With the formation of the Confederate States of America in early 1861, one of the first orders of business was to create a flag for the new nation. The Committee on the Flag and Seal was formed, and given this task. There were basically two schools of thought in creating the flag. One was to create something that looked very similar to the existing United States flag. The second school of thought was to create a flag very different than the existing United States flag. At the time, there was still feelings of allegiance to the original US flag, and popular opinion was lining up in support of a flag that was similar to the familiar United States flag. Such a flag was created and proposed. This flag is pictured at right.

With the controversy abounding over the Confederate Flag, we thought it would be appropriate to include this brief history on the origin and evolution of the flag.