Excerpt from The American Flag of Stripes and Stars: Mirror of the Nation's History, Symbol of Brotherhood and World Unity The Americans in khaki enjoy comforts and privileges to which those in the buff and blue or of the sky-blue uniform of 1812, 1848 or 1861 were strangers. Crowning all, are the right and pleasure of fighting under the national flag once the privilege of the sailor only. We must, if true to history, distinguish between regimental colors and the national standard. It is a proof and one, on the whole, which is rather credit able to our people, of the reality of the more perfect union sought and provided for by our fathers, in the constitution of 1787, that, in the popular mind, things relating to the national colors are supposed to have been always what they are now. It is taken for granted that the thirteen-striped flag of the united colonies, from Jan. 2, 1776, and of the United States from July 4, l776, 'to June 14, 1777, when the stars were added, was, as a matter of course, carried in bat tle and was familiary known by sight to every one. A large majority of the hundred or more popular artists and writers on this subject proceed upon this one obsession. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.