19 May 2006
U. S. Flag at Fort McHenry and Other Baltimore Photos
Two grad students and I recently had the opportunity to visit Baltimore on work-related matters. We had some spare time between finishing up and before our flight out. (More on that flight, the MD-88 from Hell, later.) We got to visit Fort McHenry, and on the way there, we accidentally discovered Federal Hill Park, too. (Okay: We saw a flag flying that had 15 stars, so we thought we had found Fort McHenry.)The photo sets at Mack's and my Flickr site are:
If someone can explain why the War-of-1812 flag only had 15 stars and 15 stripes, I would be much obliged. I understand that they started adding both stars and stripes, then later decided to go back to 13 stripes for the original 13 colonies, but by 1812, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Louisiana had joined the union. Why did they stop messing with the flag after Kentucky joined in 1792?
