Hello Ben,

You write:

>>>Mr Ken Legendre, not only an expert, but a truly objective expert, believes ( I think, based on what I have read in his writings) like me, that many regiments in the Confederate army had flags reserved as parade flags but, of course, they also had field service flags i.e. combat flags. Mr. L. please jump in here if I am wrong! Accordingly, if the silk fancy Rucker flag now held by the State of Alabama is real (and perhaps you or Mr. L. have reason to believe it is not?) IF that flag is real, then I claim that it is a probability that a field service or true battle flag existed of THAT pattern. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...must be a duck!! I do not care if this makes my flag worthy of your book, all I want you to acknowledge and then perhaps state is the following: "There exist, in private hands, a genuine flag of the CW period which is virtually identical to the presentation or parade quality flag in the Alabama Archives made by Mrs Lorenzo Leedy of Aberdeen MS in 1864. This "other" flag differs only in that it is made of materials compatable with known field service flags typically used in Confederate armies. Common sense/inductive/deductive reasoning dictates that it may be indeed another flag tied to Rucker's Brigade. No other flags of this configuration, other then these 2, have ever come to light i.e. flags with white fields red crosses and 13 blue stars. Perhaps a second legitamate Rucker flag indeed exists?" That is it, forget the Nashville retreat incident and the period reports that state Rucker was captured with HIS flag; that is for historians to piece together!! >>>>>>

Please understand that I am also very objective and, like Ken, tries to deal with facts. I cannot, in all good conscience, state objectively what you have to say above about your flag without concrete proof. Could this be a flag of Rucker's Brigade? Perhaps - perhaps not. You shrug off the Battle of Nashville aspect of this flag but that simply cannot be done because it is crucial to your claim on this flag being what it is. This is where your flag was allegedly captured so how can this be shrugged off? It can't.

I am a historian; Ken is a historian; many people on this board are historians - and historians deal with facts. I do other aspects of military history besides flags. Historians can also theorize - and I do so - but if the theory, when tested, does not hold up, it ceases to be a theory. When it does hold up it becomes a fact. This basis for how I do things comes from my history, journalism and science training in years of schooling. I can show OR examples where the Federals claimed to have captured "brigade flags" when the flags were nothing of the sort. They were clueless, for the most part, about CS designating flags. Simply because a brigade commander was captured along with a battle flag of the unit that was fighting with him, in this case the 12th Tennessee Cavalry (CS) does not make this a brigade flag. One would think that with the unique colors, etc. of your flag that if such a flag was captured that a vivid description would accompany the OR report announcing that capture. There are such reports in the OR that describe captured flags as well as other such reports in period newspaper articles, some of which have been good enough to allow for the re-identification of CS flags.

One aspect of the Civil War that I study intensely is Nathan Bedford Forrest. I do two lectures on aspects of his career as a cavalry officer. I own every book ever written on him (save one which was junk) and have files and files on his campaigns, etc. Never, in any of my research into Forrest, have I seen anything that authorized designating flags in his cavalry corps in 1864, which included at the time Edmund Rucker's Brigade. I also have not seen anything from Forrest that mentions that Rucker even had such a flag. Forrest saw Rucker all the time. We do know that Forrest's corps received Mobile Depot battle flags in July 1864.

Sure some units had battle flags and some also had parade flags but that is not the issue here. The details on the Alabama Department of Archives and History web site for their Rucker flag (actually a company of the 7th Alabama Cavalry) states who donated it to them and that it was used during the war. So are they wrong? This is what they gleaned from the donor who served in the regiment. I know their curator very well and we have discussed this flag in detail.

So come on Ben - let's have a good old fashioned debate. You put out your facts and I will put out mine and let the readers decide. This is your chance to prove me wrong.

Greg Biggs