In the Ladies’ Magazine, published in London, May 13, 1776, the writer states that the colors of the American navy were “first a flag with a union and thirteen stripes, and the commander’s flag a yellow flag with a rattlesnake upon it.”
Fig. 12 Fig. 13
Fig. 14 Fig. 15
In the Pennsylvania Evening Post of June 20, 1776, was published a letter stating that the British cruiser Roebuck had captured two prizes in Delaware Bay “which she decoyed by hoisting a Continental Union Flag.” There is no doubt that from July 4, 1776, until June 14, 1777, we had as a national ensign simply a flag with thirteen stripes, as we had declared ourselves free from the government represented by the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew which we had hitherto on our flag, but having upon it a snake with the motto already so often mentioned of “Don’t tread on me,” and this design was used, but without any official action being taken thereon by the General Congress (see [Fig. 11]); yet from May, 1776, or June, 1776, the date fixed upon in the Ross claim, until May, 1777, the American troops fought the following battles: June 28, 1776, Fort Moultrie. The flag in that engagement was a blue flag with a crescent and the word “Liberty” upon it (see [Fig. 12]). Battle of Long Island, August 2, 1776, the British captured a flag of red damask with the word “Liberty” on it; September 16th, Harlem Plains, no flag being mentioned; October 28th, the battle of White Plains, the flag carried by the Americans was a white flag with two cross-swords on it and the words “Liberty or death;” November 16th, surrender of Fort Washington, no mention of a flag; December 26th, battle of Trenton, the flags in this battle were State flags; all other claims are the imagination of artists who apparently knew nothing of the history of the flag; January 3d, Princeton, the same as at Trenton; January 26th, Tryon’s attack on Danbury; and yet in all these engagements that took place after we had declared ourselves a free and independent people there is no record in existence, public or private, that the flag claimed to have been designed by Mrs. Ross in May or June, 1776, was carried. The first time the Stars and Stripes was carried by American troops of which we have any positive record was at the battle of the Brandywine, in September, 1777.
It soon became apparent in 1776 that we were fighting for more than mere Parliamentary representation, and when the culmination was reached by the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on the 4th day of July, 1776, the conclusion was also reached that we could not consistently fight under a standard containing in its union the crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, devices that belonged to the enemy, but which we had used, to express our loyalty to the king up to that time while fighting for a principle. The want of a change in our emblem as originally adopted can be best appreciated by the contents of a letter dated October 15, 1776, sent by William Richards to the Committee of Safety, published in the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. 5, page 46, wherein, inter alia, he said: “The Commodore was with me this morning, and says that the fleet has no colors to hoist if they should be called on duty. It is not in my power to get them until there is a design fixed on to make the colors by.” Yet this letter was written four months after the time fixed in the alleged Betsy Ross claim. Thus it is shown conclusively by the record that we had dropped the old Grand Union or Continental Flag, to wit: the Crosses and the Stripes, but had not yet, October, 1776, adopted a new design, and it was not until June 14, 1777, one year after the time fixed as to the Ross claim, that a new design was adopted, and a resolution was passed wherein Congress said “that the Flag of the Thirteen United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white, that the union be thirteen stars white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” In the rough Journal of Congress the word “of” occurs before the words “thirteen stripes;” in the record it appears to have been changed, thus corroborating the former use of the thirteen stripes.
There is no record as to how this resolution got before Congress—whether a member introduced it, or whether it was the outcome of the report of a committee. No official proclamation of this resolution was made until September, 1777; but it was printed in the papers previous to that time as an item of news; so, therefore, from June to September, 1777, private enterprise may have made many of them. The Ross claim is ridiculous when it contends that Washington, Col. Ross and Robert Morris, in June, 1776, one month before the Declaration of Independence had been adopted, called on Betsy Ross, and that Washington drew with a pencil a rough drawing of the present American flag, she making the stars five-pointed. The statement is without any documentary or record proof. As a matter of fact the six-pointed star was not adopted because of its use in English heraldry, while in Holland and France, our allies, five-pointed stars were used. Now, as to the claim that “Old Glory” was thus made in 1776 by Betsy Ross, what became of it? Preble says of Canby: “I cannot agree with his claim, and neither does the record support it” ... and besides it is practically charging Washington and the rest of the committee with seeking to establish and set up a national ensign before we had even declared ourselves a free people with an independent national government, and without any delegated authority to do so, the record of Congress being silent on the subject; so therefore we have: First. On October 15, 1776, the letter of William Richards to the Committee of Safety already quoted shows that the Ross claim cannot be true. In fact, at the time the letter was written we had no colors nor was any designed. Second. That at the time it is alleged the committee called on Mrs. Ross we had no national existence. We were still simply revolting colonies, not yet having declared our independence. Third. As a climax I have found in the Pennsylvania Archives, 2d series, Vol. 1, page 164, the following extract from the Pennsylvania (not the Colonies) Navy Board’s minutes, May 29, 1777, being the first bill for colors for the fleet on record: