Flags depict units, people, passage of time

For a week after the Feb. 27 ceremony in Marion honoring Gen. Francis Marion, three flags flew along Main Street and next to the Gen. Francis Marion statue on the courthouse square. Some might want to know about the flags.
Perhaps the oldest and least known is the yellow flag with a rattlesnake on it and the words "Don't Tread on Me." It is most often called the Gadsden Flag and has it origins with Benjamin Franklin, his sense of humor, but later came to represent the American Navy.
In 1751, Franklin wrote a satirical commentary in his Pennsylvania newspaper suggesting that to thank the Brits for their policy of sending felons to America, colonists should send rattlesnakes to England. Then, in 1754, he used a snake to illustrate another point in what became the first American political cartoon in an American newspaper.
"It was the image of a snake cut into eight sections. The sections represented the individual colonies and the curves of the snake suggested the coastline. New England was combined into one section as the head of the snake. South Carolina was at the tail. Beneath the snake were the ominous words 'Join, or Die.' This had nothing to do with independence from Britain."
It was, though, a plea for unity in defending the colonies during the French and Indian War and played off the superstition that a snake, cut into pieces, could come back to life if its sections were joined together before sunset. This is taken from the Web site www.foundingfathers.info, which has many other riveting "Founding Fathers" tales.
By 1775, the snake symbol is appearing all over the colonies, on buttons, money, banners and flags and the motto "Don't Tread on Me" often accompanied it. Enter into American Revolutionary War Christopher Gadsden of Philadelphia, a patriot.
Gadsden led the Sons of Liberty in South Carolina, starting in 1765, and was later made a colonel in the Continental Army.
Eventually, Congress chose a Rhode Island man, Esek Hopkins, as the commander-in-chief of the Navy and he promptly used "a distinctive personal standard. Gadsden also presented a copy of this flag to his state legislature in Charleston. This is recorded in the South Carolina congressional journals:
"Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and these words underneath, 'Don't Tread on Me!'"
And, the rest, as they say, is history: "The Revolutionary standard: The Gadsden flag and other rattlesnake flags were widely used during the American Revolution. There was no standard American flag at the time. People were free to choose their own banners."
As for the blue flag with the word "Liberty" on it, it is known as the Fort Moultrie Flag. Francis Marion, for whom Marion is named, was one of the defenders in the palmetto log fort on Sullivan’s Island during the British attack.
Colonists defending Fort Moultrie in South Carolina created this flag to represent the fight for American liberty. It is a blue flag with a crescent moon in the corner and the printed word "Liberty" is on the moon, or in its shape.
The blue of the flag was taken from the color of the South Carolina soldier’s uniforms and the crescent design was adopted from the silver crescent worn on the front of the South Carolina soldiers' leather hats. The Moultrie Flag was designed in 1775 and flew over Fort Moultrie, then called Ft. Sullivan or the fort on Sullivan’s Island, in Charleston Harbor.
This flag was shot away by the British in a battle in 1776 and was rescued by Sgt. William Jasper, who replanted it on the wall of the fort while under British gun fire. This was the flag of the South Carolina "Minute men," according to http://www.united-states-flag.com/fortmoultrie.html.
Incidentally, a Palmetto tree was later added to the flag to represent the palmetto log fort on Sullivan’s Island from which the Americans defended Charleston and in time this design became our official South Carolina state flag.
Perhaps the most recognizable of the three flags being flown in Marion is probably what some call the "Betsy Ross" flag. Folklore aside, Ross was a flag maker and during the American Revolution she made flags for the Pennsylvania State Navy and other military units.
The American flag with its 13 stars, symbolizing the 13 original colonies, did not appear until the early 1790s and has been one in a long line of American Flags. Additionally the flag didn't stay with 13 stars for long, as the growing nation quickly added stars as the number of states entering the union grew. Visit www.usa-flag-site.org/history for more details.