The Continental Line Advancing

On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to raise companies of riflemen for the army around Boston, the act the US Army still counts as its birth. What grew from it was the Continental Line: regular regiments raised by each state and known by state, the Maryland Line or the Pennsylvania Line, enlisted for long terms, unlike the militia who turned out for weeks.

The flag in this painting is the one that army first carried. Called the Continental Colors, it kept the British union in the corner and added thirteen red and white stripes. It said the colonies stood together; it did not yet say they were leaving. John Paul Jones is credited with first hoisting it on the warship Alfred in December 1775, and Washington's army raised it over Prospect Hill outside Boston in January 1776.

Congress adopted its replacement on June 14, 1777, with thirteen stars in place of the union, two years to the day after it created the army.

In the painting the line comes on under a smoky gold sky. An officer in a dark cloak lined with red strides out in front with his saber raised, the color bearer holds the flag high behind him, and on the right a fifer and a drummer keep the step.