Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/259

 FLAG 251 their flags, as, for the 7th blue, for the 8th or- ange, &c. The early armed ships of New York are said to have displayed a beaver, the device of the seal of New Netherland, on their en- signs. It is uncertain what flag, if any, was used by the Americans at Bunker Hill. That displayed by Putnam on Prospect hill on July 18 following was red, with Qui transtulit sus- tinet on one side, and on the other, " An Appeal to Heaven." This last motto was adopted, April 29, 1776, by the provincial congress of Massachusetts as the one to be borne on the flag of the cruisers of that colony, "a white flag with a green pine tree." What flag Ar- nold carried in the expedition to Canada is not known. The first armed vessels commissioned by Washington sailed under the pine-tree flag. The first republican flag unfurled in the south- ern states, blue with a white crescent in the upper corner next to the staff, was designed by Col. William Moultrie of Charleston, at the request of the council of safety, and was hoist- ed on the fortifications of that city in Septem- ber, 1775. The flag displayed on the E. bas- tion of Fort Sullivan, afterward called Moul- trie, on June 28, 1776, was the same, with the word " Liberty " on it. On the W. bastion waved the flag called the "great union," first raised by Washington at Cambridge, Jan. 2, 1776. This consisted of the 13 alternate red and white stripes of the present flag of the United States, with the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew emblazoned on the blue can- ton in place of the stars. This flag was carried also by the fleet under command of Commo- dore Esek Hopkins, when it sailed from the Delaware capes, Feb. 17, 1776. Hopkins had displayed previously a yellow ensign bearing the device of a rattlesnake in the attitude of striking, with the motto "Don't tread on me." This emblem was suggested probably by the cuts displayed at the head of many newspapers of the time, which represented a snake divided into 13 parts, each bearing the abbreviation of a colony, with the motto beneath, "Join or Die," typifying the necessity of union. The snake was represented generally with 13 rat- tles ; sometimes it was coiled around the pine tree at its base, and sometimes depicted at length on a field of 13 alternate red and white or red and blue stripes. The official ori- gin of the "grand union" flag is involved in obscurity. At the time of its adoption at Cambridge the colonies still acknowledged the legal rights of the mother country, and there- fore retained the blended crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, changing only the field of the old ensign for the 13 stripes emblematic of their union. The colors of the stripes may have been suggested by the red flag of the army and the white one of the navy, previous- ly in use. These 13 stripes are supposed to have been used first on a banner presented in 1774 or 1775 to the Philadelphia troop of light horse by Capt. Abraham Markoe, and still in the possession of that troop. After the decla- ration of independence the emblems of British union became inappropriate, but they were re- tained in the flag until the following year. Congress resolved on June 14, 1777, "that the flag of the 13 United States be 13 stripes alter- nate red and white ; that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new con- stellation." This is the first recorded legisla- tive action for the adoption of a national flag. The resolution was not promulgated officially until Sept. 3, although the newspapers published it a month earlier. It is supposed that the flag was unfurled first by Paul Jones on the Hanger, to the command of which he was appointed on the same day that the resolution regarding the flag was passed. It is not known by whom the stars were suggested. By some they have been ascribed to John Adams, and by others it has been urged that the entire flag was borrowed from the coat of arms of the Washington fam- ily; but both conjectures are without proof, and the latter is improbable. The 13 stars of the flag of 1777 were arranged in a circle, al- though no form was prescribed officially. The flag thus adopted remained unchanged till 1794, when, on motion of Senator Bradley of Ver- mont, which state, with Kentucky, had been admitted into the Union, it was resolved that from and after May 1, 1795, "the flag of the United States be 15 stripes alternate red and white, that the union be 15 stars, white in a blue field." This was the flag used in the war of 1812-'14. The act made no provision for future alterations, and none were made till 1818, although several new states had mean- while been admitted into the union. In 1816, on the admission of Indiana, a committee was appointed " to inquire into the expediency of altering the flag." A bill was reported, Jan. 2, 1817, but was not acted on, which embodied the suggestions of Capt. Samuel C. Reid, dis- tinguished for his defence of the brig General Armstrong against a superior British force in Fayal roads in 1814, who recommended the reduction of the stripes to the original 13, and the adoption of stars equal to the number of the states, formed into one large star, and a new star to be added on the 4th of July next succeeding the admission of each new state. On April 4, 1818, a bill embodying these suggestions, with the exception of that designating the manner of arranging the stars, was approved by the president, and on the 13th of the same month the flag thus established was hoisted on the hall of representatives at Washington, although its legal existence did not begin until the fol- lowing 4th of July. In 1859, when congress passed a vote of thanks to Capt. Reid, the de- signer of the flag, it was suggested that the mode of arrangement of the stars should be prescribed by law, but the matter was over- looked. The stars in the unions of flags used by the war department of the government are generally arranged in one large star; in the navy flags they are invariably set in parallel lines. The blue union, which now contains 37