The First Flag

Betsy Ross' Mythical Presentation

Despite the great diversity among flags, often leading to confusion in military engagements, Congress acted with its usual deliberation. Not untill June 14, 1777, did lawmakers agree upon a terse statement:

Resolved That the Flag of the United States be 13 alternate stripes red and white; that the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

No one knows who framed that resolution, who favored it, or who opposed it. Francis Hopkinson, a delegate from New Jersey and a member of the Marine committee, later put in a claim for "a quarter of a cask of public wine" for payment based upon his having helped to design the flag. The legislators declined to take him seriously -- and he may in fact have been joking. However, that the lawmakers turned down his bid for renumeration means little. At a time when inflation had the former colonies in its grip, only the most pressing claims were recognized.

A tiny clue is found in the fact that the flag resolution is sandwiched between others dealing with naval matters. If Hopkinson did not personally originate the design, the Marine committee probably processed and approved it before it was submitted to the full Congress.

One of those marine documents dealt with on the day the flag was approved was the commission issued to John Paul Jones. "That flag and I are twins," the naval hero declared at a Fourth of July celebration. "We were born at the same hour. We cannot be parted in life or death. So long as we float, we shall float together."

Barbara W. Tuchman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of America's most distinguished and widely read historians, has this to say about Betsy Ross's involvement with the flag:

"For the Continental Navy, a flag was wanted to represent the hard-won confederation of colonies under one sovereignty, the great step that made feasible a war of revolution. This flag, made at the seat of Congress in Philadelphia, by a milliner, Margaret Manny, was to be the one to receive the first salute. Everyone knows about Betsy Ross, why do we know nothing about Margaret Manny? Probably for no better reason than that she had fewer articulate friends and relatives to build a story around her."

Ms. Tuchman continues as the flag relates to John Paul Jones and his flagship, Alfred:

"What is on record here is that Margaret Manny, milliner, received from James Wharton of Philadelphia, 49 yards of broad bunting and 521/2 yards of the narrow width with which to prepare an ensign. The goods were charged to the account of the ship Alfred*, flagship of the squadron and, with 30 guns, largest of the first four." *Flagship of John Paul Jones (ed.)

Ms. Tuchman concludes with:

"The finished product ...displayed thirteen red and white stripes, representing the union of the thirteen colonies, together with the combined crosses of St. Andrew and St. George in the canton or upper left quadrant retained from the Union Jack. On a mid-winter day,. December 3, 1775, the new flag was flown 'I hoisted with my own hands the flag of freedom,' Jones recalled on the deck of his ship, the Alfred, at her dock in Philadelphia in the Delaware River, while the Commodore and officers of the fleet and a cheering crowd of citizens hailed the event from shore. Washington, shortly afterward, on January 1, 1776, raised what is believed to be the same flag on Prospect Hill in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during his siege of Boston."

Some of Jones's jealous fellow officers accused him of being a braggart and a show-off. Regardless of how much or how little truth there was in the charge, it was John Paul Jones who demanded and received the first official foreign recognition of the Stars and Stripes on February 13, 1778 from French Admiral La Motte Picquet in Quiberon Bay near l'Orient, France.

One hundred years later, the descendants of Elizabeth Griscom Ross (Betsy Ross), wife of a Philadelphia upholstery maker, announced that she had designed the national banner at the request of George Washington. Historians have declined to take the story seriously, which has left us with the mystery of who created the flag.

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(See Bibliography below)

Picture Credit: Fraunces Tavern Museum, New York City
Bibliography: Garrison, Webb, Great Stories of the American Revolution (1990); Fleming, Thomas, Liberty! The American Revolution (1997); Tuchman, Barbara W., The First Salute (1988).