Our State Flag

Today marks the 153rd anniversary of South Carolina's state flag as we know it - with the palmetto tree.  Patriots led by William Moultrie's 2nd South Carolina held off a fleet of British warships because the unfinished fort's palmetto logs absorbed the shock of incoming cannonballs fired at Fort Sullivan, now called Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island.  The emblem of Moultrie's troops was a blue flag with a white crescent in the upper left corner. On January 28, 1861, the palmetto tree was added to commemorate the June 28, 1776 victory and South Carolina's new status as an independent nation following secession.