FLAD, HENRY (1823-98). An American civil engineer, born in Bavaria. Soon after his gradua tion at the University of Mnmmich, in 1846. he came to the United States, where he was appoint ed engineer on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, then in course of construction. He was elected president of the American Society of Civil Engi neers in 188(1, and became prominently associated with municipal construction in Saint where he was elected president of the Board of Public Improvements.
FLAG (ODutch rlayghe, Dutch slag, Dan. flag, Swed. flaw ; connected with dialectic Swed. Huge, to flutter in the wind. ODutch flaggheren, vlagghcren, to flag, droop). A cloth of light ma terial capable of being extended by the wind, and designed to make known some fact or want to spectators. In the army a flag is the ensign car ried as its distinguishing mark by each regiment; and also a small banner with which the ground to be occupied is marked out. In the navy the flag is of more importance, often constituting the only means vessels have of communicating with one another. or with the shore.
Naturally, the standard English flag was used by the American Colonies in their early days, and this was commonly the cross of Saint George and later the union cross, the former consisting of a white banner with a red cross, The Puritan spirit was shown when Endecntt (q.v.) cut the cross from the flag because it was a Romanist emblem and a relic of Antichrist. The Colonial flags varied in color, it being sufficient if ground and cross differed. Now and then a pine-tree or a hemisphere was figured in the upper left-hand quarter of the cross, and one flag had only the tree for a symbol. When Sir Edmund Andros was Governor, he established a special flag for New England—a white field with a large Saint George cross, and in the centre 'J. Rf—Jacobus Rex (James, King)—surmounted by a erowri. The Revolution and the pre-Revolutionary con trove•sies brought in all manner of devices for flags and banners, the larger portion bearing mottoes more or less defiant of the British Gov ernment. Soon after the fight at Lexington the volunteers from Connecticut put on their flags the arms of the Colony, with the legend Qui transtulit sustoiet (Ile who brought us over sus tains us). The Colonial flag of New Amsterdam (substantially the present arms of New York City) was carried by armed vessels sailing out of New York—a beaver being the principal fig ure, indicative of both the industry of the Dutch people and the wealth of the fur trade. A month after Bunker Hill. Putnam displayed a flag with a red ground, having on one side the Connecticut and on the other side the words then rec ognized as the motto of Alassachusetts—"An Appeal to Heaven." The earliest vessels sailed under authority displayed the pine tree flag, though a combination of that and other flags was sometimes used. 31any privateers, however, adopted a device consisting of a mailed hand grasping a bundle of thirteen arrows. An early flag in the Southern States was designed by Colonel Moultrie, and was displayed at Charleston, in September, 1775. It was blue, with a white crescent in the upper corner next the staff; afterwards the words 'Liberty or Death' were added. At Cambridge, Mass., on January 2, 1776, Washington displayed a flag, designed by Franklin, Lynch, and Harrison, con sisting of thirteen stripes of red and white, with the union jack in place of the stars, the stripes being emblematic of the union of the thirteen Colonies against British oppression. The rattle
snake flag was often used, the snake being coiled to strike, and the motto, "Don't tread on me." The snake's rattles generally numbered thirteen.
No official action was taken with regard to a national flag until .June 14. 1777, when the Con tinental Congress passed a resolution, "That the flag of the thirteen United States he thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, represent ing a new constellation." The origin of this de sign has been the subject of much controversy, which has left the subject unsettled, though per haps a majority of writers consider the design to have been suggested by the eoat-of-arms of the Washington family, which contains both the stars and the stripes. Paul Jones claimed to have been the first to raise the new flag over a naval ves sel, and it seems that the first use of the Stars and Stripes on land was at Fort Stanwix, where a hastily improvised flag was raised over some captured British colors on August 6, 1777. (See FORT STA N wix.) The flag was used at the battle of Brandywine, and thereafter in all important engagements until the close of the war. On January 13, 1764, Vermont having been admitted to the Union in 1791 and Kentucky in 179, Con gress enacted. "That from and after the first day of May, one thousand seven hundred and ninety five, the flag of the United States he fifteen stripes alternate red and white: that the union be fifteen stars. white in a blue field," the inten tion apparently being to add both a stripe and a star for each new State admitted. In ISIS, how ever, the number of States having increased to twenty, Congress enacted that the number of stripes he reduced to thirteen, to typify the orig inal thirteen States; that the number of stars be increased to twenty; and that "on the admis sion of every new State into the Union, one star be added to the union of the flag, and that such addition shall take effect on the Fourth of July next succeeding such admission." No provision was made for the manner of arrangement of the stars, and consequently there has been since ISIS much divergence in this respect. The union jack consists of a blue ground, without stripes, having the stars in white. It is used by pilots, and in the bow of boats for ambassadors and ministers. During the Civil War the seceding States had a number of distinct flags. Early in 1861, how ever, their Congress decided upon what was popu larly called the 'Stars and Bars,' which was com posed of three broad horizontal bars, the two outer ones red and the middle one white, with a blue 'union' containing seven white stars in a circle. The number of stars was subsequently in creased to thirteen. The Confederate battle-flag used throughout the war consisted of a field of red en which was a blue Saint Andrew's cross bordered with white and bearing thirteen white stars. In 1863 the Confederate Congress adopted a flag having a white field with a union or can ton of the battle-flag. This was sometimes mis taken for a flag of truce, so in 1865 a red bar was imposed across the end of the field.