The study of Civil War flags has come a long way in the past few years, but it seems that the more one studies the increasingly complex the picture becomes. Interestingly, Confederate flags are generally far better covered in the literature. but unfortunately Federal flags are much less well served. The Union volume of Echoes of Glory gives a brief overview of Federal flags. The illustrations therein should be used alongside Chapter IX in Volume 2 of Richard Sauers, Advance the Colors, Pennsylvania Civil War Battle Flags, 1991 to give a somewhat better overview. But the best single source is still Howard Madaus, “The Conservation of Civil War Flags: The Military Historian’s Perspective” in Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee, Flag Symposium: Papers presented at the Symposium, Harrisburg, PA, October 29-30, 1987, 1988.

The following is a very sort summary of Federal flags. The Quartermaster Department obtained flags through three depots located in New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati. These depots each utilized their own pattern for both the national and regimental flags. These patterns were in turn further modified by the various sub-contractors that the depots used for the actual manufacturing of the flags.

The New York Depot’s suppliers were the firm of Alexander and William Brandon and the company owned by William Scheible. While both of these companies produced an identical pattern of regimental flag their national colours were different.

The Philadelphia Depot obtained flags from four sources. Samuel Brewer had been the primary pre-war contractor and continued to supply a limited number of flags. Brewer was rapidly superseded by Horstmann Bros. and by the company of Evans & Hassall. The latter two companies produced identical national colours, but had noticeable variations in their regimental flags. William Scheible also manufactured an almost identical national flag but is not believed to have made any regimental colours.

The sub-contractors working for the Cincinnati Depot were Longly and Bro. and John Shiletto. Note that it appears that the former made more flags than did the latter. The national flags these two companies made were identical but the regimental flags differed. It should be noted however, that the Cincinnati Depot also distributed a number of flags originally obtained via the Philadelphia Depot (made by either Horstmann Bros. or Evans & Hassell) or the New York Depot (made by Alexander Brandon and others).

Flags were also purchased by both individual states as well as private organizations. Both Horstmann Bros. and Evans & Hassall supplied a large number of flags to these purchasers, very often of a pattern only slightly modified from the flags they supplied to the Philadelphia Depot. Tiffany and Co. provided a number of beautifully embroidered national and regimental flags as did the New York company of Paton. In New England the Boston firm of Charles Eaton supplied national and regimental flags of a distinct pattern (with a number of variations) to Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. In the west Gilbert Hubbard of Chicago and Hugh Wilkins of Louisville provided their own patterns of both national and regimental colours to a number of mid-western regiments.

For the most part each of the different patterns and/or suppliers of flags can be recognized by the flags iconography. But bear in mind that when looking at any collection of Federal flags there are always a good number of flags that do not fall into these categories. As well, even within the established patterns, there are a wealth of subtle variations.

Fortunately, in the past few years a number of the US states have posted images of the flags in their collection. Try googling a specific state along with “civil war flags” This should give you a good start on compiling information towards the different patterns. As well, if you send me your e-mail (mine is ritoews(at)mts.net) I’ll send you a scan of my “Union Flag ID Manual”. This is just a few pages with images of the different flag patterns I carry along when I visit any flag collection.

Ryan