Heroism of Major Anderson: Confederacy and Secretary

Having appointed standing committees, the Convention proceeded to choose a committee to report a form for a permanent government for the Confederacy, and they and the members warmly discussed the subject of a proper national flag and seal. Almost daily, various devices were sent in; and finally they decided that the national flag should consist of two red and one white stripe of equal width, running horizontally, with a blue union spangled with seven white stars, for, since the beginning of their session, Texas had joined the Confederacy, making seven States in their union. This flag, under which the insurgent hosts rushed to battle, was first displayed over the State-House at Montgomery on the 4th of March, 1861. The Confederate government never possessed a seal, the emblem of sovereignty. One which they had ordered from England arrived at Richmond just as the Confederacy was broken up, in April, 1865, and was never used.

When Jefferson Davis was apprised, at his home near Vicksburg, of his election to the presidency, he hastened to Montgomery, where he was received with great enthusiasm, on the 15th of February. He was welcomed with the thunder of cannon and shouts of a great multitude; and at the railway station he made a speech, in which he briefly reviewed the then position of the South. He declared that the time for compromises had passed. "We are now determined," he said, "to maintain our position, and make all who oppose us smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel. We will maintain our rights and our government at all hazards. We ask nothing; we want nothing; and will have no complications. If the other States join our Confederacy, they can freely come in on our terms. Our separation from the old Union is complete, and no compromise, no reconciliation can now be entertained." He was inaugurated on the 18th, when he chose for his constitutional advisers, Robert Toombs, Secretary of State; Charles G. Memminger, Secretary of the Treasury; Le Roy Pope Walker, Secretary of War; Stephen R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, and John H. Reagan, Postmaster-General. Judah P. Benjamin was appointed Attorney-General. So was inaugurated the government known as the Confederate States of America, which carried on war against the life of our Republic for more than four years.