The letter previously quoted, dated New Providence, May 13, 1776, says: "And their standard, a rattlesnake;" motto—"Don't tread on me." This standard is thus described, viz.:—
"In Congress, February 9, 1776.
"Colonel Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the Commander-in-chief of the American Navy, being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattlesnake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and the words underneath, 'Don't tread on me.'[57]
"Ordered, That the said standard be carefully preserved and suspended in the Congress room."
Before I proceed, I shall offer one or two remarks on this device of the rattlesnake, to show that it also, as well as the British crosses, was an emblem of union, and that it was seized upon as one then (December, 1775) in use, and familiar.
In 1754, in the Philadelphia Gazette, when Benjamin Franklin was editor of that paper, an article appeared, urging union among the colonies as a means of insuring safety from attacks of the French. This article closed with a wood-cut of a snake divided into parts, with the initials of one colony on each division, and the motto, "Join, or die," underneath, in capital letters.[58] (See Fig. 3, Plate II.)
When union among the colonies was urged, in 1774-6, as a mode of securing their liberties, this device, a disjointed snake, divided into thirteen parts, with the initials of a colony on each division, and the motto, "Join, or die," was adopted as the head-piece of many of the newspapers. When the union of the colonies took place, this was changed, for the head-pieces of the newspapers, into the device adopted on the standard, viz.: a rattlesnake in the attitude of going to strike, and into an united snake. (Under both forms of this device, was the motto, "Don't tread on me.")
The seal of the War Department is the only public instrument in use, exhibiting evidence of the rattlesnake's having played an important part as a device in the American Revolution. The old seal of 1778, and the more modern seal now in use, both bear the rattlesnake (with its rattles as the emblem of union), and a liberty cap in contiguity with it; the liberty cap enveloped by the body, so that the opened mouth may defend the rattles, and liberty cap, or union and liberty, with the motto, "This we'll defend." (See Fig. 4, Plate II.)
The following account of this device, supposed to be from the pen of Benjamin Franklin, indicates fully why it was adopted, and will be found in the American Archives, vol. iv. p. 468.
"Philadelphia, December 27, 1775.