For Memorial Day: Patriotic Accessories from the Civil War Era

An advertisement from The Press, 29 July 1863. Founded by John Weiss Forney in 1857, the paper was published in Philadelphia until 1920. In 1894, it serialized Stephen Crane's Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage.

Flags, pennants, bunting, streamers. Hats, too. What more could one want?

Oh, burgees? Although the term dates to 1750, it did not appear in Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary, but as his successors at today's Merriam-Webster firm in Springfield explain, this is "a swallow-tailed flag used especially by ships for signals or identification."