#1 [url]

Mar 16 09 7:10 PM

I think the key points in the Betsy Ross myth are that she was related to a person who was involved in flag design, and that she had already made a naval flag (which is what the first "stars and stripes" was).

Personally - and it is only my opinion - I doubt this specific design was used by the Continental Army for the following reasons, although some combinations of stars and stripes were used in the field and have been recorded (including contemporary illustrations by opponents):-

1) Our mindset in terms of the universality of a national flag was not shared back then - indeed, was not even known, as such flags were almost exclusively used for ships.

2) The Continental Army was an independent institution and would have wanted its own flag - in fact, Washington was asked to produce a variant of the Maritime Committee's design for the Continental Army.

3) Unlike the Continental Navy, the Continental Army was made up of disparate elements from each State, which were very proprietorial right through to the end of the war. This kind of individualism extended into the HQs of the various field armies, which would be far more likely to use a "national" flag than the individual regiments anyway.

4) A number of regiments seem to have adopted Charles Lee's idea of a single regimental colour (usually matching the facings), supplemented by two, or even four, "divisional" colours (red, white, blue and buff - the facing colours adopted in the 1779 Regs).

Unfortunately, a lot of paintings of incidents in the AWI (eg Trumbull and Peale) were done after the war and there is more than a suggestion that contemporary flags were used as models. For example, there is an earlier version of Trumbull's "Surrender at Yorktown" in which the more traditional red and white stripes on the flag are replaced by red, white and blue stripes (Lincoln is shown bareheaded and from behind in this version and the solitary dismounted French officer is a grenadier). The depiction of the siege from Gloucester Point by a British officer shows a flag with red and blue stripes, rather than red and white.

Equally, Peale's 1779 painting of Washington as the victor of Trenton and Princeton, standing over captured Hessian flags, shows a dark blue HQ flag with a circle of white stars; however, Mercer's more naive depiction of Princeton shows the HQ flag with the stars sprinkled liberally across it, suggesting that Peale's version was either his own interpretation, or a later "tidier" version. Gates used a similar flag for his own HQ (apparently - I've never seen a design), so this may have been closer to an "army" version.

Of course, all of this is absolutely no help whatsoever to poor ptl1815!!!! Another problem with GCH units is that several were either rumps, or were recently formed (within the previous 12 months) following internal reorganisations and/or the disaster at Charleston.