Rare News Desk
On July 4, 1777 America was fighting for its survival. It had been a year since the Declaration of Independence — and in that time, our country had seen both victories and defeats. Many years of struggle lay ahead, and the end was not then certain. Yet, at home and abroad, in public ceremonies and moments of private reflection, Americans honored the anniversary of the sacred birth of freedom.
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July 4 found Captain John Paul Jones in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, overseeing the outfitting of the 18-gun warship Ranger. He had been granted command by Congress on June 14, following the resolution that “the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.” Legend has it that young women of the town held a quilting party to fashion a flag for the vessel — the 13 stars being cut from the silk wedding dress of one who had been married the previous May to an officer of the New Hampshire militia. Jones raised the Stars and Stripes on that day; it was the first United States flag to fly over a U.S. Navy vessel, the first to be seen in Europe, and the first to be saluted by the guns of a foreign fleet.
Across the Atlantic, another Navy officer, Dr. Jonathan Haskins, sat in a cell in squalid Mill Prison, Plymouth, England. He had joined the crew of the ten-gun privateer Charming Sally the previous November as a junior surgeon, been taken captive by the British the following January, and shipped to England after five months of shipboard confinement. That day in his journal he absently noted the movements of merchant vessels in the harbor, and added, “this Day 12 Months the United States of America Declar’d Independent which they’ve Supported one year. God send they Ever May — “
