CHAPTER IV
THE LAND OF MANY FLAGS
When Paul Revere galloped through the villages of Middlesex, calling "for the country folk to be up and to arm," there was not much spare time for collecting flags, and probably when
"The farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,"—
they did not trouble themselves to flourish a flag before they shot. Yet, if we may trust a family tradition, at least one flag waved over the plucky farmers. It seems that for a long while one member or another of the Page family of Bedford had been accustomed to carrying the colors of the militia, and therefore when the alarm was given and Nathaniel Page started for Concord, it was as natural for him to seize his flag as his gun. Moreover, this story has the bunting to back it up, for the Bedford flag remained in the Page family until presented to the town a century after the close of the war. It is rather a pity that it did not come a little sooner, for an old lady of Page descent confessed that in her giddy girlhood she had irreverently ripped off the silver fringe to make trimming for her ball dress.
The Revolution was fairly on, and two months later, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. Possibly the colonists thought of spades rather than standards when they were throwing up the fortifications, and yet I fancy that to these flag-loving fighters a battle without a banner would have seemed like an undignified riot. Some writers say positively that no flag was to be seen—rather a difficult statement to prove. The daughter of one of the soldiers declared that her father helped hoist the standard known as the "New England Flag." "He called it a 'noble flag,'" she said. "It was blue with the red cross of St. George in a white corner, and in one section was a pine tree." The artist Trumbull, who painted the picture of this battle now in the Capitol at Washington, made the flag red instead of blue, but both were familiar colonial flags, and there is no reason why both should not have waved over the famous hill. Tradition says that one flag bore the motto, "Come if you dare." General Gage is said to have had difficulty in reading it, but maybe that was because of its audacity. Some verses written soon after the battle say that
"Columbia's troops are seen in dread array,
And waving streamers in the air display";—
but, unluckily, the poet forgot to mention the color of those "waving streamers." In Savannah, after the battle, but before any news of it could have arrived, the independent Georgians hoisted a Union flag and suggestively placed two pieces of artillery directly under it. New York chose a white flag with a black beaver thereon. Rhode Island had also a white flag, but with a blue anchor instead of a beaver, and a blue canton with thirteen white stars. Her motto was "Hope." Connecticut meant that there should be no mistake in the whereabouts of her regiments, for she gave them flags of solid color: to the first, yellow; the second, blue; the third, scarlet; and so on with crimson, white, azure, another shade of blue, and orange. For a motto Connecticut chose "Qui transtulit sustinet"; that is, "He who brought us here sustains us." Massachusetts chose for her motto "An Appeal to Heaven." Charleston had a blue flag with a white crescent in the upper corner next to the staff and inscribed upon her banner the daring words, "Liberty or Death." Later she adopted a rattlesnake flag. Her troops wore blue and had silver crescents on the front of their caps, inscribed with the same motto. It is small wonder that timid folk were alarmed and whispered to one another, "That is going too far; it looks like a declaration of war." This blue and silver flag was planned by Colonel Moultrie. When Fort Moultrie—which received this name because of his brave defense—was shelled the following year, the anxious folk in the town watched with troubled faces, for it was doubtful whether the little fort with its scant supply of ammunition could sustain the attack. Suddenly the crescent flag fell from its staff. A groan ran through the crowd—Colonel Moultrie had struck his flag! "Forward!" cried one among them, and they marched to the water's edge to fight for their homes. Within the little fort one William Jasper, a sergeant, saw that a ball had cut down the flag and it had fallen over the rampart. "Colonel," he said to his commander, "don't let us fight without a flag." "What can you do?" demanded Colonel Moultrie, "the staff is broken." Sergeant Jasper was a man of few words and many deeds. He leaped through an embrasure, walked the whole length of the fort in a heavy fire from the ships, caught up the flag, brought it safely back, and fastened it to a sponge-staff. Then, in the midst of cheers,—in which I fancy the British also joined,—he fastened the rescued banner upon the bastion. The following day the Governor came to the fort, asked for Sergeant Jasper, presented him with his own sword, and gave him hearty thanks in behalf of his country. Then he said, "I will gladly give you a lieutenant's commission," but the honest man refused. "I am only a sergeant," he said. "I don't know how to read or write, and I am not fit to keep company with officers." Colonel Moultrie then gave him a roving commission, and he often made some little trip with half a dozen men and returned with a band of prisoners before any one realized that he had gone. The wife of Major Elliot presented the regiment with a pair of beautiful silken colors, which were afterwards carried in the assault upon Savannah. The standard-bearers were shot down; another man seized them, but he was also shot; then Sergeant Jasper caught them and fastened them on the parapet, when he too was fatally wounded by a ball. "Tell Mrs. Elliot," he said, "that I lost my life supporting the colors she gave to our regiment." A tablet in honor of the brave sergeant was long ago placed in Savannah.
The rattlesnake as an emblem seems to have been somewhat of a favorite among the colonists. Besides Franklin's snake of the many initials—which, indeed, might have stood, or coiled, for any sort of serpent—there was the one borne by Patrick Henry's men when they forced the Governor of Virginia to pay for the powder which he had carried away from the colonial magazine. Then, too, there was a third variety of snake, the one that stretched itself across a colonial naval flag and proclaimed—from the top of the mast—"Don't tread on me." On another flag the rattlesnake appeared coiled in the roots of a pine tree and ready to strike. The Culpeper Minute Men of Virginia had a coiled snake on their flag. In the winter of 1775 there appeared in the Pennsylvania Journal an article setting forth the propriety of choosing the rattlesnake to represent America. The style of the article and its keenness are like Franklin, but there is no proof that he was its author. Whoever did write it notes that the "rattler" is peculiar to America; that the brightness of its eyes and their lack of lids fit it to be an emblem of vigilance. It never begins an attack and never surrenders, never wounds till it has given warning. The writer had counted the rattles on the naval flag, and found them to be exactly thirteen, the number of the colonies. He had also noted that the rattles were independent of one another, and yet most firmly united; and that while one rattle alone is incapable of producing any sound, the ringing of the thirteen together is sufficient to alarm the boldest man living. Whether Franklin wrote this or not, let us at least be thankful that these arguments did not prevail, and that on the flag of the United States there are stars and not serpents.