Flags Used By Mississippi During the War Between the States
Illustrated, photographs, bibliography, appendices, index, 135 pp., 2008. J. Chalmers Publishing, flagsusedms@gmail.com, $33. If you are into vexillology (the study of flags), especially Confederate flags, and more especially those carried by Confederate soldiers from Mississippi in the Civil War, this book is for you. I will not debate the title; a friend of mine calls it the War of Yankee Aggression. The book, a labor of love, is a non-profit project approved and supported by the Mississippi Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans. This book is a first attempt at a book-length study of Mississippi Confederate flags. It is a prodigious attempt to compile a catalog of as much information (digital pictures, drawings, histories, descriptions, dimensions, etc.) on as many flags as can be found. It is the current culmination of what has been located with, hopefully, a second, enlarged edition yet to come. As with most books of this kind, the research is ongoing, and surely more flags will be discovered. Two large drawbacks to this seminal work have been (1) costs involved in acquiring photographs of flags in institutions that charge exorbitant fees for photographs of objects in their collections and (2) denial of access by other institutions and private individuals who own original flags. These practices are most unfortunate. I laud Hawkins' persistent continuing efforts. The book is divided into two major theaters and armies of the Confederate States of America: The Army of Northern Virginia and the Eastern Theater and the Army of Tennessee and the Western Theater. Within those two major Confederate Army components the various brigades that contained Mississippi units are delineated by the numbered regiments. This approach is a simple but effective means of presenting the known information. What makes the texts for each regiment and flag interesting are the accompanying histories from the flags' manufacture (when known) to their presentations and by whom (when known), to their respective battles and battle honors, to their capture (when and if they were), and to their postwar whereabouts and their current public and private repositories (when known). For those of us who love Confederate history and the individual valor of the color bearers, many of the stories recounted herein are riveting and exciting. Now for a bit of the downside. Although I will probably sound unduly critical, what is said will not just be for the author's benefit but for other authors as well. There are far too many grammatical errors, spelling errors, punctuation errors, too many errors of syntax and language usage, and inconsistent and improper flag terminology to allow me to recommend this work as a scholarly piece. Some few instances, and they are legion throughout, will give the reader a sense of the need for a professional editor if and when a second edition is published: (1) Gen. Joseph E. Johnston should always be spelled Johnston, not Johnson as is too often the case. (2) The Old Capital Museum is constantly misspelled; it should always be The Old Capitol Museum (now the Museum of Mississippi History). (3) When a flag is shown photographically or as a drawing, the proper spelling of the motto or other inscription as seen on the flag should be printed in the text. In numerous cases letters or even names are missing or misused. (4) The word "inverted" when used to describe crossed cannon on a flag that depicts the capture of an artillery piece, or even a battery, means the muzzles would be down and the cascabels would be up. In most cases the crossed cannon tubes are not inverted but are really upright muzzles up and cascabels down. Howard Michael Madaus says in his book on the Battle Flags of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, ".... the crossed cannon are not inverted on most of the Hardee pattern flags' ΔΆ." Most of those pictured in the Mississippi flags book are not inverted; thus that word is constantly misused. This book appears to have been hastily and carelessly done, and certainly was not edited. Spelling, periods, commas, apostrophes, sentence structure and accuracy are the responsibility of the writer and editor (if any). That responsibility was not fulfilled in this book's text. Since the old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" is still applicable in today's world, this book is worth having just for the photographs and drawings. If you are a flag buff, you will be thrilled with what is pictured. Reviewer: Michael J. Winey Michael J. Winey, who has a BS in history and MS in history museum training, was a curator for more than 25 years and is retired from the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pa.
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