8 Revolutionary War Flags Flown Before the Stars and Stripes

Nine red and white vertical stripes made up the original Sons of Liberty flag, associated with the Revolutionary War-era secret society formed to challenge British policies and used during the 1760s Stamp Act protests in Boston.

Still, Martucci calls the flag “a bit of a mystery.” Although some historians argue the stripes represent the nine colonies that met for the Stamp Act Congress, Martucci notes that the nine stripes correspond with the “45” symbol the Sons of Liberty and others used at the time of the Stamp Act repeal. The popular number—whose digits add up to nine— referenced Issue No. 45 of Londoner John Wilkes’ newspaper The North Briton that criticized the British government.

Marc Leepson, author of Flag: An American Biography, adds that the Sons of Liberty met in secret under what they called “liberty trees.” “The Brits didn’t like [that],” he says and would cut the trees down. The group then met under “liberty poles” with the red-and-white-striped banners attached. Eventually, the flag’s design changed to include 13 horizontal stripes.

Colonists often reused or modified flags because materials such as silk and dyes were scarce, Hill says. The Taunton flag kept the British Union in the canton (flag-speak for the upper-left corner) and added the motto “Liberty and Union.”

According to Martucci, British Union flags and naval ensigns with slogans such as “Liberty” and “No Popery” were common in pre-war demonstrations. An item in the October 24, 1774, edition of The Boston Evening Post backs this up, reporting that in Taunton, Massachusetts, “on Friday last a Liberty Pole of 112 Feet long was raised there, on which is a Vane, and a Union Flag flying, with the Words LIBERTY and UNION thereon.”

With a central design featuring a knot of 13 cords flanked by classical figures and a horse head, this flag is the standard of the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia (today known as the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry). The squadron is believed to have carried the flag at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton and during Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River in 1776, according to the Museum of the American Revolution.

The troop has used the flag design since its founding in 1774, Martucci says, when the canton was a British Union flag. At some point, that was painted over with the 13 silver and blue stripes. “You can still see the Union flag under the painted stripes today,” he says of the preserved original flag owned by the First Troop.

Pine trees were common elements on Revolutionary War flags. “In fact, one of the militia units at Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, did display a pine tree banner,” Leepson says.

By this time, colonists had been using the symbol for more than a century. Leepson traces its origin to 1629, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony adopted its official seal featuring a Native American and pine trees. Then, after Puritan separatists objected to the English ensign in the 1630s because it included a cross, the colony removed the cross for many years. “In 1686, after the reconstruction of Massachusetts as a royal colony, the English ensign was restored, but to make it nonreligious, a tree was added in the uppermost corner,” Martucci says.

In the mid-1700s, colonists sometimes altered red ensigns with British Unions by replacing each Union’s uppermost corner with a pine tree on a white field. “By 1775, the British emblems were removed, and the tree was enlarged to cover the entire canton [of the Continental Flag],” Martucci says. Today, some New Englanders still fly pine tree banners.

This design dates from the 1640s, during the English Civil Wars, Martucci says. Oil paint on the small piece of silk damask pictures the arm of God about to strike his enemies along with the motto “Conquer or Die” in Latin. The flag was most likely made in England, Martucci explains, before making its way to Bedford, Massachusetts.

“It was passed down in a Bedford family with the story [that] it was used at the Battle of the North Bridge in Concord by militia from Bedford on the first day of the American Revolution,” he says. The original still exists and is kept in Bedford.

Although many sources attribute this green flag with a canton of white stars on blue to Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, historians say the connection is a misnomer. According to Martucci and Hill, the flag is based on a fragment of a banner cherished by Major General John Stark of New Hampshire.

“Likely it was once the flag of the 1st New Hampshire Regiment during the later years of the Revolutionary War, a unit connected with Stark… [that] was present at West Point at the end of the war when the general retired from that post and went home,” Martucci says.

Still, the flag has come to symbolize the famed militia and its victories, including the Battle of Bennington in 1777. It also stands as a patriotic symbol for the state of Vermont. The Vermont National Guard continues to display the flag at deployments and ceremonies. “This isn’t just an adaptation of an historical emblem, but a nod to the enduring spirit and resilience that the original colonial minutemen epitomized,” the Air National Guard states.

Many Revolutionary War flags have been reused in later eras, often reflecting different political ideologies. “Probably the most repeated usage is that of the Gadsden flag,” Martucci says.

The yellow flag, first used by Continental Navy Commodore Esek Hopkins and featuring a coiled snake and the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” was based on a flag that Continental Congressman Christopher Gadsden gave to South Carolina’s legislature in 1776. “Gadsden is often cited as the designer of this flag, but that is debatable,” Martucci says.

Many trace the snake symbol to Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 political cartoon, depicting a snake cut into eight sections to represent the colonies, captioned “Join, or Die.”

Supporters of the Confederacy were the first to revive the Gadsden flag. “Since the flag originally had a connection to South Carolina, it was a natural symbol,” Martucci says. “Because of its association with ‘The Lost Cause,’ the flag did not have much of a life after that until, in the 1970s, the flag became one of the popular symbols of the anti-war movement and leftist politics.” The flag has since become associated with libertarianism and small government ideology.

Also known as the Grand Union Flag, soldiers in the field never carried the Continental Colors, Hill says, but versions were used on ships. Like other flags, it was likely made from an existing red flag with the British Union that was altered to include white stripes representing the colonies.

“It was an unofficial flag… used from early 1776 to mid-1777, and it reflects the American belief that we were loyal to the king and united for our rights as Britons,” Martucci says.

Some accounts state that Washington raised it on Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776, in Massachusetts, making it the predecessor to the Stars and Stripes. Martucci, however, argues that story is contradicted by news reports and letters referring to the banner as the “Union Flag,” which, he says, is a distinctly different design.