About flag day and then we realized that in fact there were three flags being stored here and one in the collection of the museum of the American Revolution, two that are the property of an anonymous, very generous owner and lender, who has consented to have them on display for this afternoon. So this is an extraordinary opportunity. Im not sure there is anywhere else on the planet why you can stand in the room and be in the presence of three banners of liberty from the American Revolution. So congratulations to all of you for not going to the beach this weekend or not mowing the grass in the hot weather and choosing to come and sit in the dark with me for about an hour. I would like to start actually with an exercise to get you to think about the role that flags play and the images you have in your minds eye about the American Revolution. And so actually im going to close your eyes for a minute. Because were going to think about how poets and painters have painted the vision we have of the American Revolution. So if you use your minds eye and listen to ralph wando emerson, by the rude bridge that arch the flood, their flag to aprils breeze unfurled here , once the embattled farmer stood and fired the shot heard around the world. Or if i say bunker hill, or Independence Hall, the declaration of in dependence, or Washington Crossing the delaware, raise your hand if you thought a flag or saw a flag. Almost all of you must have had a flag waving somewhere in your mind. And so i wanted to start, before we get to the discussion of the flags youll see today, to just reflect for a few minutes there is emersons words from the conquered hymn. And to think about the way we think about flags an the American Revolution. And we claim them as philadelphians and they were born in maryland and we dont hold them against them. James peale and Charles Wilson peale, the painters of the revolution, and both of whom stood the test. They were not summer soldiers by any means. They struggled there many hard campaigns through the course of the revolution and recorded their impressions of the revolution in many works that have become quite people. The peel family, not just james have become quite familiar. The peale family not just james , and charles, on down the line became a dynasty of painters many of washington, almost all of which bear a version of a national standard. Their and you can see how the banners are being depicted. A small boy who lived through the revolution, watched his uncles painting away, marching off to war and picking up the brush and palate also made a career for himself. Painted 50 versions of this popular orchard of washington often depicting nasa all na ssau hall. I dont need a laser pointer. In every case there is an embedded flag in the background. The most significant individual for shaping the way you think about the American Revolution and the struggle for liberty with connecticuts john trumbull. You can see that, from the body of his work, everything from studies in graphite and oil to finished work, you can see how artists played such an Important Role from the first concept and competition for the final work. Im sure with your eyes closed you were thinking of the death of general warren, or the death of general harris. The surrender of the hessians at trenton. The death a few days later of hugh mercer at the battle of princeton. You can see from his preparatory sketch both the importance of flags in the composition and raising a challenge that we will discuss a little bit later. The change in the designs of those flags which make it more complicated when we are trying to nail down the chronology of Design Trends of flags in the early American Revolution. This is another example of the surrender of fort wallaces army at yorktown and the finished piece itself. Moving on to later generations. Inspired by the revolutionary upheaval in europe in 1848 wanted to paint a stirring work that would inspire others liberty and monarch goal societies in europe. He was lambasted by critics and loved by everyone else. This was known originally as yankee doodle. Our local guide, howard pyle. You can see that hanging at the brandywine river museum. Bernard perlin, who was a popular recruiting poster during the second world war, painted an enormous banner that hung in union station. Literally hundreds of thousands of american troops as they saw this after being shipped off to the pacific or atlantic. We will go back to the 18th century. This is an early quote from the Newport Rhode island newspaper the dateline was philadelphia. The correspondent said even before the outbreak of war in april 1775 as americans throughout the colony, soon to be independent states, or preparing themselves militarily to confront the british army in their struggle for liberty. They were commissioning flags and banners as part of their military preparation. The three flags, three b anners of liberty will be the muhlenberg flag, the forrester flat, and associated with George Washington, often called the headquarters flag or the commanderinchiefs standard. Let me start with term and out it. I will be throwing out words like waste and fly and cant like hoist and fly and canton. We talk a lot about cantons which is the upper part of the flag or the poll. The fly or the fly and. The field is everything that is not the canton. The charge is the design that will be placed in the center of the field. It is also important to understand symbols. We will talk a lot about symbols today. Understanding the union. Often called the union jack. It does not have until 1801 the red over strike. The addition of ireland. In the 18th century, the union flag combines the cross of saint george representing england, and the cross of king andrew