George Washington Personal Flag

I am also working on paintings of famous Americans who carried personal flags. It was only appropriate that I start with the first president, George Washington. Actually he had two personal flags that he carried with him throughout the Revolutionary war and these flags went everywhere with him.

The pencil sketch shown here will be later turned into a painting. I just have to get my ideas for the painting down on paper one of which is to show a much younger Washington. This is the way I imagined him to be during the war years. I have not seen many depictions of a young George Washington in military gear so this will be my perspective.

The flag featured in this sketch is what I believe was the first and his favorite personal flag. From what I can gather this is the one he had carried at Valley Forge when the Continental Army was at a particular low point so it was with him when things were the roughest. I am still researching other paintings that show the correct color of this flag and I think I am getting closer to finding an accurate color. What I did find makes me believe that the flag was a light blue with white stars. This light blue was prevalent in a lot of French flags of the time and its a good bet that it was popular with the American colonist also. A painting by William Mercer (Battle of Princeton) shows a large blue standard with this particular arrangement of stars.

The alternate flag showed a circle of stars much like the Betsy Ross flag only without the stripes. There was an artist of the time named Peale that shows a blue that was much darker for this flag. Washington's "Life Guards" the predecessors to the modern day Secret Service used this particular standard with the circular star pattern as their identification mark.

I am also finishing up a General Custer sketch that will feature his personal flag in much the same style as this painting. Watch for this one soon. A real interesting history to this one.