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This is a Super Rare find. This is the Original First National Flag Associated with the CSS Alabama. The CSS Alabama was one of the most famous ships. I’m a mixture of a Collector and dealer of Civil War Artifacts. I was able to pick this flag up from a good friend of mine and love looking at it every day in my office. But I have decided to part with it. It has so much info that goes along with this flag as it is way to much to type up. But comes with letters from Admiral Simmes, CDV of John McIntosh, images of his family, and baptismal cloth.

a boat flag was flown from the ship’s launches including cutters, gigs and life boats. In the case of the captain’s gig, when used for taking the ship commander to shore or another ship, the smaller version of the national flag was hoisted from a small flag staff on the stern of the boat. This was only done when the captain was on board. The rest of the small boats would only hoist their boat flags only when the boat was in the water no matter who was on board.

Initially, boat flags bore the same number of stars that the ensigns bore. With these smaller flags, the stars would have to be scaled small for them and thus hard to see at a distance. Between 1853 and 1857 in American naval tradition, boat flags bore sixteen stars, theorized by some as having to do with the rebirth of the U.S. Navy in 1798 when sixteen states formed the Union. Flag historian Dave Martucci, in researching 16 star flags from the 1850s, has noted that these flags were used by Republican Party concerns to show the sixteen free states of the Union. This, too, could be the source for the boat flags with this number of stars. The earliest known boat flag with sixteen stars dates to 1857.

However, in 1862 U.S. Navy boat flag the number of stars were decreased to thirteen probably in honor of the original thirteen colonies. This was later increased back to sixteen stars and even more stars based on new regulations as time wore on.

The U.S. Navy boat flag seems to have begun use in 1818 but official regulations were not set until 1854. These regulations set sizes for boat flags in the U.S. Navy and declared that five types of these flags were mandated with fly lengths from six to ten feet. These flags were not assigned by ship rating number.

The new regulations of 1863 altered the sizes of flags and created fourteen ship ratings from largest to smallest warships; boat flags were Ratings Ten through Fourteen. These listed five flag sizes as boat flags using fly lengths of five, six, seven, eight and ten feet and overall these were somewhat smaller than the 1854 regulations. Boat flags were often used by the small launches of higher rated warships (like Ships of the Line, frigates, sloops of war, etc.) but were also used as the ensigns for smaller vessels like tugs or small gunboats.

Like most naval flags, these were typically made at the navy yard where a ship was home ported. These yards contained all levels of ship supply from quartermaster, ordnance, sails and repair, engines and repair, and more. Flags were typically made at these yards from wool bunting purchased for that reason and were sometimes stamped on the hoist edge with the naval base. Some surviving U.S. Navy boat flags are also marked with the maker’s mark.

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