which represents scotland. This flag has been in existence since the beginning of the earliest 18 century. In america it was probably most familiar in the socalled red infant. This was the flag thrown flown by admiralty. This was the flag flown by admiralty. This would be a flag in appearance to this, a red field and a union canton. In the british army, is important to think about the military heritage of because medicare army of the cosmetic army. Military heritage of the leaders of the military. George washington served as a presence as an apprentice to a british officer. This is a scottish regiment on the eve of its embarkation for america in 17 to six in 1756. This is glasgow green in scotland. You have companies that are firing. His called street firing. You can imagine the column. They would fire. They are marching back to back, loading as they go. They could produce continuous fire. In the center of the regiment is the typical British Standard of colors. This is a Union Standard and then a regimental standard. The National Emblem has the royal guard on it and that is to signal a battlefield. Many nations represent that these troops are british. The regimental standard, you see this watercolor of an ensign carrying a regimental standard is a standard. It is a yellow field, union jack canton. This pair of standards was the typical way for the british army or an American Unit would have taken to the field. Here is a rare image from the collection of the museum of the American Revolution. It is a detail from the painting of the battle of germantown in october of 1777. It is a rare depiction of an american regiment. As for the locals, it is just outside. The fighting was taking place at the two mountain shoe mansion of clifton. During the revolutionary war the scale of fighting and the nature of the territory that this fighting was taking place in also meant that you had to break up into smaller units. Instead of a large regiment of 8001000 men with a pair of colors imagine in Broken Ground and have to cross fences, troops would have to fight in smaller units. Early on the americans began breaking down into smaller groups and assigning colors to sort of subunits of a regiment. They would use the term grand division. One of the first advocates of this was a former british officer Major General charles lee, who had served in the french and indian war in america and gone back and fought in conflicts in europe in the 1760s. He settled back in virginia in 1760s and becomed enamored of the resistance to british taxation and becames a general with general washington early in the war. And you became familiar with barren von stoiben and was faking it when he claimed he was a baron in the. But we owe him a great debt. And they were great tactical innovators. And they effected the kind of flags that have come down to us. Now lee was an advocate early on for having a simple color, different colored flags, color is a synonym for flag. They would have the word liberty embroidered on them. And there is, believe it or not a surviving flag that matched this description. This is a photograph taken at about 1860, 1862. It is actually of, at the time though it is hard to believe it, a living veteran of the American Revolution, a man named nicholas vetter, he died in 1862, actually an image of the memorial erupted in his honor. He actually had a small private museum of revolutionary relics and this flag is one of the items preserved. It survived remarkably to the present day, but although as can you see, this photograph taken about a century ago and this is the recent appearance, it has been rode hard put away wet as my grand father said and it is part of the schenectady museum. But it is the sole survivor of the liberty flags. It is common in 1776. There are numerous references to them of fighting around new york in the actions described in david mccullochs book 1776. In one case, one action on long island, one of the hessian commanders noted they had captured 11 colors, all with the word liberty written on them. There may well have been others that went back as trophies to england or to the german states and they may be waiting to be discovered in europe. And von steuben is best known for promulgating a uniform set of regulations for the discipline of the Continental Army. He joined the continent at army during the valley forge winter as Inspector General with general washington. Up to this the state lines had point, used slightly different thrill drill manuals. It wasnt so much they were loading and firing in different waysba if you can imagine, you are trying to get a brigade or hundreds of thousands of men to go from a column into a line facing an enemy and they all do it a different way, absolutely disastrous. Von steuben created a uniform set to get those men to move. And this is a plate from the 1779 socalled the blue book because of the blue paste board covers, just about every nco and officer would have owned a copy of this. And here with the arrows you can see where hes depicted two of what they called grand division flags. So unlike the british system of having a National Flag and a regimental flag and those were the only flag, these with the smaller maneuvering flags and they were for a company or two Companies Working together in concert during an action. And that is a good setup for the first flag youll see today known as the muhlenberg flag. It is now a faded pink color. At the period it was constructed of a changeable silk so the wharf of the fabric were different colors so as it floded in the wind it had a salmon color. It was quite resplendent in its day. It has in the center a white painted scroll and show you a close up in a moment. It is called the muhlenberg flag because it descended