CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA

STAMPS AND POSTAL HISTORY

Stars and Bars

The "Stars and Bars" is the name given to the Confederate 1st National Flag adopted 4 MAR 1861. The usual flag that is seen and associated with the Confederacy showing the 13 stars in a large St. Andrew's Cross is actually known as the "Battle Flag" (Army of Northern Virginia) if square and the "Battle Flag" (Army of Tennesse) or the "Naval Jack" if rectangular. The "Stars and Bars" is illustrated below.

The above is an oil painting by Confederate Stamp Alliance member Ian Tickell of Leigh-on-Sea, England. The flag depicted is the 12-Star Flag used by Colonel John S. Mosby's Partisan Rangers. The original flag is in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

CSA Navy Jack and also the Battle Flag of the Army of Tenneessee

My own primary Confederate Postal History collecting interest has been in the area of the Confederate Patriotic Covers which show the Confederate Flag. I first organized my CSA Patriotic Collection into a 2-Frame exhibit in 1990 and showed it for the first time at the Confederate Stamp Alliance Convention in Nashville, Tenn (NASHPEX '90) where the exhibit was awarded a Silver Medal and the CSA Van Dyke MacBride Award. Since that first experience with exhibiting, I continued to expand the collection into a 48 Page 3-Frame exhibit which was shown at various CSA Conventions over the next several years. The exhibit was last shown at the St. Louis Stamp Expo in 1996. During those intervening years, the exhibit received a number of Silver Medals as well as one Vermeil Medal awarded at VAPEX '95 (Virginia Beach, Va). The exhibit also was the recipient of a number of Confederate Stamp Alliance Awards including the Van Dyke MacBride Award and the William G. Bogg Award. The "Stars and Bars" exhibit has now been retired and will not be shown again at any stamp exhibitions.

Instead, I have posted the entire 48-Page "Stars and Bars" Exhibit here at my web site for the collectors to browse through at their leisure and enjoy. This simple CSA Patriotic Cover Collection and Exhibit took 15 years to form. The pages displayed have been reformatted to better display on the screen, but they contain exactly the same text, data, and composition as the original exhibit pages. I hope that you enjoy the exhibit as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Just click the link below to begin viewing the exhibit.

--The Stars and Bars --


jlkcsa@aol.com