The Southern Cross: The Story of the Confederacy’s First Battle Flag chronicles the
history of the design and creation of a flag that became the prototype for all of the St.
Andrew’s Cross battle flags carried by Confederate armed forces. The hand-stitched
silk flag with gold painted stars was borne by the Fifth Company of the Washington
Artillery of New Orleans through the Battles of Shiloh and Perryville.

The flag was designed and made for the army after the first battle of Manassas as a
military necessity and wholly without the authority or even the knowledge of the
Confederate government. Mobile, Alabama native Mary Henry Lyon Jones of
Richmond, Virginia was selected to stitch the flag together. After Generals P.G.T.
Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston approved Ms. Jones’s flag, sewing circles of more
than four hundred women in Richmond sewed 120 flags made from Ms. Jones’s
original design.

A collection of photographic images of the officers and men of the Fifth Company,
portraits of Mary Henry Lyon Jones and Hetty, Jenny and Constance Cary, the most
noted flag makers, along with a rich collection of documents and magnificent images
of Confederate flags from the Museum of the Confederacy appear on the screen.
Action scenes, filmed at Waveland Historic Site in Lexington, Kentucky, depict Mary
Henry Lyon Jones being given the design for the flag and stitching the prototype, and,
the Richmond sewing circles stitching the 120 battle flags to be given to the army in
November 1861. Seven lovely ladies from the Vintage Dance Society of Lexington
appear in their gowns and hoop skirts. Battle scenes of Shiloh and Perryville are
stunning. In an eerie turn of fate, the flag was returned to Mobile after the Perryville
campaign, and the 5th Company surrendered at Mobile in 1865, completing the circle.
The story of the flag’s creation and service will surprise and delight viewers everywhere.