South Carolina State Flag

 

Asked by the Revolutionary Council of Safety in the fall of 1775 to design a flag for the use of the South Carolina troops, Col. William Moultrie chose a blue which matched the color of their uniforms and a crescent which reproduced the silver emblem worn on the front of their caps. The palmetto tree was added later to represent Moultrie's heroic defense of the palmetto-log fort on Sullivan's Island against the attack of the British fleet on June 28, 1776.

South Carolina needed a national flag after it seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. The General Assembly considered a wide range of designs, but on January 28, 1861, added the palmetto to Moultrie's original design, thereby officially creating the flag as we know it today. A resolution proposing changing the color to "royal purple" as a memorial to the Confederate dead was resoundingly defeated in 1899, leaving the flag's Revolutionary War symbolism intact.

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Courtesy of State of South Carolina

Image by Art Explosion 600,000.