"If only having Southern birth allows you to be THE historian of CSA flags, then why do we all bow down to Howard Madaus of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who is not only the first historian ever to do scholarly work on Confederate flags, but knows more than any combination of flag historians of the era that I can think of?"
Greg,
I hope you will retract the use of the above wording. You are showing your true colors in an unbecoming way. Please don't let your feelings for me affect you so. I set aside your labelling the last great massive Irish rebellion as "lore," but please be assured that there is at least one remaining vexillologist out here that does not "bow down" to your above leader. They say one picture is worth a thousand words. (I still believe in the beauty of the English language and feel that there is no comparison for a thousand well-chosen words. But they still say it.) The photo chosen by Madaus for his little biography on the website that you promote so fondly on this board shows him standing, stern-visaged in the uniform of the hated Iron Brigade (U.S.). On the "Flags of the Confederacy" website, of all places. That picture says more than a thousand words. He is, like you, a man with an agenda, so stated in the first lines of his work on the Flags of the Army of Tennessee.
I believe that your, and his, self-proclaimed role as "myth-busters" can have nothing but a deleterious effect on the understanding of our Southern emblems. I choose a more supportive stance and I understand that you think that is silly, sentimental, and non-historic. We're just different like that.