FLAGS

For hundreds of years, flags have been symbols of national identity all over the world. As a symbol of freedom and democracy, the American flag has been an especially powerful beacon of hope for some people and an unpleasant reminder of American imperialism for others. Besides being flown atop public buildings and in public squares, flags have been wielded by the military, by explorers, and displayed prominently in parades on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Independence Day.

The first flag that flew in America was the British Union Jack, a combination of the white St. Andrew's cross and the Red St. George's cross. Another flag in use before the Revolution was the British Red Ensign, which featured a field of red with the Union Jack in the canton (the upper right corner).

The war that broke out in 1775 brought a disdain for what was now the enemy flag. A new Union flag was raised by General George Washington in 1776 and served as the American flag for about a year and a half. It featured red and white stripes and a Union Jack in the canton. Other flag variations were created during the Revolution. In 1776 Colonel Christopher Gadsden presented to the provincial Congress a flag that featured a coiled rattlesnake with the words, "Don't tread on me." The Pine Tree flag featured a pine tree in one quadrant of a red cross on a white field in the canton of a flag with a field of blue. The Moultrie flag, with a white crescent on a field of blue, was flown in Carolina in 1776 (one variety of the Moultrie flag added the word "liberty.")

The Stars and Stripes design was officially approved by Congress in 1777. This successor to the Union flag retained the red and white stripes but replaced the Union Jack with thirteen stars (one for each American colony) in a field of blue. For many years schoolchildren have heard the story of a young seamstress named Betsy Ross who created the Stars and Stripes, but no definitive proof that she did so exists.

In 1794 a new flag was created that replaced the circle of stars with five rows of three stars each and that had fifteen stripes. This flag flew for twenty-three years, until 1818, when the flag was returned to thirteen stripes, and a number of stars that varied according to the number of states in the Union. Since the addition of a star for Hawaii on July 4, 1960, the flag has had fifty stars.

Throughout American history, the flag has taken on extra meaning during wartime, both on the battlefield and on the homefront. After the Revolution, the next time the flag would stir the population was during the War of 1812. In September 1814 an attorney and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key stood on the deck of a ship in the harbor of Baltimore as he watched the bombardment of the American Fort McHenry by the British fleet. After the night of attack, Key observed that the 30-by 42-foot flag that flew over the fort had survived. He wrote a poem called "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was soon published in a local newspaper. In 1931 that poem became the words of our national anthem, set to the tune of an old song. The remains of the inspiring flag are housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

During the Civil War (1861–1865), the American flag was again the centerpiece of strong feelings of patriotism. With the secession of the South, the American Stars and Stripes flag was now opposed by an enemy flag, the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy.

Writers took up the flag as an emblem of patriotism. An 1861 poem by Elmer R. Coates called "Awake! Awake!" declared that "the Star-Spangled Banner this moment implores you" to wake up and fight. In an 1861 letter to Kentuckians, Joseph Holt began: "Let us twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our country's flag about our heart strings." The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commemorated a scene in 1862 when "the flag still floated over the main mast-head" of the Union ship Cumberland after it was sunk by the Merrimac, an ironclad Confederate ship. The poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a Civil War poem called "Union and Liberty" that began, "Flag of the heroes who left us their glory, / Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame, / Blazoned in song and illumined in story, / Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame!"

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the American people once again embraced the symbolism of the flag. A 1917 government advertisement titled "I Wish I Was Old Enough to Fight" featured a young boy, who was visiting his older brother at an army camp, saying: "The band began to play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' and the Color Sergeant and the Color Guard hauled down the Big Beautiful Flag, and there was a lump in my throat, but I didn't want to cry."

THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER

From 1793 until 1814 the emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, had been waging war against many European countries, including England. Needing more sailors, the British Navy began boarding American ships and taking both British deserters and American sailors to fight for Britain. In June of 1812 the United States declared war on England, beginning what became known as the War of 1812, which lasted for two years. During this time, British forces came ashore in Maryland and burned Washington, including the White House.

On the evening of September 13, 1814, the young lawyer Francis Scott Key was sent as an envoy under the white flag of truce to the British fleet that was anchored in Chesapeake Bay. His job was to negotiate the release of a doctor whom the British had captured. While Key was on board the British man-'o-war, its commander ordered that it fire upon Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland.

Throughout the night as the bombardment took place, Key watched and wondered about the outcome. By morning it was evident to all from the sight of the tattered American flag flying above Fort McHenry that the Americans had held the fort. Encouraged by the sight and with the tune from a popular British drinking song in mind, Key scribbled down the poem "Defence of Fort M'Henry" while still on the British ship. Later he made a few changes and the poem was first published on September 20, 1814 in the Baltimore Patriot.

During the 1890s the ever-more popular tune became the official song of the U.S. Army and Navy, and in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson asked that it be played at official government events. Finally, on March 3, 1931, Congress designated "The Star Spangled Banner" the official anthem of America.

Oh, say, can you see,
By the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
Thro' the perilous night,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd
Were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare,
The bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro'
the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream.
'Tis the star-spangled banner, oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is the band that so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country shall leave us no more?
Their blood was washed out their foul footsteps's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of death and the gloom of the grave.
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Blessed with vic'try and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God do we trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

During World War II, a bloody battle took place between the Americans and the Japanese for control of Iwo Jima, a barren South Pacific island. When Americans finally reached the summit of the chief mountain on the island in February 1945, they raised the flag, and the

moment was captured in a famous photograph showing six Marines holding the flag at an angle as they positioned it into the ground. The bronze sculpture based on that photograph stands in Arlington National Cemetery and features a cloth flag—one of the nation's most powerful uses of the flag as an emblem of patriotism.

Perhaps the most auspicious moment for the American flag was when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon in July 1969. After stepping out of the lunar module, they planted the flag into the dusty soil, in effect claiming the moon for the United States. A photo of Aldrin, standing next to the crisp and bright flag, captures the ideals of a generation and marks the end of one aspect of the Cold War—the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

After September 11, 2001, the American flag again took on a deep meaning. A much-publicized American flag flew at Ground Zero, the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. As the United States went to war on terrorism, flag sales soared. The flag is a symbol of unity and patriotism as well as American cultural identity. Wars have helped to shape that identity, and the flag has come to represent the sacrifice of men and women in defending the nation and upholding its most cherished values.

bibliography

Adams, John Winthrop, ed. Stars and Stripes Forever: The History of Our Flag. New York: Smithmark Publishers, 1992.

Quaife, Milo M.; Weig, Melvin J.; and Appleman, Roy E. The History of the United States Flag: From the Revolution to the Present, Including a Guide to Its Use and Display. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.

Sedeen, Margaret. Star-Spangled Banner: Our Nation and Its Flag. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 2002.

Thornhill, Thomas E. Flags Over Carolina. Charleston, SC: Provost Press, 1975.

Williams, Earl P., Jr. What You Should Know About the American Flag. Lanham, MD: Maryland Historical Press, 1987.

Richard Panchyk

See also:Bunker Hill Monument; Lafayette's Tour; Memorials and Monuments; Montgomery, Richard; Valley Forge.