Tom,

I passed your post to my friend who has years of dealing with CS flags, especially ANV flags and he has never seen mercerized cotton thread used in any of them. Virtually all of it has been linen threads. He also noted that the Clark's 3/2 cabled thread showed up in the USA post-Civil War, which I corroborated with my own research. He also stated that Europe was well ahead of the USA in such things at this time. Clark's thread was invented pre-Civil War but did not get over here until afterwards.

I have advised William to send the flag to Fonda for her expertise.

greg Biggs