Actually, Greg, as I push my Confederate signal service research past the Blue Ridge mountains, I appreciate more and more your grasp of "middle theater" activities as much as your knowledge of flags, but I can't take credit for the website of the "Signal Corps Association, 1860-1865" and its special-interest group, "SCARD" (pronounced the way it looks!), the "Signal Corps Association Reenactors' Division." The association is a loose, no organization, no meetings, no membership fees or cards started by Marylander Walt Mathers and friends as the earliest sharing of interest in research and recreating the world's first man-transportable, tactical communication system -- that of A.J. Myer and E.P. Alexander (and William Norris), a wireless, visual flag-torch system that in many respects anticipated the era of radio/wireless. Publishers of the old hard copy newsletter, "Signal Cipher" for a dozen years or more, its replacement website is the work of webmaster Mark Hageman (a New York cyber-wizard and Union reenactor) and Walt, our "Adjutant & Inspector General" (who balances both sides). I contribute and participate in its active Forum of info exchange in conjunction with my research and writing, which is aimed at recovering the largely unknown story of the Southern side.

Although my interest in flags (especially those of the CSA) is of long standing, my layman's interest in signal flags stems from having been a Boy Scout/Sea Scout in a troop/ship that used two-flag semaphore and in my quest for examples of surviving Confederate signal flags, but it was Howie Madaus, and his work on battleflags that stirred my interest in the order of battle implications of flags. The "material culture" aspect of flag material and flag making and distribution which he, you and a precicious few others began to explore opened up new insights for me into organizational and logistical implications that shed a new light on my research. Discovery of THIS website and its companion special interest boards has brightened my days!