I disagree. It was, and it still is, the symbol of the South, instantly recognized throughout the world.
Robert E. Lee, the South's most valiant and honorable General, was opposed to secession and denounced it as revolution and a betrayal of the Founding Fathers' ideals.
Might be better to quote his exact words on that point. Secession was certainly not a betrayal of the Founders' ideals -- their policy, perhaps, as articulated by Washington, Madison, and others. But Jefferson is on the record, that he would prefer the United States end up three or four happy, or at least satisfied, countries, than one big unhappy one, oppressed by a part of it.
[Lee] only accepted command for the South out of loyalty to his native Virginia and refused to wear Confedrate insignia.
Never heard that one before. He accepted a Virginia Militia commission at first, and then a month or so later, a Confederate commission.
He would be the first to say that Confederacy belongs in the past and that we are all Americans now.
Well, he was the first to say that, when he bid his troops goodbye. He was also said to have said later on(but this is controverted), that if he'd known how vindictive the Radicals planned to be in victory, he might not have surrendered so readily.