Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1853-03-03
" The Flag of our Union"

One thing has been established by Cap
tain Schuyler Hamiltons recent investiga-
tons respecting the natioual flag, namely,
that il means, and was intended TO mean,
UNION il grew out Of the Union Jack
Its star Of stars symboizes UNION. It's thir-
teen stripes are The record of the UNION
From ten thousand fag-staffs and mast heads
il is ever keeping alive the spirit of UNION.
Captain HamitOn's work enables us 10 COM
pile its brief history.
On the seventeenth of January, 1776 the
captain of an English transport, then yin!
in the port of Boston, wrote home TO his
owners: Il can see the rebels camp very
plain, whose colOrs, little while ago, were
entirely red; but on The receipt of the kings
speech (which they burnrJ they hosted the
Union Flag, which is here supposed TO init
mate the union ofthe Provinces The cap
tain could not, probably, discern the de-
vices upon the flag, but lie noted the change
of color, from royal red to union blue.
variety of flags were used by the CONT
nentas in the early months of the revoIu-
Iionary struggle. At the taking of Fort
johnson, September 18th, l775, a peculiar
flag was employed, which Holmes, in his
Annals, r5ftrsto thus "A flag being thought
necessary for the purpose Of signals, Colonel
Mnutrie, who was requested by the Council
OF Safety 70 procure one, had large blue
flag made, with crescent in one corner, to
he III uniform with the troops This was
the first American flag (adds HoImes) dis
played in South Carolina The crescent,
be il observed, is an emblem of souereignty
On the twentieth of October, in the same
year, Colonel John Reed wrote tins order 10
Colonel Glover and Stephen Maylan -
Please 10 fix upon some particular color for
flag and a signal, by which our vessels
may know one another. What do YOU think
of flag with a white ground--a tree in the
middle-the motto, "Appeal 10 Heaven !'-
This is the flag of our floating batteries
February ninth, l776, Colonel Gadsden pro-
posed the following design for a naval flag
"A yellow field, with lively representation
OF rattlesnake in The middle, in The ati.
tude of going tc strike, and the words un-
dernealh, "DOnt tread on me r'' Many 9th
er designs for flags were proposed, and sew
eral, as we have just observed, were in use.
Ii was not till June fourteenth, 1777, that
Congress passed the resolution which gave
10 the infant nation a National Flag. That
resolution was in the following words Re
solved, That the flag Of The Thirteen Unit
ed States, be thirteen stripes, alternate red
anu WuilrJ ludL tu6 OulOu UG luIIlOGu SLHTS,
white in blue field, representing a new
constellation This Was The flag of the lat
ter triumphs OF the revolution. 1t remained
unaltered ill January thirteenth, 1894, when
the admission of two new States added two
stars 10 the 'consteIIation' cad two stripes to
the rainbow This was the flag Of 1872
The flag of Lase Erie, New Orleans, and The
Atlantic Ocean. IE 1918, the following res
olutions were adopted by Congress THAT
from and after the fourth day of July next,
the flag of the United States be thirteen hor-
izontal stripes, alternate red aGti wEite that
the Union be twenty stars, white, in a blue
field; and that on the admission OF a new
State into the Union, one star be added 10
the union of the flag This change was
suggested by the Hon. Peter H. Wendover,
OF New York. liz utility is sufficiently OBJ
vous. The flag which foated over the
Halls of The Montezumas' had thirty Stars
in the union. The present flag has thirty
one.
Long may it wave Home Journal.