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During the Battle for Fort Moultrie (then named Fort Sullivan), South Carolina, on June 28, 1776, the flag flown over the American emplacements was a dark blue field with a crescent moon and the word “LIBERTY” across the bottom. This was the first American revolutionary flag to be raised in the southern states. During the British bombardment, the flagpole was struck by a shell and the flag thrown to the earth.
Young Sergeant William Jasper leaped into the storm of shells and managed to raise the flag again, saying words to the effect that “We cannot fight without our flag!”
For his bravery, Sgt. Jasper was presented with a sword by the fort’s commander, William Moultrie. When offered a commission, William Jasper declined on the grounds that he was an illiterate commoner. William Jasper was killed in 1779 during the siege of Savannah.
The Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key
O say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
When you gaze upon ‘Old Glory’ what feelings stir within your heart?
