I was going over all of the posts here in our discussion of the flag taken at Tom's Brook/Woodstock races - WD 171.

I made note that no Eastern Theater ANV flag has been found with the crossed cannon battle honors as they were only for those units that served in the Army of the Mississippi/Army of Tennessee. You passed this along to your friend Bill and he made some dumb remark about it and how he has not been to the back side of the moon either. Pretty infantile.

Please inform Bill that he is completely clueless about western battle honors and that having been through all of the battle honors orders listed in the Official Records that there is NO evidence of ANY flags of the ANV bearing such honors - none! The OR is loaded with these orders for battle honors and I have files for each theater. The only honors for these are for the western Confederate army. Also, Bill made some statement that some Virginia cavalry units served under Forrest. I hearby challenge him to list each and every one that allegedly did so and post exactly when they served under Forrest and to cite all of his sources while doing so. I will save him the time - NO Virginia cavalry units ever served under Forrest during the war! Only a handful of Virginia regiments - all infantry plus some artillery batteries - ever served in the West during the war. A few were at Fort Doneslon in 1862 and went back to Virginia after bravely running away. A few were at Cumberland Gap in 1862-1863 and a couple were with the Army of Tennessee in the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 ending the war in North Carolina in 1865.

I have three shelves of books on Forrest and have read ALL of them. I know of no Virginia cavalry units that ever rode with him.

Bill's whole claim to flag knowledge is that he knew Howie Madaus for years. So did I although not as long. And instead of making incorrect flags with wrong battle honors on it, I have been studying flags for over 20 years, Ken and Tom even longer. Perhaps Howie was being kind when he was shown that flag but he certainly knew that no such honors ever existed on an ANV battle flag.

So please let Bill know for me.

Thanks,

Greg Biggs