General Hardee’s Tennessee Moon was adopted and used by several Confederate units across the western theatre as their battle flag because of its distinctive design and dissimilarity to the 1st National flag which was often confused with the Union flag on the battlefield when viewed from a distance.
History of the Hardee Flag
Hardee’s battle flag was originally designed by General Simon Bolivar Buckner and was issued to his men in January of 1862. They were attached to the Army of Central Kentucky based in Bowling Green. The first action for the Army of Central Kentucky was at the battle of Fort Donelson which was a Confederate loss. After the battle, the remaining troops became General William J. Hardee’s Corps, and they retained the flag. Each unit was issued its own flag, most of which were inscribed with the regimental abbreviation, for example, “3rd Tenn”, as well as that unit’s honors (battles in which they were engaged). Many subsequent iterations of the design were used by Confederate regiments such as the 54th Georgia Volunteers, Cleburne’s 17th and 18th Texas Cavalry Dismounted, 18th Alabama, and 6th Arkansas, just to name a few. Most were handmade by various regimental tailors and were different from each other in terms of size, proportion, size, and shape of the disk, and shade of the blue background. Some of the Hardee battle flags had a white border and some did not. Such a large number of Tennessee regiments used this design, it was often referred to as the Tennessee Moon flag.
This flag is a 3×5 reproduction of the Hardee battle flag that is a general representation of the Hardee design.
Made of printed polyester which is a very lightweight material that will fly nicely in the slightest breeze.
- One solid piece of printed, hemmed fabric
- Heavy canvas header with brass grommets
- 4 rows of stitching on the fly end to prevent premature fraying
- Flag size 3’x5′
