Johnson's New Chart of National Emblems (c. 1864)

About

Johnson's New Chart of National Emblems is a hand-coloured double-page chart of the flag world, issued by a New York atlas publisher during the American Civil War. It carries 118 flag drawings: 102 in nine ruled rows, two small panels flanking the title, twelve pilot signals in two boxed tables, and two long pennants winding along the foot of the sheet around the publisher's imprint.

The chart is the American counterpart of the French plate Pavillons des principales puissances in this collection, and its near-exact contemporary: two publishers on opposite sides of the Atlantic cataloguing the same flag world within a year or two of each other. Their sharpest difference is editorial. The Paris plate pairs the American belligerents without comment; Johnson's caption for the Confederate flag reads Confederate States of America (so called!), the publisher's politics printed into the sheet.

This page catalogues the chart as a historical source. Printed captions are transcribed as printed; a modern identification follows each transcription in italics. The printed captions do not by themselves establish that every depicted design was official, current, or colour-accurate at the time of publication — several demonstrably were not (see Method and Next Stage).

Source Catalogue

Complete double-page chart titled Johnson's New Chart of National Emblems, showing rows of flags on staffs, two boxed tables of pilot signals, four large corner standards, and two pennants along the foot — Complete chart, reduced for display. Select the image to open the full 600 dpi source scan (about 245 MB).

Printed title	Johnson's New Chart of National Emblems, lettered at the head of the sheet between the two title panels.
Printed copyright	“Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1863 by A. J. Johnson, in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.” — along the foot of the sheet.
Collection date	c. 1864 (assigned). The chart was entered for copyright in 1863 and issued in atlas editions of the following years (see below).
Associated work	Johnson's atlas series (Johnson's New Illustrated Family Atlas); the sheet is a double-page plate carrying the page numerals 4 and 5 in its upper corners.
Publisher	Johnson & Ward, New York — “Published by Johnson & Ward.” on an engraved ribbon at the foot.
Creator of plate	Not stated; A. J. Johnson holds the copyright.
Language	English
Format	Engraved double-page chart, hand-coloured, within an ornamental knotwork border set with star medallions. Flags are drawn flying from staffs in ruled rows, captions beneath each flag.
Physical extent	One double-page plate; approximately 63 × 46 cm, inferred from the 600 dpi scan. Dimensions of the physical sheet not yet measured directly.
Provenance	Not yet recorded
Contents	118 flag drawings: two small panels flanking the title (Hawaiian Islands, Weimar); nine rows of flag panels (102 drawings, including the four large corner standards of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and France); two boxed tables of six pilot signals each, headed “Signals for Pilots.”; and two long pennants (Portuguese, Spanish) at the foot.
Digital surrogate	Complete sheet: JPEG, 14882 × 10963 pixels at 600 dpi, with a reduced 1024 × 754 JPEG for display. Extracted panels: PNG (118), cropped from the 600 dpi scan.
Catalogue status	Preliminary. Edition identification, provenance, and individual flag analysis remain subject to revision.

Editorial convention: Printed captions are retained because they are evidence of the source's terminology — Hayti, Dominica, Equador, Chili, New Grenada, Konigsberg, Lubeck, Birmah, Frankfort on the Main, and Russian American Comp^y. are kept as printed. Modern identification and analysis are supplied separately, without silently replacing the printed labels.

Internal Dating Evidence

The chart dates itself unusually well. The printed copyright line names the year 1863, and the imprint names Johnson & Ward, the partnership that published Johnson's atlases in the early-to-mid 1860s. The internal evidence agrees precisely:

The canton of the United States standard carries 35 stars, drawn in five loose rows of seven. The 35-star flag became official on 4 July 1863, after the admission of West Virginia, and was superseded by the 36-star flag in July 1865. The Confederate States panel shows the second national pattern — the white “Stainless Banner” with the battle-flag canton — adopted 1 May 1863. Both point to a chart drawn in the second half of 1863 at the earliest.

