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Good evening!...

Originally Posted by MrsMarkey5B

Good evening! I am a fifth grade teacher and in one of our recent
classroom discussions, a student asked the following:
(1) does the flag that Betsy Ross sewed still exist?
(2) If so, where is it displayed?
(3) If not, when and how was it lost or destroyed?

I've searched the web and although I've found interesting information
about the flag, I haven't been able to locate the answers to the above.
Can you help?

Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you
in advance for your time and assistance.

Respectfully,
Patti

Good evening Mrs. Markey and her fifth graders! I've done my research and have come up with nothing in regards to Betsy Ross's flag. However, the idea that Mrs. Ross actually made the flag is still not certain. There isn't anything except family, verbal history to state that she did. Nothing was ever written down or otherwise noted. So, it could well be that we can't find out anything about the first flag because she had never created it. During the early colonial days of the Revolution, ladies were sewing up a storm to provide General Washington and his troops with flags. All sorts were made. After all this time, it would be hard to imagine that any would still exist in good enough shape to recognize it as the "first American flag". I'm reminded of two flags however that we can all have access too, and in their own ways are just as poignant to our country's history. The flag of the Star-Spangled Banner is getting a new home at the Smithsonian. The flag played a most important part in our history as the song that gave us our national anthem. I'm so anxious to see it myself someday, to gaze on the stripes and stars that flew aloft on a starry night in 1814. This is the SAME flag! It's material is quickly shredding and deteriorating because of the age. But the Smithsonian has hired many folks with the skills needed to mend it and give us more time to look upon it with pride. Then there's the original Old Glory flag. This was a flag that was given the nickname in 1824 by a young sea captain, William Driver. When he first looked at the flag, he was so moved by it, that he called it "Old Glory". The name stuck. It gained some well earned publicity during the Civil War when Captain Driver raised it above the State Capital in Nashville after that city was captured by Union Armies. This Old Glory is now on display in Nashville for all to see and marvel at. So, maybe it's not so important to wonder if the original flag still exists somewhere. I like to think it does....in all the flags from years gone by, to flags in the future. There's only one....and it's ours