USS Alfred Flies First Flag: America's Revolution Begins

John Paul Jones hoisted the Grand Union Flag aboard the USS Alfred, making it the first vessel to fly the precursor to the Stars and Stripes. This act gave the fledgling Continental Navy a unifying emblem during the opening months of the Revolutionary War, signaling colonial defiance on the open seas. The flag-raising took place on December 3, 1775, at a Philadelphia dock where the Alfred, a converted merchantman, was being outfitted as the Continental Navy's first flagship. The Grand Union Flag featured thirteen alternating red and white stripes representing the colonies, with the British Union Jack in the canton, a design that expressed both colonial identity and a lingering hope for reconciliation with Britain. Jones, then a lieutenant who would later become the most famous naval officer of the Revolution, was given the honor of raising the flag. The Alfred went on to see action under Commodore Esek Hopkins, participating in the first naval engagement of the war when the small Continental fleet raided Nassau in the Bahamas in March 1776. The Grand Union Flag served as the unofficial national flag until June 14, 1777, when Congress passed the Flag Resolution replacing the Union Jack canton with a constellation of thirteen stars. Jones's own career became legendary: his capture of HMS Drake, his night raid on Whitehaven, and his famous declaration "I have not yet begun to fight" during the battle between the Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis made him the personification of American naval audacity. But it began with a flag on a Philadelphia dock, a piece of cloth that told the Royal Navy that the colonists intended to contest the seas.