to nationality. The former was generally white, with a green pine tree centre, and the legend, "An appeal to heaven;" this was formally adopted by the Massachusetts legislature in April, 1776. The rattlesnake flag was also white, with a rattlesnake, either cut into thirteen pieces, each marked with the initial of a colony, and the legend, "Join or die," below, or complete and coiled, with the legend, "Don't tread on me." Another variety, later than that described, had a ground of stripes, red and white, with a rattlesnake extended across the field. A less common flag consisted of a white ground, on which was depicted a mailed hand grasping thirteen arrows.

"The earliest suggestion of stars as a device for an American ensign," says the work quoted below,* "prior to their adoption in 1777, is found in the Massachusetts Spy for March 10, 1774, in a song written for the anniversary of the Boston massacre (March 5). In a flight of poetic fancy, the writer foretells the triumph of the American ensign:

"A ray of bright glory now beams from afar,
The American ensign now sparkles a star

Which shall shortly flame wide through the skies.

"The earliest known instance of the thirteen stripes being used upon an American banner is found upon a standard presented to the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse in 1775 by Captain Abraham Markoe, which is now in possession of that troop and displayed at its anniversary dinners. As General Washington, when en route to take command of the army at Cambridge, accompanied by Generals Lee and Schuyler, was escorted by this troop of Light Horse from Philadelphia, June 21, 1775, to New York, he was doubtless familiar with the sight of this standard, and it is possible that it may have suggested to him the striped Union flag he raised at Cambridge six months later."

On Saturday, the fourteenth of June, 1777, the American congress "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." This resolution appeared in the newspapers of August, but was not officially promulgated over the signature of the secretary of congress at Philadelphia until September 3, and at other places still later. "No record of the discussion, which must have preceded the adoption of the stars and stripes, has been preserved, and we do not know to

*Acknowledgment for much valuable information herein, is made to that valuable work, History of the Flag of the United States of America,' etc., by George Henry Preble, Rear-Admiral U. S. N. Boston. 1880.

whom we are indebted for their beautiful and soul-inspiring devices. It does not appear from the record whether it was the device of a committee or of an individual, or who presented the resolve. It seems probable, however, it emanated from the marine committee, if not from a special one, and such is the tradition."

Many ingenious and beautiful theories have been advanced as to how the particular devices of the stars and the stripes came to be adopted, and as to what they were meant to signify. The stripes were by some supposed to have been borrowed from the Dutch, or perhaps from the designating stripes on the coats of the Continental soldiers. Others have believed that both stripes and stars were borrowed from the coat-of-arms of the Washington family, which contained both. One authority favors the supposition that they were thus borrowed, and believes that they were so used out of respect to the commander-in-chief. He thought also that the stars on the Washington shield might be of Roman origin, adding: "Virgil speaks of returning to the stars, redire ad astra, implying a home of peace and happiness; and the Romans worshiped the stars which bore the names of their gods. They also used scourges, producing stripes on the bodies of those they punished." From these symbolic antecedents we may, he says, "derive our star-bearing banner, the heaven-sent ensign of our union, freedom and independence, the stripes only to be used as a scourge to our enemies." Alfred B. Street, alluding to the flag as at first unfurled at the surrender of Burgoyne, makes use of these eloquent words: "The stars of the new flag represent a constellation of states rising in the west. The idea was taken from the constellation Lyra, which in the hands of Orpheus signified harmony. The blue of the field was taken from the edges of the Covenanters' banner in Scotland, significant also of the league and covenant of the united colonies against oppression, and involving the virtues of vigilance, perseverance and justice. The stars were disposed in a circle, symbolizing the perpetuity of the Union, the ring, like the circling serpent of the Egyptians, signifying eternity. The thirteen stripes showed with the stars the number of the united colonies, and denoted the subordination of the states to the Union, as well as equality among themselves. The whole was a blending of the various flags, previous to the Union flag-the red flag of the army and the white one of the floating batteries. The red color, which in Roman days was the signal of defiance, denotes daring, and the white, purity. What eloquence do the stars breathe when their full significance is

known! Á new constellation, union, perpetuity, a covenant against oppression, justice, equality, subordination, courage and purity!"

There is no definite authority, despite this fine poetic description, to show that it was ever designed that the stars should be arranged in a circle, although in Trumbull's great painting, the "Surrender of Burgoyne," and in Peale's portrait of Washington, they are so arranged. The resolution of June 14, 1777, certainly gives no such direction. "Our Revolutionary fathers," explains Preble, "when originating a National flag, undoubtedly met with difficulty in finding a device at once simple, tasteful, inspiriting and easily manufactured. The number of states whose unity was to be symbolized was a stumblingblock. The stripes represented them; but what could be found to replace the crosses, emblematic of the union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England, whose authority they renounced? The rattlesnake, which had been used for a time as a symbol of the necessity of union and defiance, rather than of union itself, was repulsive to many, from being akin to the tempter of our first parents and the cause of their expulsion from paradise, bearing also the curse of the Almighty.

