An unusual 31-star U.S. Storm Flag, diagonal rows of stars.
This flag has an unusual star pattern, somewhat similar to the truncated diamond employed on U.S. military garrison flags of the same period. California became the 31st state in 1850, with its star being added to the United States' flag officially in the following year of 1851. Thirty-one stars remained official until Minnesota's admission into the Union in 1858. This flag was exhibited in 1996 in Los Gatos, California, at Hillbrook School.

The field consists of thirteen alternating, horizontal red and white wool/bunting stripes; both the topmost and bottommost stripes are red. Inset into the upper, hoist corner is a union/canton of dark blue wool/bunting, measuring 114-116" width by 49-51" height, composed of four widths of bunting pieced horizontally by hand (and with the uppermost of these pieced vertically as well). The canton bears 31 white, 5-pointed cotton stars, each 9" across, sewn by hand on the obverse and reverse sides, in neat diagonal rows. The hoist edge of the flag is finished with a 3" wide white canvas heading, to which ten metal rings have been sewn for attaching the flag to a halyard.

The flag has a wool bunting field and canton with cotton stars, all hand sewn. It measures 113" on the hoist by 222" on the fly (9.5' by 18.5'). This type of storm flag does not appear in military post regulations until 1857. At that time, the size was specified at 10" hoist by 20" fly. By 1854 the U.S. Navy had provided six sizes of ensigns for the U.S. fleet. Five of these were large ensigns for regular usage. Their sizes (hoist to fly) were: 18.75" by 36"; 16.75" by 32"; 14.5" by 28"; 13" by 25"; and 11.5" by 22". Like the Army, the Navy also provided a Storm Ensign. It measured 8.25" by 16". As in the Army flags, and as in all of these Navy flags, the canton was to extend through the seventh stripe from the top. While the canton dimensions on the fly for Army flags were to be one-third of that dimension, on Navy flags the canton was to extend four-tenths of that distance. On this particular flag, the cantons distance on the fly measures slightly more than one-half the whole dimension of the fly. This would suggest that the flag, while close to the storm flag of both services dimensionally, is not actually a military or naval issue flag. The ten metal rings along its heading, however, clearly indicate that it was to be flown from a halyard on a pole.

Thie flag is part of the Howard Michael Madaus sub-collection of Civil War Military Flags which was assembled from a variety of sources over a thirty year period of collecting (1970-2000), before being acquired by the Zaricor Collection in 2000. The sub-collection attempts to present an example of each of the major types of depot contractor regulation flags and colors carried by Union forces at the basic unit level, i.e. regiment, battalion, company, and battery, as well as the types of general military flags.

This sub-collection (Howard Michael Madaus collection) added to the Zaricor Civil War collection is the largest and (while not complete) most comprehensive collection of the military flags carried by the Union Army during the Civil War outside of state repositories designated by the War Department for the deposit of flags after the War or in public museum collections. In fact this private collection is larger and more comprehensive than many of the public museum collections in the United States.

Exhibition History:
Hillbrook School
Los Gatos, CA
June 1996

Baltimore Star Spangled Banner Flag House 3/2004
31-Star United States Flag

Presidential Debate
Washington University at St. Louis
October 2004

Provenance:
• Acquired by Howard M. Madaus, Cody, WY.
• Acquired by purchase from Howard M. Madaus, Cody, WY. by Zaricor Flag Collection, 1995.


ZFC Significant Flag

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