Flag
The Missouri State Guard did not have an official flag until MSG General Sterling Price ordered on June 5, 1861,
"III. Each regiment will adopt the State flag, made of blue merino, 6 by 5 feet, with the Missouri coat-of-arms in gold gilt on each side. Each mounted company will have a guidon, the flag of which will be of white merino, 3 by 2½ feet, with the letters M.S.G. in gilt on each side."
Interestingly, a number of Missouri (Federal) volunteer regiments were issued a flag of an almost identical pattern: a blue flag, with the Missouri state arms in gold. This is an example of the long-running struggle between Missouri's (post-Jun 17, 1861) Unionist government in Jefferson City and Claiborne Fox Jackson's (and later Thomas C. Reynolds') secessionist government-in-exile for control of symbols of Missouri governmental legitimacy.
Read more about this topic: Missouri State Guard
Famous quotes containing the word flag:
“Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
“Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.”
—Stephen Crane (1871–1900)
“There’s an enduring American compulsion to be on the side of the angels. Expediency alone has never been an adequate American reason for doing anything. When actions are judged, they go before the bar of God, where Mom and the Flag closely flank His presence.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)