The rest of the sheet fits the same moment. The Ionian Islands are still a British protectorate, ceded to Greece only in 1864. New Grenada keeps the name that was giving way to the United States of Colombia in 1863. The Russian American Comp^y. still governed Alaska, sold in 1867. Hanover and Frankfort on the Main remained sovereign until 1866, and the French Standard is the imperial standard of Napoleon III. A chart copyrighted in 1863 and issued in the atlas editions that followed sits squarely inside that bracket, which is the collection-assigned date of c. 1864.

Currency is uneven here as on every chart in this collection: several panels reproduce designs long obsolete in 1863 (see Method and Next Stage). They date the publisher's models, not the sheet.

Index of Flag Panels

The chart contains 118 flag drawings, indexed here in the order of the sheet: the two panels flanking the title, then the nine rows read left to right (large corner standards in their positions), then the two boxed tables of pilot signals, then the two pennants at the foot. Where the source prints a second caption line, it is given beneath the printed name. Select any image to open the full-resolution extraction from the 600 dpi scan.

Head of the Sheet

Two small panels flank the title lettering.

Flag with Union Jack canton and eight stripes in white, red, and blue, labelled Hawaiian Islands (Sandwich Islands) — Hawaiian Islands.(Sandwich Islands.)Kingdom of Hawaii — eight stripes in the documented orderPolity page →

Flag of red and white horizontal stripes, labelled Weimar — Weimar.Saxe-Weimar — red and white stripes of the chart tradition

First Row — the United States and Great Britain

The two large corner panels — the United States standard with its 35-star canton and the British royal standard — bracket a row of American and British flags.

Large United States flag with 35-star canton and small starred pennant above, labelled United States — United StatesUnited States — 35-star flag, pattern of 1863–1865

Blue flag spangled with white stars, labelled American Jack — American Jack.United States — navy jack, stars on blue

Swallow-tailed blue pennant with white stars, labelled American Commodores Pennant — American Commodores Pennant.United States — commodore's broad pennant

Plain blue flag, labelled American Admiral — American Admiral.United States — admiral's plain blue flag

Plain yellow flag, labelled American Quarantine — American Quarantine.United States — yellow quarantine flag

Flag of vertical red and white stripes with an eagle canton, labelled American Customs — American Customs.United States — revenue ensign, vertical stripes with eagle canton

Striped flag with Union Jack canton, labelled East India Company — East India Company.East India Company — striped ensign of nine stripes; Company rule in India had ended in 1858Flag page →

Green flag with Union Jack canton and gold harp, labelled Ireland — Ireland.Ireland — green ensign with the harp

White flag with red cross and a sailing ship in each quarter, labelled Trinity House — Trinity House.Trinity House — St George's cross with a ship in each quarter

Red ensign with Union Jack canton, labelled Red Ensign — Red Ensign.United Kingdom — merchant red ensign

Union Jack, labelled Union Jack — Union JackUnited Kingdom — Union Jack

Large quartered royal standard with streamer and St George pennant, labelled Royal Standard of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Ireland — Royal Standard of the United KingdomGreat Britain & Ireland.United Kingdom — royal standard

Second Row

Mexico and the Caribbean, then a run of smaller European states.

Mexican tricolour with eagle and serpent, labelled Mexico — Mexico.Mexico — tricolour with the eagle and serpent

Blue and white banded flag with faint oval seal, labelled Central America — Central America.Central America — the federal republic had dissolved by 1841

Blue and white banded flag, labelled San Salvador — San Salvador.El Salvador — blue and white bands

Blue over red flag with arms, labelled Hayti — Hayti.Haiti — blue over red with arms

Blue over red flag with white cross and stars, labelled Dominica — Dominica.Dominican Republic — white cross with stars on blue over red

Tricolour with arms in the yellow band, the middle band printing pale, labelled Venezuela — Venezuela.Venezuela — tricolour with arms; the middle band prints pale

Red ensign with Union Jack canton and three-legged emblem, labelled Isle of Man — Isle of Man.Isle of Man — red ensign with the triskeles

Red ensign with crossed canton bearing a running white horse, labelled Kingdom of Hanover — Kingdom of Hanover.Kingdom of Hanover — annexed by Prussia in 1866

Red flag with running white horse, labelled Hanover, Royal Flag — Hanover,Royal Flag.Kingdom of Hanover — the white horse on red

Red flag with winged lion of St Mark, labelled Venice — Venice.Venice — the lion of St Mark; Venetia was under Austrian rule until 1866

White flag with crossed keys and tiara, labelled Papal Standard — Papal StandardPapal States — crossed keys and tiara

Blue flag with white cross bearing a crown, labelled Greece — GreeceKingdom of Greece — white cross with crown

Third Row

South America, then the Italian question in three panels — the new Kingdom of Italy printed alongside Tuscany and Sardinia, two of the states it had already absorbed — and the Ionian Islands to close the row.

