Army signal flag staffs present special problems of weight, waving or flapping, entanglement, compactness, tensile strength of the wood, securing the component sections, etc. Of the first generation, Porter Alexander compares to tapered bamboo fishing poles, with four sections fitting with ferrules, friction-fitted, tapering from end to tip. Think of the commonly seen US signal station atop in Winder Bldg at 17th and F in DC -- the signalman on top of the stand is holding a pole capable of supporting a six-by-six-foot flag (or larger), so obviously there must have been something larger than what Alexander describes for the larger, fixed station situations. CS signal inventories oo supply lists refer to flags of 10-12 feet, no indication of whether sectional or not (yet poles that long would be awkward to transport on the field). I have a tapered pole of three sections, each three feet, which would answer to Alexander's description, but I suspect they're later in the century, perhaps Span-Am War vintage, with bronzed or blackened brass male-female screw fittings, for four-foot flag. I'd be afraid of the staff snapping, if waved too vigorously. And yet I resist the "here's a flag; go cut a sappling" approach as Confederate SOP, except in dire emergencies.