Hi Glenn:

Thanks for an informative response! I will ask Jim Martin if he can move all of this correspondence over to the Civil War Flags Message Board where it really belongs. Had I kept my mind on what I was doing at the time, I would have posted my first query there to begin with.

(1) You wrote: >>>"The Flags of Civil War South Carolina" was my first flag book. I knew of this report while I was putting the book together but chose not to include the flag since there was no surviving example. I feel that that was a mistake. There is ample evidence that this flag was used, albeit briefly.<<<

It is a great book in my opinion! Do you think that the "displayed at Harvard" story for this red "state sovereignty" flag is a post-war myth? Or "probably" true?

(2) Ron Field's presentation on the adoption of the official flag of South Carolina in January 1861 (blue with white palmetto and crescent) appears to be well argued and not in any fundamental conflict with the flags presented in your book. The final version as drawn by Devereaux Cannon appears identical with today's state flag except for a variation in the orientation of the horns of the crescent (vertical in 1861 versus angled at roughly 45 degrees to the upper left). http://www.confederateflags.org/

(3) I also found a description of a red variation of the current state flag on a State Library posting which was attributed to the Citadel Corps of Cadets. http://www.palmettopages.com/sc/facts/flag.html

It is said to originated with the the South Carolina battery on Morris Island manned by Citadel Cadets which fired on the Star of the West in January 1861. Is this another myth or a story grounded in facts?

My son lives in South Carolina and I have seen more and more of these red flags appearing over the past two years. On my last visit, one of his neighbors had hung a red palmetto flag out and had it upside down. I finally couldn't stand it any longer and went over to cheerfully ask if it was a sign of distress or did they not know which side was up. When I mentioned the association with the Citadel, I got blank stares from them. It was hung upside down for a gag, but they clearly did not associate the flag with the Citadel.

I have an impression that the current blue state flag has been adopted by the "anti-Confederate cultural warriors" in South Carolina and that the anti "anti-Confederates" have countered with the red version. Am I off base on this conclusion?

I get treated like some kind of white supremicist whenever I ask the question of people who I think ought to know. But the blue palmetto flag dates from the American Revolution and belongs to all of South Carolina, including Confederate South Carolina, and I, for one, am not inclined to let the "anti-Confederates" have it.

Thanks again for your informative response to my first question!

Hugh