I agree with you concerning Smith's bogus claim to be the designer of the first National CS flag and I am from North Carolina! Although the evidence for Marshcall's claim is thin, his claim is much stronger than Smith's as you said. One piece of evidence that help sway me to Marshcall's claim was he was originally from Austria. If you look at Austria's flag, that has not change since that period you can see the similarities, the red, white, red horizontal bars. Of course this in itself does not prove a thing but when added with the other evidence it persuades me.