"Palmetto Republic" Flag

These are modern all-weather nylon flags for your house or garden.

Flag design is based on a surviving example believed to have been from Charleston, but with no known unit affiliation. The flag is similar in design to that of the Palmetto Guards, but is not believed to be affiliated with that unit.

A spinoff of the state flag of South Carolina, why the flag replaced the traditional crescent shape with a lone star remains unclear. Obviously, they did not wish to replicate entirely South Carolina’s already established state flag, choosing instead an equally traditional five-pointed star. This change could possibly be a tribute to the 1861 Bonnie Blue flag, an unofficial banner of the Confederate States, which bears a single white star on a large blue field.

The first variation of the flag of South Carolina, an indigo-blue field (indigo being a major cash crop in the state’s infancy) decorated with a solemn and crescent “moon,” appears initially around 1775. This pattern, created by General William Moultrie in response to a request by the Revolutionary Council of Safety, however, differs greatly from the flag presently used. Decades later in 1861 that the singular Palmetto tree was added to the flag’s center, an homage to Moultrie’s remarkable victory at Fort Sullivan on June 28, 1776, where from an unfinished fortification built from Palmetto logs and packed sand, Charleston patriots fought off nine heavily armed British warships, damaging four and killing more than 100 redcoats.

Interestingly, the crescent “moon” in the top corner of the state flag is still cause for debate. While some believe it is indeed a moon hovering shining its light down over the palmetto, many others are convinced it depicts a French-styled gorget, a uniform adornment commonly worn among Patriot officers as a symbol of rank.