The flag is named after American general and politician Christopher Gadsden. It was used by the Continental Marines as an early motto flag, along with the Moultrie flag. The flag was first officially adopted in 1778 when it approved the design for the official Seal of the war office, with the message: ‘This We’ll Defend’
About Gadsden flag in brief
The flag is named after American general and politician Christopher Gadsden. It was used by the Continental Marines as an early motto flag, along with the Moultrie flag. The timber rattlesnake can be found in the area of the original Thirteen Colonies. Its use as a symbol of the American colonies can be traced back to the publications of Benjamin Franklin in 1751. In 1774, Paul Revere added Franklin’s iconic cartoon to the nameplate of Isaiah Thomas’ paper, the Massachusetts Spy, depicted there as fighting a British Griffin. In December 1775, Benjamin Franklin published an essay in the Pennsylvania Journal under the pseudonym American Guesser in which he suggested that the rattlesNake was a good symbol for the American spirit. The design of the War Office Seal was carried forward—with some minor modifications—into the subsequent designs for the War Department’s Seal, and the Department of the Army’s seal, Emblem and Flag. As such, the rattelsnake symbol has been in continuous official use by the US Army for over 236 years. It is often used in the U.S. as a symbols for gun rights and as a sign of American strength and independence. The flag was first officially adopted in 1778 when it approved the design for the official Seal of the war office, with the message: ‘This We’ll Defend’ at the top center of the Seal. It has been used on some American colonial flags and signifies the Army’s constant readiness to defend and preserve the United States.
The first Marines enlisted the first mission in Philadelphia and carried yellow drums painted with the rattlenake with the motto: “Don’t Tread on Me’” The first Marine commander of the newly appointed Navy, Commodore Esek Hopkins, received the yellow flag from the future commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy, Colonel Christopher Gadden. He was one of seven members of the Marine Committee who were outfitting the first naval mission in that first mission. The Navy began with seven ships, often called ‘Washington Cruisers’ that flew the ‘Liberty Tree Flag’ depicting a green pine tree. Those first ships were used to intercept incoming transport ships carrying war supplies to the British in the colonies in order to supply the Continental Army, which was desperately undersupplied in the opening years of theAmerican Revolutionary War. To aid in this, the Second Continental Congress authorized the mustering of five companies of the Navy on their first mission to accompany the Marines on their mission in 1775. This is the first recorded mention of the flag’s symbolism. The flag is now in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and can be seen in the National Museum of American History and Culture, in the basement of the Museum of the United Nations in New York City. It can also be found on the National Gallery of Art, in Washington DC.
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This page is based on the article Gadsden flag published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
