While the "Stars and Bars," Fig. 152, was quite a different flag from Fig. 146, the "Stars and Stripes," it was found that, nevertheless, in the stress of battle confusion arose; so the battle flag, Fig. 153, known as the "Southern Cross," became largely adopted, though its use was never actually legalised. Here, again, we find that though eleven should be the proper number of the stars, they are in our illustration thirteen, while in one example we have found seventeen. It would be found in practice very difficult to make a pleasing arrangement of eleven stars; given a central one, and two on either side of it in the arms of the cross, and we get nine as a result, with three on either side it will total to thirteen, and with four it must take seventeen. In a few instances it may be seen without the red portions--a white flag with the blue cross and white stars. One great objection to the Southern Cross was that it was not adapted for sea service, since being alike in whatever way it was looked at, it could not be reversed in case of distress. To obviate this difficulty, at a Congress in Richmond in 1863 the form seen in Fig. 154 was adopted--a plain white flag having the Southern Cross as its Union; but this, in turn, was objected to as being too much like a flag of truce, so to meet this, in the following year, it was ordered that the space between the Union and the outer edge of the flag should be divided vertically in half, and that the outer half should be red: an alteration that may have been necessary, but which greatly spoiled the appearance of what was, before this, a handsome and striking flag. As the struggle came to an end in the following year, the "Stars and Bars" and the "Southern Cross" perished in the general downfall of the Southern cause--the victories of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Shenandoah Valley, Chattanooga, and many another hard-fought field, and the brilliant strategy of Lee, Beauregard, Longstreet, Jackson, Early, Hood, and many another gallant commander, being all in vain against the unlimited resources of the North. Over six hundred and fifty thousand human lives, over seven hundred millions of pounds sterling, were spent in what an American writer delicately calls "the late unpleasantness."