The Star Spangled Banner & the 15 Star Flag

The Star Spangled Banner: it. At his death the flag passed to his widow, Louisa Armistead. This Flag became the Official United States Flag on May 1st,1795. Two stars 1824 The flag was used in a reception for were added for the admission of Vermont General Lafayette. (the 14th State on March 4th, 1791) and Kentucky (the 15th State on June 1st, 1861 Louisa Armistead died on October 1792, and was to last for 23 years. The 3, 1861, and in her will left the flag to her five Presidents who served under this flag daughter, Georgiana Armistead Appleton. were; George Washington (1789-1797), The flag was sent to England for safe John Adams (1797-1801), Thomas keeping during the Civil War, according to Jefferson (1801-1809), James Madison one of the Armistead family members, (1809-1817), and James Monroe who made this statement in a newspaper (1817-1825). interview in the 1880's. But Georgiana The 15-star, 15-stripe flag was authorized said, in a letter to Admiral George Preble, by the Flag Act of January 13, 1794, that the flag was in her possession during adding 2 stripes and 2 Stars. The the rebellion. regulation went into effect on May 1, 1795. This flag was the only U.S. Flag to June 24, 1873 have more than 13 stripes. It was The flag was displayed in the Charleston immortalized by Francis Scott Key during Naval Yards. Canvas backing was sewn the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Sept on the flag and one of the first 13, 1814. The image above is photographs was taken of it. representative of the actual flag that flew over Fort McHenry on that day and which 1876 The flag was loaned to the Navy is now preserved in the Smithsonian Department for the Centenial Celebration. Museum. You can notice the "tilt" in some of the stars just as in the original Star 1879 Georgiana Armistead Appleton died Spangled Banner. in 1879 and left the flag to her son Eben Appleton. Where the original Star 1907 Eben Appleton loaned the flag to Spangled Banner went... the Smithsonian.

1814 The battle occurred, and the flag 1912 Eben Appleton converts the loan of won its glory. Armistead was promoted to the flag to a gift to the Smithsonian. Lt. Colonel by Madison. Armistead died in service on April 25, 1818. He acquired 1914 Amelia Fowler was commissioned the flag sometime before that date, but at to remove the canvas backing sewn on this point it is unknown how. the flag when it was photographed in 1873 and replace it with the present linen 1818 Armistead died and "legend" says backing. that the flag was used in his funeral. However, in all of the newspaper accounts of Armistead's funeral, there is no mention of the flag being displayed at The Star Spangled Banner & the 15 Star Flag

