As recorded in the S.C. State Library
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Eighth StateFlag Adopted
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| This is one of the oldest flag designs still in use. Its basic design goes back to 1765 when three white crescents were used on a blue flag by protesters against the Stamp Act. Ten years later a flag with a single crescent, or new moon, was hoisted in the Revolutionary war. Colonel William Moultrie designed a flag for the South Carolina soldiers using the blue color of their uniforms as the field and a silver crescent, which the soldiers wore on the front of their caps. The Palmetto tree was added to the flag later.When the people of Charleston heard that the British planned to capture Sullivanís Island, Colonel Moultrie and others, built a fort of Palmetto logs on the island. When the warships came, the captain and his soldiers defeated them, partly because the cannonballs that the ships fired could not destroy the fort. Instead, they sank into the soft, tough logs. This was the Battle of Fort Moultrie, fought on June 28, 1776. |
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Another South Carolina Flag
WHAT IS THAT RED SOUTH CAROLINA FLAG? It looks exactly like South Carolina's blue and white state flag--except it has a red field. What you're seeing is "Big Red," the official spirit flag of The Citadel Corps of Cadets. This flag has been associated with the college since the beginning of the Civil War. In the weeks following South Carolina's withdrawal from the United States in December 1860, a variety of "secession flags" were sewn and flown throughout the new republic. One such banner--a red flag with a white palmetto in its center--was presented to a company of Citadel cadets stationed on Morris Island by the ladies of Hugh E. Vincent's family. Mr. Vincent owned much of the island, which is on the south side of the entrance to Charleston harbor. The cadets manned a sand battery of four cannons, and their mission was to protect the harbor and prevent US ships from resupplying the Union troops sequestered in Fort Sumter. When the Star of the West, an unarmed commercial steamer, entered the harbor on the morning of January 9, 1861, Cadet George Edward Haynesworth of Sumter fired the first hostile shot of the accelerating conflict between North and South. Above the battery, according to the captain of the Star of the West, flew a red flag with a white palmetto. After the Civil War this red and white palmetto flag seems to have disappeared for almost a century. But in the fall of 1960 it was used as a guidon by that year's honor company (Romeo) in anticipation of its reenactment of the firing on the Star of the West on January 9, 1961. In recent decades Big Red has been flown by the Touchdown Cannon Crew that fires a round every time The Citadel's football team scores ... and since 1989 it has replaced the Confederate Naval Jack that cadets used to wave at sports events. You can also see Big Red flying daily near the center of The Citadel campus, at the north end of the parade ground. So now when you see that Big Red South Carolina flag, you'll know what it is! |
More Facts about the Palmetto State
