags is over 16 years old and I have been talking about these flags since I first wrote it thanks to Howie.

I have the article and the Mercury's headline states, "the new Confederate flag." This seems to be a done deal by that headline instead of which the headline should have stated, "this is a new flag proposal." Since the Mercury was one of the most important CS papers regarding flags, the area troops assumed that these flags were the new CS flags and had some made - by whom we have no idea.

These flags had two sets of triangles, red and white (although one arty flag has blue triangles) with their points meeting in the center. Over that was a shield bearing a sun with 13 rays for each CS state. By the way, the flag made from the dress of Mrs. John Breckinridge given to the 20th Tennessee in March, 1863 was of this pattern.

The Magruder flags were square with the red triangle being on the hoist edge and the white triangle being on the fly edge.

Hope this helps.

Greg Biggs