The 1818 Flag: United States be made of thirteen stripes, Realizing that the addition of a new star alternate red and white; that the union be and new stripe for each new State was thirteen stars, white in a blue field, impractical, Congress passed the Flag representing a new Constellation." Act of 1818 which returned the flag Act of January 13, 1794 - provided for 15 design to 13 stripes and specified 20 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795. stars for the 20 states. Act of April 4, 1818 - provided for 13 This Flag became the Official United stripes and one star for each state, to be States Flag on April 13th, 1818. Five added to the flag on the 4th of July stars were added for the admission of following the admission of each new Tennessee (the 16th State on June 1st, state, signed by President Monroe. 1796), Ohio (the 17th State on March 1st, Executive Order of President Taft dated 1803), Louisiana (the 18th State on April June 24, 1912 - established proportions 30th, 1812), Indiana (the 19th State on of the flag and provided for arrangement December 11th, 1816), and Mississippi of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight (the 20th State on December 10, 1817), each, a single point of each star to be and was to last for just one year. The only upward. President to serve under this flag was Executive Order of President Eisenhower James Monroe (1817-1825). dated January 3, 1959 - provided for the arrangement of the stars in seven rows of Evolution of the United States Flag seven stars each, staggered horizontally No one knows with absolute certainty and vertically. who designed the first stars and stripes or Executive Order of President Eisenhower who made it. Congressman Francis dated August 21, 1959 - provided for the Hopkinson seems most likely to have arrangement of the stars in nine rows of designed it, and few historians believe stars staggered horizon tally and eleven that Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia rows of stars staggered vertically. seamstress, made the first one. Until the Executive Order of June 24, Francis Scott Key, 1780-1843 1912, neither the order of the stars nor Francis Scott Key was a respected young the proportions of the flag was lawyer living in Georgetown just west of prescribed. Consequently, flags dating where the modern day Key Bridge before this period sometimes show crosses the Potomac River (the house unusual arrangements of the stars and was torn down after years of neglect in odd proportions, these features being left 1947). He made his home there from to the discretion of the flag maker. In 1804 to around 1833 with his wife Mary general, however, straight rows of stars and their six sons and five daughters. At and proportions similar to those later the time, Georgetown was a thriving town adopted officially were used. The of 5,000 people just a few miles from the principal acts affecting the flag of the Capitol, the White House, and the United States are the following: Federal buildings of Washington. On June 14, 1777, in order to establish But, after war broke out in 1812 over an official flag for the new nation, the Britian's attempts to regulate American Continental Congress passed the first shipping and other activities while Britain Flag Act: "Resolved, That the flag of the was at war with France, all was not tranquil in Georgetown. The British had The Star Spangled Banner & the 15 Star Flag entered Chesapeake Bay on August 19th, from the Americans, among them Dr. 1814, and by the evening of the 24th of Beanes. The British officers relented but August, the British had invaded and would not release the three Americans captured Washington. They set fire to the immediately because they had seen and Capitol and the White House, the flames heard too much of the preparations for visible 40 miles away in Baltimore. the attack on Baltimore. They were President James Madison,his wife Dolley, placed under guard, first aboard the and his Cabinet had already fled to a H.M.S. Surprise, then onto the sloop and safer location. Such was their haste to forced to wait out the battle behind the leave that they had had to rip the Stuart British fleet. portrait of George Washington from the Now let's go back to the summer of 1813 walls without its frame! for a moment. At the star-shaped Fort A thunderstorm at dawn kept the fires McHenry, the commander, Maj. George from spreading. The next day more Armistead, asked for a flag so big that buildings were burned and again a "the British would have no trouble seeing thunderstorm dampened the fires. Having it from a distance". Two officers, a done their work the British troops Commodore and a General, were sent to returned to their ships in and around the the Baltimore home of Mary Young Chesapeake Bay. Pickersgill, a "maker of colours," and In the days following the attack on commisioned the flag. Mary and her Washington, the American forces thirteen year old daughter Caroline, prepared for the assault on Baltimore working in an upstairs front bedroom, (population 40,000) that they knew would used 400 yards of best quality wool come by both land and sea. Word soon bunting. They cut 15 stars that measured reached Francis Scott Key that the British two feet from point to point. Eight red and had carried off an elderly and much loved seven white stripes, each two feet wide, town physician of Upper Marlboro, Dr. were cut. Laying out the material on the William Beanes, and was being held on malthouse floor of Claggett's Brewery, a the British flagship TONNANT. The neighborhood establishment, the flag was townsfolk feared that Dr. Beanes would sewn together. By August it was finished. be hanged. They asked Francis Scott It measured 30 by 42 feet and cost Key for his help, and he agreed, and $405.90. The Baltimore Flag House, a arranged to have Col. John Skinner, an museum, now occupies her premises, American agent for prisoner exchange to which were restored in 1953. accompany him. At 7 a.m. on the morning of September On the morning of September 3rd, he and 13, 1814, the British bombardment Col. Skinner set sail from Baltimore began, and the flag was ready to meet aboard a sloop flying a flag of truce the enemy. The bombardment continued approved by President Madison. On the for 25 hours,the British firing 1,500 7th they found and boarded the bombshells that weighed as much as 220 TONNANT to confer with Gen. Ross and pounds and carried lighted fuses that Adm. Alexander Cochrane. At first they would supposedly cause it to explode refused to release Dr. Beanes. But Key when it reached its target. But they and Skinner produced a pouch of letters weren't very dependable and often blew written by wounded British prisoners up in mid air. From special small boats praising the care they were receiving the British fired the new Congreve The Star Spangled Banner & the 15 Star Flag rockets that traced wobbly arcs of red Immediately popular, it remained just one flame across the sky. The Americans had of several patriotic airs until it was finally sunk 22 vessels so a close approach by adopted as our national anthem on March the British was not possible. That evening 3, 1931. But the actual words were not the connonading stopped, but at about 1 included in the legal documents. Key a.m. on the 14th, the British fleet roared himself had written several versions with to life, lighting the rainy night sky with slight variations so discrepancies in the grotesque fireworks. exact wording still occur. Key, Col. Skinner, and Dr. Beanes The flag, our beloved Star-Spangled watched the battle with apprehension. Banner, went on view ,for the first time They knew that as long as the shelling after flying over Fort McHenry, on continued, Fort McHenry had not January 1st,1876 at the Old State House surrendered. But, long before daylight in Philadelphia for the nations' Centennial there came a sudden and mysterious celebration. It now resides in the silence. What the three Americans did not Smithsonian Institution's Museum of know was that the British land assault on American History. An opaque curtain Baltimore as well as the naval attack, had shields the now fragile flag from light and been abandoned. Judging Baltimore as dust. The flag is exposed for viewing for a being too costly a prize, the British few moments once every hour during officers ordered a retreat. museum hours. Waiting in the predawn darkness, Key Francis Scott Key was a witness to the waited for the sight that would end his last enemy fire to fall on Fort McHenry. anxiety; the joyous sight of Gen. The Fort was designed by a Frenchman Armisteads great flag blowing in the named Jean Foncin and was named for breeze. When at last daylight came, the then Secretary of war James McHenry. flag was still there! Fort McHenry holds the unique Being an amateur poet and having been designation of national monument and so uniquely inspired, Key began to write historic shrine. on the back of a letter he had in his Since May 30th, 1949 the flag has flown pocket. Sailing back to Baltimore he continuously, by a Joint Resolution of composed more lines and in his lodgings Congress, over the monument marking at the Indian Queen Hotel he finished the the site of Francis Scott Key's birthplace, poem. Judge J. H. Nicholson, his brother- Terra Rubra Farm, Carroll County, in-law, took it to a printer and copies were Keymar, Maryland. circulated around Baltimore under the title The copy that Key wrote in his hotel "Defence of Fort M'Henry". Two of these September 14,1814, remained in the copies survive. It was printed in a Nicholson family for 93 years. In 1907 it newspaper for the first time in the was sold to Henry Walters of Baltimore. Baltimore Patriot on September 20th, In 1934 it was bought at auction in New 1814, then in papers as far away as York from the Walters estate by the Georgia and New Hampshire. To the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore for verses was added a note "Tune: $26,400. The Walters Gallery in 1953 Anacreon in Heaven." In October a sold the manuscript to the Maryland Baltimore actor sang Key's new song in a Historical Society for the same price. public performance and called it "The Another copy that Key made is in the Star-Spangled Banner". Library of Congress.