The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1876-07-06
Our Flag.

Livery nAtlOn mas us nag Livery snip
in foreign waters is known by the colors
she shows at her peak. The French frig-
ate hoists her bunting of three vertical
stripes, red, white and blue; the English
man-of-war shows red flag, with the
crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on IL
blue union in the upper left-handed corner;
and the Austrian, double head black
eagle, on yellow ground-cvery nation
with name and a place, having its own
appropriate symbol.
When we were colonies of England we
sailed and fought under her flag. TWEEN
ty years before the Revolution, when we
were at war with the French and their al
lies, the Indians, many brave man in
some hot skirmish with Indians would
have welcomed the sight of the red flag of
England-it would mean aid and comfort
when sOrely pressed.
But the time was coming when he was
to hate it as much as he had hated the
French colors. The time was coming
when the sight of it was to mean oppres-
sion and tyranny to him, and every feel
ing of his nature would be reused against
it. Every child knows how we finally
rebelled; it was nothing less, and, to En-
gland, our George Washington was mere
ly a leading rebel. 1t was bold pro-
| ceeding. We were thirteen little States,
fringed along on the Atlantic coast, with
the unbroken forest behind us, and
among the great family of nations we had
neither place nor name. We were like the
last new boy at a public school-we had to
great old nations who were looking on.
OF course we had no flag; we had to
earn that, too. For year or so our pfi-
vatcers carried the Massachusetts State
flag. 1t was better, they thought, than the
English flag, at any rate. The field was of
white bunting; in the middle green pine
tree, and on the opposite side the motto:
Appeal to Heaven
Washington, in his character of Gener-
al in Chief, commissioned several priva-
teer schooners, and they all carried this
flag.
The Alfred was one of the few large
ships we had, and she carried the pine
tree flag, and beside that, one with thir-
teen stripes, in red and white, but with no
stars; while on the stripes was coiled
rattle-snake, with the motto, Don't tread
on me- The rattle-snake being found
only in America, there was, of course, a
peculiar meaning in this emblem.
In the early part of the Revolution,
some of the South Carolina regiments car
ried the palmetto tree on their flag That
was very good symbol, and the State yet
keeps it on her coat of arms, though it
grows everywhere in the South. The pal
metto logs at Fort Moultrie were found
very good things to receive cannon balls
when that fort was besiegcd by the British
in June of 1776.
There was this multiplicity of flags, be-
cause we did not clearly know what we
were. No nation had acknowledged us
as belonging to their great family yet; in
fact, we had not quite cut loose from En-
gland, yet we were fighting her with all
our might, and it seemed absurd to be I'M
der her cOlors. In the fight at Bunker
Hill, the flag planted in the corner of that
famous redoubt was of blue bunting, with
the cross of St. George in red in the cor
ner, and a pine tree, that same pine tree,
in the upper right-hand quarter of the
cross.
Our army at Cambridge celebrated New
Years Day, Jan. 1, 1776, not as the
Chinese, by firing crackers and illuminat-
ing lanterns in the evening, nor yet by
making calls, but by unfurling for the
first time in an American camp the flag of
thirteen stripes. But even then we had
not declared ourselves Independent of
Great Britain, and this flag had the Brit
ish union in the corner, and the crosses of
St. Andrew and St. George.
Finally, on the 18th of June, 1776, Con-
gress, which met then in Philadelphia,
settled upon our style of flag. 1T shall
have,' said they, thirteen stripes, alter
nate red and white, and the union of the
States shall be indicated by thirteen stars,
white, in a blue field, representing a new
constellation.
1t was not until about forty years ago
that it was decided to add another star for
every new State as it joined the Union.
So that the constellation as it is now, with
nearly forty stars in it, has grown a good
deal from the original thirteen. But the
stripes still remain the same in number,
to remind us of the first little band of
States who fought it out against Great
Britain.-Kate Foote, in st. Nicholas for
| 7s,1,