Yellow, blue, and red banded flag with bird-topped arms, labelled New Grenada — New Grenada.New Granada — renamed the United States of Colombia in 1863

Yellow, blue, and red banded flag with arms, labelled Equador — Equador.Ecuador — tricolour with arms

Vertical red and white banded flag with arms, labelled Peru — Peru.Peru — vertical red-white-red with arms

Yellow, red, and green banded flag with wreathed emblem, labelled Bolivia — Bolivia.Bolivia — shown yellow-red-green; the documented order since 1851 is red-yellow-green

Chilean flag with white star on blue canton, labelled Chili — Chili.Chile

Blue and white banded flag without sun, labelled Argentine Republic — Argentine Republic.Argentine Republic — without the sun; a second panel with the sun opens the fourth row

White flag with blue stripes and red eagle shield, labelled Konigsberg — Konigsberg.Königsberg — merchant flag

Red flag with white cross, labelled Switzerland — Switzerland.Switzerland — white cross on red

Italian tricolour with crowned shield of Savoy, labelled Kingdom of Italy — Kingdom of Italy.Kingdom of Italy — proclaimed 1861, tricolour with the crowned arms of Savoy

White flag with large ornate arms, labelled Tuscany — Tuscany.Tuscany — absorbed into the Italian kingdom in 1860

Blue flag with red crossed canton, labelled Kingdom of Sardinia — Kingdom of Sardinia.Kingdom of Sardinia — merged into the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, yet printed beside it

Blue flag with red border, Union Jack canton, and winged lion, labelled Ionian Islands — Ionian Islands.United States of the Ionian Islands — British protectorate, ceded to Greece in 1864

Fourth Row

From here to the sixth row the panels run between the two boxed tables of pilot signals. South America concludes; the German and Italian trading cities begin.

Blue and white banded flag with sun, labelled Argentine Republic — Argentine RepublicArgentine Republic — with the Sun of May

Striped flag with sun in canton, labelled Uruguay — Uruguay.Uruguay — sun and stripes

Red, white, and blue banded flag with wreathed seal, labelled Paraguay — Paraguay.Paraguay — tricolour with wreathed seal

Green flag with yellow lozenge and crowned imperial arms, labelled Brazil — Brazil.Empire of Brazil — imperial flag, current here; an archaism when the c. 1899 sheet repeated it

Red, white, and blue tricolour with lions and shield, labelled Holland — Holland.Netherlands — tricolour with arms

Black, red, and yellow horizontal tricolour, labelled German Merchant — German Merchant.German Confederation — the black-red-gold tricolour

White over red flag, labelled Lubeck — Lubeck.Lübeck — white over red

White flag with two red stripes and black eagles, labelled Sicily — Sicily.Sicily — the kingdom had been absorbed into Italy in 1861

Red flag with white castle and anchor, labelled Hamburg, Merchant Flag same without Anchor — Hamburg.Merchant Flag, same without Anchor.Hamburg — the castle, here with an anchor

White flag with elaborate Bourbon arms, labelled Naples — Naples.Naples — Bourbon arms; the kingdom had fallen in 1861

Fifth Row

Spain, Prussia, and Portugal, each in three grades.