in the family of John Peter Gabriel mulenberg, one of the sons of henry muhlenberg, known as the founder for the Lutheran Church in america. This would be been in trap, up in collegeville for locals here, John Peter Gabriel mulenberg was a lutheran minister at the beginning of the American Revolution when the fighting broke out. He had been very involved in the early runup to the war, the resistance participated in , political committees and very committed to the american resistance and ultimately the revolution. He was appointed in january of 1776 to raise a regiment of germanspeaking inhabitants of the Shenandoah Valley. He had taken up a calling of what is now woodstock in northern part or downstream Shenandoah Valley in northern virginia. His congregation consisted of german immigrants or the descendents of graerm immigrants who were still primarily germanspeaking. This regiment known as the eighth virginia was raised from january to march in 1776. And a regiment that is debated among historians and politicians and this is a story which was known in part even during the American Revolution, there were a number of officers who refer to you and berg muhlenberg as the general who had famously mounted the pulpit with his sword and his dock aid, being the roset of silk ribbon that a military man would wear in his hat. The story was not written down in great detail until the 1830s and and went Something Like jean 1840s Peter Gabriel mulenberg returned to woodstock and the word went out he would announce his final sermon before going off to war and wearing his clerical robes as he he mounted the pulpit, he delivered a sermon from ecclesiastes and when he started speaking about there is a time for peace and a time for war reportedly said , and now is the time for war and revealed beneath his gown that he was wearing either his entire Continental Army uniform or perhaps just a sword and cockade. So he was certainly known in the period to have been a minister who went to war and there was something that happened in woodstock, and this is, of course, a 20th century painting depicting that image. What is important about muhlenberg is he kept a lot of his things and we have excellent provenance on this material. In the upper left you see the flag as it descended through the muhlenberg family until very very recently. Until 1962 it was paired with the pair of pistols you see on the right here. These are in the collection of the museum of the American Revolution. The flag and the pistols dissented in the family from muhlenbergs eldest son and in his will he evens refers to these as the brass barrelled pistols he carried through the American Revolution. The flag had been framed for a many years and this is a great example of the work that goes on here at the conservation lab. This is the appearance when it came out of the frame. You can imagine lisa menardi and linda and i were in the room and all we knew what was we saw through the glass. No one was sure what was behind there. Was it the center of the flag that had been cut out and framed . Could we have imagined that there, folded up behind a piece of card bardboard was an entire grand division color from the Continental Army . You can see what the conservator s are always concerned about and thats the effect of light exposure and probably in half a century or so what the difference is in the fading thats taken place over that period of time. So this is the reverse of the flag. You can see a fringed edged here and this is the hoist where theres a leave for the pole of that flag. And here it is now con serbed and virginia whalen who i cant see anything because theres a light in my eye, but somewhere out in the audience, if virginia would waive shes the conservator who worked on two of the flee flags that are here. So some of you i know who are flag collectors are very interested, instead of asking me very details of z twists and y twists and this thing and i will give you a blank stare, virginia is the person who has looked at these more closely than anyone on the planet and did the work to restore this flag. Its presented next to another flag with virginia provenance as well. This is from a suite of three colors with a remarkable history. These were sold at sothebys in 2006 after descended directly in the family of benastre tarlton. The commander who commanded the british legion which was confusingly composed largely of loyalists in the south. Served in the north as well but became very kel known as bloody tarlton for his actions in the carolinas and virginia during the American Revolution. This is a set of standards regimental standard and two grand division colors that were captured at a battle in 1780 from the third virginia detachment. It was an amalgamated group of the remnants of several regiments that had been sent down to stop the british invasion of the southern states. Whats remarkable is they never filled in the regiments. These were clearly issued from the stores here in philadelphia and sent down. Now the next flag is known as forrester flag. Its composed of a red field. When you see it, you see there are six white stripes on the one side and seven on the other all in told making 13 alternating red and white stripes. It is known as the forster flag, as these flags often are are because of family descent or Family Tradition. So this flag was originally owned by Samuel Forster started in 1775. Its traditionally said to have been the standard carried by the a unit of the essex county militia in north of boston, northeast of boston in 1775. It descended in that family directly until 1975 when it was acquired by the Flag Research Center in massachusetts and then just two years ago, i believe, was sold at actually, it was not sold at auction,