A funny thing happened on the way to the Revolutionary War

Today’s post comes from National Archives Office of Strategy and Communications staff writer Rob Crotty.

“Betsy Ross making the first flag, 1776 (according to legend)”

(111-SC-92968)

On New Year’s day in 1776, Gen. George Washington and the Continental Army were laying siege to the British-controlled city of Boston. From Prospect Hill, General Washington ordered the Grand Union flag hoisted “in compliment of the United Colonies,” accidentally ending the Revolutionary War.

Or so the British thought.

In Boston, a speech by King George that offered favorable terms of surrender for the colonialists was making the rounds. Loyalists in the besieged city were elated when they saw what looked like the Union Jack flying above General Washington’s encampment at Prospect Hill, taking it as a sign that the Continental forces has accepted the terms and were calling it quits.

Washington remarked on the event in a letter to Joseph Reed on January 4: “By this time, I presume, they begin to think it strange we have not made formal surrender of the lines.”

That the Grand Union flag was so easily mistaken for the British Union Jack made it clear that, certainly, the 13 colonies had a flag problem.

Thankfully, on June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress took up the problem and declared “that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” Finally, the new nation had a flag, and accidental surrenders were a thing of the past.

In honor of the anniversary of the adoption of the stars and bars, Barack Obama has declared June 14 Flag Day, as has every President since Woodrow Wilson.

Happy Flag Day, everybody.

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