How it Began:
Background
Color Guard started early during the Civil War. To encourage the soldiers, a band would accompany them along with military color guard. The guards would carry flags, banners, rifles, or sabers.
Later color guard was associated with bands for schools.
Peggy Twiggs transformed color guard to an art by popularizing spins and twirls. Thus the sport began!
Ever since then, color guard continues to advance with new moves and has even added baton and streamers to the sport.
http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/spring08/Mercado/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_guard_%28flag_spinning%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_guard_%28flag_spinning%29