THE NATIONAL FLAG

HISTORY

a. Before we became a nation, our land knew many flags. Long ago, the Norsemen probed our coastal waters sailing under the banner of the black raven. Columbus carried a Spanish flag across the seas. The Pilgrims carried the flag of Great Britain. The Dutch colonists brought their striped flag to New Amsterdam. The French explored the continent under the royal fleur-de-lis. Each native Indian tribe hade its own totem and insignia. Immigrants of every race and nationality, in seeking a new allegiance, have brought their symbols of loyalty to our shores.

b. During our Revolution, various banners were used by the not-yet-united colonies. A green pine tree with the motto, “An Appeal To Heaven,” was popular with our young Navy. The rattlesnake’s warning, “Don’t Tread On Me,” was displayed by aroused colonists along the Atlantic seaboard. The Moultrie “Liberty” flag, a large blue banner with white crescent in the upper corner, rallied the defenders of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1776. The Bunker Hill flag was a blue banner with a white canton filled with a red cross and a small green pine. The flag of the maritime colony of Rhode Island bore a blue anchor under the word “Hope.” Strikingly similar to the stars and stripes was the flag carried by the Green Mountain boys of Vermont at the Battle of Bennington on 16 August 1777.

c. The first flag of the colonies to have any resemblance to the present Stars and Stripes was the “Grand Union Flag,” sometimes referred to as the “Congress Colors.” When Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1776, he stood under the “Grand Union Flag” which continued to show a dependence upon Great Britain. The flag consisted of thirteen stripes, alternately red and white, representing the Thirteen Colonies, with a blue field in the upper left hand corner bearing the crosses of St. George (England) and St Andres (Scotland), signifying union with the mother country.

d. The first Stars and Stripes was created by the Continental Congress on 14 June 1777. This date is now observed nationally as “Flag Day.”

e. `In this flag the thirteen stars, representing a constellation, were arranged in a variety of designs. (Congress did not specify the arrangement of the thirteen stars on the blue union, except to say that they should represent a new constellation.) The most popular - with the stars in a circle so that no state could claim precedence over another - is known as the Betsy Ross flag, in honor of the seamstress who is supposed to have sewn the first one.

f. The first Navy Stars and Stripes had the stars arranged in staggered formation in alternate lines and rows of threes and twos on a blue field. A close inspection of this arrangement of the stars shows a distinct outline of the diagonal X -shaped cross and the cross of St. George of the English flag. This indicates how difficult it was for the colonists, even at this late date, to break away entirely from the British flag under which they had been born and had lived all the years of their lives.

g. As the American frontier expended, two new States were added to the Union, and these were incorporated into the flag. This meant that two stars and two stripes were added to the design - making a total of fifteen each. It was this flag that withstood enemy bombardment at Fort McHenry, Maryland, 13-14 September 1814, and inspired Francis Scott Key to write the “Star Spangled Banner.”

h. Realizing that the flag would become unwieldy with a stripe for each new state, Captain Samuel C. Reid, USN, suggested to Congress that the stripes remain thirteen in number to represent the Thirteen Colonies, and that a star be added to the blue field for each new state coming into the Union. A law of April 4, 1818, that resulted requires that a star be added for each new state on the 4^th of July after its admission.