and this from my unibrow neighbor......he's about 25, lives at home and is a janitor at our local

[struggle4progress]

41. Confederate Flag Designer William Porcher Miles on the Heraldry of the Battle Flag

Richmond, August 27,1861.
Gen. G. T. Beauregard,
Fairfax Court house, Virginia

... This was my favorite. The three colors of red, white, and blue were preserved in it. It avoided the religious objection about the cross .. because it did not stand out so conspicuously as if the cross had been placed upright thus ...

... in the form I proposed, the cross was more heraldic than ecclesiastical, it being the 'saltire' of heraldry, and significant of strength and progress ... The stars ought always to be white, or argent, because they are then blazoned 'proper' (or natural color). Stars .. show better on an azure field than any other. Blue stars on a white field would not be handsome ... The 'white edge' .. to the blue is partly a necessity to prevent what is called .. a solecism in heraldry ... It would not do to put a blue cross .. on a red field. Hence the white, being metal argent, is put on the red, and the blue put on the white. The introduction of white between the blue and red, adds .. to the brilliancy of the colors ...

http://history.furman.edu/benson/civwar/show/MilesFlagLetter.htm