Spanish royal standard crowded with quarterings, labelled Spanish Standard — Spanish Standard.Kingdom of Spain — the quartered chart-tradition standardFlag page →

Red and yellow ensign with oval arms, labelled Spanish Man of War — Spanish Man of War.Kingdom of Spain — war ensign

Yellow flag with two red stripes, labelled Spanish Merchant — Spanish Merchant.Kingdom of Spain — merchant ensign

Red standard with black cross, central eagle, crowns and eagles, labelled Prussian Standard — Prussian Standard.Prussia — royal standard

White swallow-tailed ensign with black eagle and cross, labelled Prussian Man of War — Prussian Man of War.Prussia — war ensign with the black eagle

White flag with black eagle and black border bands, labelled Prussian Merchant — Prussian Merchant.Prussia — merchant flag with the black eagle

Blue, white, and red banded flag with small arms, labelled Mecklenburg — Mecklenburg.Mecklenburg — blue, white, and red with arms

Green and white striped flag, labelled Portuguese Coaster — Portuguese Coaster.Portugal — coaster's striped flag

White flag with crowned red shield, labelled Portuguese Man of War — Portuguese Man of War.Kingdom of Portugal — war ensign, crowned arms on white

White standard with crowned red shield, labelled Portuguese Standard — Portuguese Standard.Kingdom of Portugal — royal standard

Sixth Row

The Barbary coast and the Ottoman world, the remaining free cities — and the Confederate panel with the publisher's editorial parenthesis.

White over red flag, labelled Moorish — Moorish.Barbary — generic “Moorish” flag of the chart tradition

Red flag with triangled border and white crossed scissors-like device, labelled Morocco — Morocco.Morocco — the crossed “scissors” device that flag charts had copied from one another since the early eighteenth century

Green flag with crescents, labelled Tripoli — Tripoli.Tripoli — green with crescents

Flag of red, green, and blue stripes, labelled Tunis — Tunis.Tunis — striped

Flag of red, white, and blue stripes, labelled Algiers — Algiers.Algiers — striped; under French rule since 1830

Red flag with green oval bearing three crescents, labelled Turkey — TurkeyOttoman Empire — three crescents, an older chart model rather than the star and crescent

Red and white striped flag chequered at the hoist, labelled Bremen — Bremen.Bremen — red and white stripes, chequered at the hoist

White flag with red stripes and eagle shield, labelled Frankfort on the Main — Frankfort on the Main.Free City of Frankfurt — annexed by Prussia in 1866

White flag with starred saltire canton, labelled Confederate States of America, so called, with exclamation point — Confederate States.of America. (so called!)Confederate States — second national pattern, adopted May 1863; the parenthesis is the publisher's own

Striped flag with white star on blue canton, labelled Liberia — LiberiaLiberia — lone star and stripes

Seventh Row

Denmark and Austria in three grades each, then the Baltic and Asia.

Swallow-tailed Danish flag with central arms, labelled Danish Royal Standard — Danish Royal Standard.Denmark — royal standard with arms

Swallow-tailed Danish flag, labelled Danish Man of War — Danish Man of War.Denmark — swallow-tailed war ensign

Rectangular Danish flag, labelled Danish Merchant — Danish Merchant.Denmark — merchant Dannebrog

Yellow standard with black double eagle and triangled border, labelled Emperor of Austria — Emperor of Austria.Austrian Empire — imperial standard, double eagle on yellow

Red-white-red ensign with crowned shield, labelled Austrian Man of War — Austrian Man of War.Austria — war ensign with crowned shield

Red-white-red flag with yellow cypher, labelled Austrian Merchant — Austrian Merchant.Austria — merchant flag with a yellow cypher

White flag with red Maltese cross, labelled Malta — Malta.Malta — a chart-tradition flag; the island was British

Blue flag with yellow cross bearing crossed keys, labelled Riga — Riga.Riga — yellow cross with crossed keys

White flag with red disc and dark bars, labelled Japan — Japan.Japan — the sun disc

White flag with a peacock in full display, labelled Birmah — Birmah.Burma — the royal peacock

Red flag with white elephant, labelled Kingdom of Siam — Kingdom of Siam.Siam — white elephant on red

White flag crowded with drawn creatures and figures, labelled Cochin China — Cochin China.Cochin China — a menagerie of the chart tradition rather than any documented flag

Eighth Row

Russia and Scandinavia, then Egypt, Persia, and China.

