The Stars and Stripes: 250 Years as an American Symbol

Fred Borch is a lawyer and historian. He served 25 years in the Army as a uniformed attorney. After retiring from active duty, Fred took a job in the U.S. Government as the only career historian whose focus was exclusively on military legal history. He was Professor of Legal History and Leadership for 18 years at The Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School located at the University of Virginia.

On June 14, 1777—249 years ago—the Continental Congress passed this law: “Resolved, that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field.” The “Flag Act” did not, however, specify how many stripes were to be red and how many were to be white. It also did not state how the stars should be arranged in the blue field, much less how the stars should be shaped. It said nothing about the shape the flag should have. Should it be a square? A rectangle? Large? Small? Apparently the Continental Congress decided that these questions should be left for flag makers to determine on their own.

Many Americans believe that Betsy Ross sewed this first American flag. The story goes that George Washington visited her at her shop in Philadelphia, and gave her a sketch for a flag with 13 stripes and 13 stars—but six-pointed stars. Ross is then said to have suggested to Washington that the stars be arranged in a circle and that they be five-pointed rather than six.

While Elizabeth Griscom Ross was a real flag maker who lived and worked in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, there is no historical evidence that she designed, much less sewed the so-called “Betsy Ross” flag. The legend crediting Betsy Ross with designing this distinctive flag first appeared in the 1870s when Ross’s grandson claimed that he had heard from his mother and his aunts that Washington had visited his grandmother and she had made the first flag. The tale caught the imagination of many Americans who were looking for stories that highlighted the grandeur of America’s Revolutionary era.

It may well be true that Washington did visit Ross and that she did sew the first flag, but today most historians credit New Jersey Congressman Francis Hopkinson with having proposed the flag design most familiar to Americans today. Hopkinson had signed the Declaration of Independence and was instrumental in the drafting of the June 14 resolution creating the flag, so it makes sense that he had some definite ideas about what the flag should look like. Hopkinson, however, does not seem to have had the idea to place the thirteen stars in a circle. He also liked the idea of six-pointed rather than the five-pointed stars on the flag today. We may never know for certain who had the idea to place the stars in a circle or who selected five-pointed stars.

In 1795, a new official flag appeared in American skies. It had fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, representing the two new states that had joined the nation: Vermont and Kentucky. This flag flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 and was the impetus for Francis Scott Key’s “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Starting in 1796, four more states joined the Union—Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, and Indiana. Then, after Mississippi became a state in 1817, Congress passed the Flag Act of 1818 the following year that fixed the number of stripes at seven red and six white—reflecting the original 13 states—and provided that there would be one star for each state.

During the Civil War, Union troops carried flags with 34, 35, and 36 stars; Kansas was admitted to the Union in January 1861 as our 34th state. West Virginia followed in 1863 and Nevada in 1864.

When Arizona became a state in 1912, the flag grew to 48 stars. This flag flew at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941 and was seen by millions of Americans when it was raised over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima in 1945.

Today, with the addition Alaska in 1959 and Hawaii in 1960, the flag has 50 stars. Will there be more in the future? Only time will tell. Of one thing we can be certain, as we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, what we now call the “Stars and Stripes” has come to symbolize the United States of America.