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First hoisted on December 3, 1775 by naval officer John Paul Jones, the flag was used heavily by the Second Continental Congress of the United States, and by George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
According to legend, on January 1, 1776, this flag was first raised at Cambridge, where George Washington took command of the Continental Army. Although this flag was known as the Continental Colors because it represented the entire nation, in one of Washington’s letters he referred to it as the “ Great Union Flag ” and it is most ...
Mar 19, 2024 · Grand Union Flag, American colonial banner first displayed by George Washington on Jan. 1, 1776. It showed the British Union Flag of 1606 in the canton. Its field consisted of seven red and six white alternated stripes representing the 13 colonies. The Stars and Stripes officially replaced it on June 14, 1777.
As the first commonly flown flag by the Continental Army and Navy, the Grand Union Flag was the flag of the united colonies on July 4, 1776 when they declared their independence from Great Britain and on September 9, 1776, when the name "United States" was chosen for the former British colonies.
The flag is named after Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolinian delegate to the Continental Congress and brigadier general in the Continental Army, who designed the flag in 1775 during the American Revolution. He gave the flag to Commodore Esek Hopkins, and it was unfurled on the main mast of Hopkins's flagship USS Alfred on December 20, 1775.
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775 by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia after the war's outbreak.
The flag was used by the U.S. Continental Army forces as both a naval ensign and garrison flag throughout 1776 and early 1777. It is not known for certain when or by whom the design of the Continental Colors was created, but the flag could easily be produced by sewing white stripes onto the British Red Ensigns.
