Quote Originally Posted by jForrester View Post
Excellent, cavscout. Thanks. I might add that the Stars and Bars was the initial national flag. (Equivalent of the Stars and Stripes of the U.S.) The battle flag (aka Southern Cross) was just that; a strictly military flag with no political or sovereignity significance.
And to add to this: some scholars believe that the First National's designer, Nicola Marschall, may have based the "Stars & Bars" on the flag of Austria. William P. Miles, a Confederate Congressman and Chair of the "Committee of Flag & Seal", rejected the First National, due to its resemblance to not only "Old Glory", but also to the flags of Liberia and the Kingdom of Hawaii. Miles made some fairly perjorative remarks about how the Confederacy's flag should not be similar to that of a nation of freed slaves and the other of savages, yet his own design was rejected by the Committee as looking like a "pair of suspenders" -- Miles is generally credited as the designer of the "Confederate flag", although there are many variations found in the various commands of the rebel army.

T.