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Moultrie Flag (U.S.)

Historical

image by Randy Young, 31 January 2001

Description
Liberty at Bottom - Wrong!

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Description

Source: "Flags to Color from the American Revolution."

This one is "Crescent Flag of South Carolina," and the colors are listed as "Blue field, white crescent." This flag is very similar to others I've seen, usually listed as the Fort Moultrie Flag. The difference, though, is that this one has the word "LIBERTY" in the crescent instead of across the bottom of the flag.

"On Sept. 13, 1775, Colonel Moultrie received an order to take Fort Johnson, South Carolina. He had this flag made, for the troops wore a silver crescent on the caps inscribed 'Liberty or Death.' 'This was the first American flag displayed in the South,' he said. On June 28, 1776, the crescent flag, with LIBERTY across it, was raised at his defense of Sullivan's Island, later Fort Moultrie."

Randy Young, 23 February 2001

"Col. Moultrie devised a large blue flag with a white crescent in the upper left, facing the hoist. Col. Moultrie says in his memoirs that "this was the first American flag displayed in the South."

From McCandless and Grosvenor, Flags of the World, published 1917.

Peter Krembs, 5 April 2001

Liberty at Bottom - Wrong!

image by Rick Wyatt

I have spoken with Whitney Smith about this a few times. The correct Moultrie flag has the word in the crescent. The flags with the word LIBERTY across the bottom of the flag are wrong. My guess is that someone described it as a blue flag, with a crescent, with the word liberty on it. They put the liberty on the flag - not on the crescent.
Rick Wyatt, 23 February 2001

I recently learned from an attorney in Illinois who purchased a flag from me that the official flag of Moultrie County Illinois is the "Fort Moultrie" flag. (Blue with crescent and "Liberty".)
Nathan Bliss, 10 January 2001