White flag with blue anchor and striped canton, labelled Russian Transport — Russian Transport.Russia — transport flag with blue anchor

White flag with blue saltire, labelled Russian Man of War — Russian Man of War.Russia — the St Andrew's ensign

White, blue, and red flag with black eagle in the white band, labelled Russian American Company — Russian American Comp^y.Russian-American Company — it governed Alaska until the sale of 1867

Swallow-tailed red ensign with blue cross and union canton, labelled Norwegian Man of War — Norwegian Man of War.Norway — war ensign with the union mark

Triple-tailed blue ensign with yellow cross, union canton, and arms, labelled Swedish Royal Standard, Norwegian Red Ground Blue Cross — Swedish Royal Standard.Norwegian Red Ground, Blue Cross.Sweden — royal standard with the union mark; the note supplies the Norwegian variant

Blue flag with yellow cross and union canton, labelled Swedish Merchant — Swedish Merchant.Sweden — merchant flag with the union mark

Green flag with pale crescent, labelled Egypt — Egypt.Egypt — crescent on green, a chart-tradition attribution

White flag with three dark lions, labelled Persian Standard — Persian Standard.Persia — three lions, an older chart model

Green and red striped flag studded with crescents and suns, labelled Persia — Persia.Persia — striped and ornamented

Triple-tailed blue and yellow banner with crescents, stars, and a sword, labelled Persia, The Shah — Persia.The Shah.Persia — the Shah's banner

Yellow flag with black dragon and scalloped blue border, labelled China, Imperial Flag — China.Imperial Flag.Qing China — the dragon on yellow, adopted for ships in 1862

Triangular blue pennant with scalloped red border, labelled China, with a note that Chinese flags have different colors and sometimes bear an emblem — China.Chinese Flags have different Colors and sometimes bear an Emblem.China — the note concedes the variability of Chinese flags

Ninth Row

The two lower corner standards — the Russian imperial standard and the French imperial standard of Napoleon III — bracket the final row.

Large yellow standard with black double-headed eagle and blue-and-white streamer, labelled Russian Standard — Russian Standard.Russian Empire — imperial standard, the double eagle on yellow

Red flag with blue saltire fimbriated white, labelled Russian Jack — Russian Jack.Russia — naval jack; the same design appears again as the Russian pilot signal

White, blue, and red horizontal tricolour, labelled Russian Merchant — Russian Merchant.Russia — merchant tricolour

White flag with blue saltire and red canton bearing a white eagle, labelled Poland — Poland.Poland — a chart-tradition flag, printed in the year of the January Uprising against Russia

Yellow flag with black griffin, labelled Rostock — Rostock.Rostock — the griffin on yellow; a Mecklenburg port town, not a sovereign state

Vertical black, yellow, and red tricolour with arms, labelled Belgium, Navy and Merchant Flags without arms — Belgium.Navy & Merchant Flags without arms.Belgium — tricolour with arms

Striped flag with green wreath and sword, labelled Batavia — Batavia.Batavia — the Dutch East Indies chart flag, wreath and sword

Red flag with crescent and sun, labelled Arabia — Arabia.Arabia — crescent and sun, a chart-tradition attribution

White flag with red cross and starred canton, labelled New Zealand — New Zealand.New Zealand — the 1834 flag of the United Tribes, kept by charts long after annexation

Flag halved yellow and red, labelled French Colonies, Eastern — French ColoniesEastern.French colonies in the East

Flag quartered blue and yellow, labelled French Colonies, Western — French Colonies.Western.French colonies in the West

Large French tricolour scattered with bees and bearing the crowned imperial arms, labelled French Standard — French Standard.France — imperial standard of Napoleon III, semé of bees with the imperial arms

Signals for Pilots

Two boxed tables, each headed Signals for Pilots., flank the middle rows of the chart inside red borders. Each holds six flags in two columns.