"One of the best of the devices suggested for a union was a circle of thirteen mailed hands issuing from a cloud, and grasping as many links of an endless chain. An instance of this device exists in the flag or color of a Newburyport company, which was on exhibition in the National museum at Philadelphia in 1876. It had the addition of a pine tree in the centre of the surrounding links. A mailed hand grasping a bundle of thirteen arrows had been a device for privateers, but that was a signal of war and defiance rather than union. A round knot with thirteen floating ends was the beautiful device, signifying strength in union, of the standard of the Philadelphia Light Horse. A checkered union of blue and white, or blue and red squares, might have answered, but the odd number of the colonies prevented that or any similar device. There remained then only the stars and the creation of a new constellation to represent the birth of the rising Republic. No other object, heavenly or terrestrial, could have been more appropriate. They were of like form and size, typifying the similarity of the several states, and grouped in a constellation representing their unity."

It would be a difficult thing to show who designed that emblem of the stars. The records of congress are silent upon the subject and no contemporary declaration concerning it can be discovered. It has been asked why the stars on the flag are five-pointed, while those on

the coin are, and always have been, six-pointed. The explanation is found in the fact that the designer of the coins followed the English custom, and that of the flag the European, the star having six points in the heraldic language of England, while in that of Holland, Germany and France it has five.

An interesting paper was read before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1870, by Mr. William J. Canby, which throws some light upon the history of the flag and may elucidate some points heretofore largely in the dark. Mr. Canby claimed therein that his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John Ross, was the maker and partial designer of the first flag combining the stars and stripes. A committee of congress, he asserts, accompanied by General Washington, in June, 1776, called upon Mrs. Ross, who was an upholstress of Philadelphia, and engaged her to make the flag from a rough drawing, which, at her suggestion, was redrawn in pencil, by Washington, in her back parlor. The flag thus designed was adopted by congress, and was, according to this authority, the first star-spangled banner which ever floated on the breeze. Mrs. Ross received the employment of flag-making for the government and continued it for many years. Three of her daughters were living when the Canby paper was written and confirmed the statement as made them by their mother.

On the same day that congress passed the resolution designating the new flag for the new Nation, it also passed a measure by which John Paul Jones, the naval hero of the Revolution, was given command of the Ranger and soon after hoisted the new standard over his vessel at Portsmouth. He did not get to sea for some five months later, but when off proceeded to Nantes, which he reached in a month's sailing, and proceeded from thence to Quiberon bay, convoying some American vessels and placing them under the convoy and protection of the French fleet commanded by Admiral La Motte Piquet, from whom, after some correspondence, Jones succeeded in obtaining the first salute ever paid by a foreign naval power to the American flag. The story is told as follows, by Jones himself, in a letter to the naval committee, under date of February 22, 1778:

"I am happy to have it in my power to congratulate on my having seen the American flag, for the first time, recognized in the fullest and completest manner by the flag of France. I was off this bay on the thirteenth instant and sent my boat in the next day to know if the admiral would return my salute. He answered that he would return to me, as the senior American continental officer in Europe, the

same salute as he was authorized to return to an admiral of Holland or any other republic, which was four guns less than the salute given. I hesitated at this, for I had demanded gun for gun. Therefore I anchored in the entrance of the bay at a distance from the French fleet, but after a very particular inquiry, on the fourteenth, finding that he really told the truth, I was induced to accept his offer, the more as it was an acknowledgment of American independence.

"The wind being contrary and blowing hard, it was after sunset before the Ranger was near enough to salute La Motte Piquet with thirteen guns, which he returned with nine. However, to put the matter beyond a doubt, I did not suffer the Independence to salute until the next morning, when I sent word to the admiral that I would sail through his fleet in the brig, and salute him in open day. He was exceedingly pleasant and returned the compliment also with nine guns.

Jones, also, in his letter to the American commissioner at Paris, dated Brest, May 27, 1778, mentions that in the action between the Ranger and the Drake, on the twenty-fourth of the preceding April, when the latter hoisted the English colors, "the American stars were displayed on board the Ranger." This is the first recorded action under the new flag.

Some uncertainty exists as to the exact date upon which the new flag began its career of glory and victory upon the land. One authority declares that the first military incident connected with it occurred on the second of August, 1777, when Lieutenants Bird and Brant invested Fort Stanwix, then commanded by Colonel Peter Gansevoort. The garrison was without a flag when the enemy appeared, but their patriotism and ingenuity soon supplied one in conformity to the pattern just adopted by the Continental congress. Shirts were cut up to form the white stripes, bits of scarlet cloth were joined for the red, and the blue ground for the stars was composed of a cloth cloak belonging to Captain Abraham Swartwout of Dutchess county, who was then in the fort. Before sunset this curious mosaic standard, as precious to the beleaguered garrison as the most beautifully wrought flag of silk and needle-work, was floating over one of the bastions. The siege was raised on the twenty-second of August, but we are not told what became of the improvised flag. The narrative of Colonel Marinus Willett gives a different version of the story. He says: He says: "The fort had never been supplied with a flag. The necessity of having one, upon the arrival of the enemy, taxed the invention of the garrison and a