The red stripe modification was put forth by Major Arthur L. Rogers who argued that during the mist of battle the Second National Flag looked too much like a white flag of surrender. He took this argument to the Confederate Senate where he proposed that not only will the redesign cause less confusion on the battlefield, but that the less “Yankee Blue” the flag had the better. This of course in reference to the blue on the United States flag and blue uniforms Union soldiers wore. [1]
The Flag Act of 1865 officially adopted the Third National flag. Unfortunately the law passed near the very end of the war and very few flags were made and put on the field. While very few Confederate soldiers ever saw the flag it’s now almost universally distinguished in Dixie. [1]
The Flag Act of 1865, passed by the Confederate congress near the very end of the War, describes the flag in the following language:
The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That the flag of the Confederate States shall be as follows: The width two-thirds of its length, with the union (now used as the battle flag) to be in width three-fifths of the width of the flag, and so proportioned as to leave the length of the field on the side of the union twice the width of the field below it; to have the ground red and a broad blue saltire thereon, bordered with white and emblazoned with mullets or five pointed stars, corresponding in number to that of the Confederate States; the field to be white, except the outer half from the union to be a red bar extending the width of the flag.[2]
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