White flag with broad blue border, labelled New York — New York.New York pilots — white, blue-bordered

Flag of red and white checks, labelled Spanish — Spanish.Spain — red and white checks

White flag with four red squares, labelled Danish — Danish.Denmark

Yellow-bordered red-white-red flag with shield, labelled Austrian — Austrian.Austria

Flag resembling the Russian naval jack, labelled Russian — Russian.Russia — the naval jack doing double duty as pilot signal

Vertical blue, white, and blue flag, labelled Neapolitan — Neapolitan.Naples

White flag with red framed cross device, labelled Sardinian — Sardinian.Sardinia

Union Jack with white border, labelled British — British.Britain — the bordered pilot jack

Swallow-tailed white flag with broad black border, labelled Prussian — Prussian.Prussia

White flag with small red, white, and blue tricolour centre, labelled Netherlands — Netherlands.Netherlands

White flag with broad blue border, labelled French — French.France

Red-bordered white flag with crowned shield, labelled Portuguese — Portuguese.Portugal

The Pennants

Two long pennants stream along the foot of the sheet, winding around the engraved ribbon that carries the imprint Published by Johnson & Ward. The drawings and the ribbon are one continuous piece of engraving, so each extraction ends where the imprint begins.

Long white pennant with arms at the head, labelled Portuguese Pennant — Portuguese Pennant.Portugal — long pennant with arms at the head

Long red and yellow pennant with arms at the head, labelled Spanish Pennant — Spanish Pennant.Spain — long pennant with arms at the head

Method and Next Stage

The index above records what is on the chart before interpreting any of it. Study pages can then set each depiction against documented flag history and account for differences in colour, proportion, geometry, or status.

Read as a whole, the chart separates what an 1863 compiler knew from what was merely copied. The war furniture is exactly current: the 35-star canton and the months-old Confederate Stainless Banner, and with them the Russian-American Company, the Ionian Islands, and the French imperial standard. The Italian unification of 1859–1861, by contrast, is only half digested. The new Kingdom of Italy is printed among the very states it had swallowed — Sardinia, Tuscany, Sicily, Naples — while the East India Company, stripped of its rule in India in 1858, and Central America, dissolved by 1841, survive from older models. Deeper still lie the pure inventions of the chart tradition: Morocco's crossed “scissors,” the Persian lions, the Cochin China menagerie, the Malta cross, each copied from chart to chart for more than a century. With this sheet the collection's Morocco chain runs unbroken through five sources: 1720, 1769, 1837, this chart, and 1899.

Set beside the French plate Pavillons des principales puissances, the same flag world appears twice within a year or two, once from New York and once from Paris, and the comparison cuts both ways. Both sheets print the Confederate flag, one neutrally and one with an exclamation point. But where the French plate gives Hawaii an obsolete seven-stripe flag under an obsolete protectorate caption, Johnson's Hawaiian Islands panel prints the current eight-stripe flag in the documented order, correctly and with no political qualifier. That panel joins the depictions collected on the Hawaii (Sandwich Islands) polity page. The East India Company panel runs the other way: at nine stripes it agrees with the Homann sheet of c. 1720 rather than with either Paris plate, both of which draw thirteen.

The chart's scope is telling in itself. “National emblems” here means flags seen at sea, not sovereignty. Rostock, Riga, and Konigsberg are port towns of Mecklenburg, Russia, and Prussia, printed on equal footing with kingdoms and empires, merchant practice outranking political status. The same maritime eye shows in the pilot signals, where the Russian entry is the naval jack over again, printed twice in two roles. Persia appears under three entirely different flags — the three lions, the striped field of crescents and suns, and the Shah's triple-tailed banner — which is about how far publications of the period disagreed about Persia; the c. 1899 sheet offers a fourth form of its own.

Two of the chart's designs are now followed across the collection on flag pages of their own: the East India Company ensign, present here five years after Company rule ended and varying from chart to chart since 1720, and the quartered Spanish standard, a composition several charts repeat and almost no other source records. Other candidates for individual study are ready to hand: the Confederate caption as an artefact of wartime publishing, the Poland panel printed during the January Uprising, the New Zealand panel preserving the 1834 flag of the United Tribes, and the Bolivia band order.

Bibliographic References

Johnson's New Chart of National Emblems (Johnson & Ward, New York, copyright 1863), complete sheet in the present collection; title, captions, and imprints transcribed from the sheet.
Pavillons des principales puissances (Armand Le Chevalier, Paris, c. 1863), catalogued in the present collection — the contemporary French counterpart.