FORTISVEX 15 Star U.S. Flag 5x8 Feet Nylon - Made in USA with Brass Grommets

15 Star U.S. Flag History

The 15 Star American Flag preserves a striking departure from the thirteen stripes familiar today. This design displays fifteen white stars in five staggered rows of three, accompanied by fifteen alternating red and white stripes. Counting the stripes reveals the central historical distinction: for a time, the national flag expanded in both parts of its design. The result connects the original union to the first states admitted after independence.

Congress approved the change on January 13, 1794, with the new design to take effect on May 1, 1795. The original statute explicitly called for fifteen stripes and fifteen stars. Vermont, admitted March 4, 1791, and Kentucky, admitted June 1, 1792, supplied the additions, as confirmed by the National Park Service’s admission chronology. Their stars became official together on May 1, 1795, not on the admission dates or a following July 4. The annual Independence Day rule did not yet exist. As the National Park Service explains, this was the national flag design during the Lewis and Clark expedition, tying its history to the early republic’s westward ambitions as well as its Atlantic seaboard.

The most famous surviving flag with these counts is the Star-Spangled Banner. Mary Pickersgill made the great garrison flag in Baltimore in 1813 for Fort McHenry’s commander, Major George Armistead. Its appearance above the fort on the morning of September 14, 1814, following the British attack on Baltimore, inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words that became the national anthem. The Smithsonian’s account of the original flag documents that connection and the artifact’s later preservation. This product represents that fifteen-star, fifteen-stripe tradition; it is not presented as a facsimile of the surviving museum object.

The fifteen-star, fifteen-stripe design was official from May 1, 1795, through July 3, 1818, remaining unchanged by law even as additional states entered the Union. That gap between the country’s growing membership and its flag helps explain the next major revision. The Library of Congress describes the solution adopted in 1818: restore thirteen stripes to represent the founding states while allowing the number of stars to grow. The fifteen-stripe period thus captures an early approach to representing expansion, before the familiar division between permanent stripes and changing stars was established.

For a historical collection, the details reward a closer look. The red stripe immediately below the canton and the additional bands distinguish this design from neighboring thirteen-stripe flags. Displayed with a thirteen-star predecessor and a twenty-star successor, it helps visitors follow a change in the flag’s underlying rules rather than simply a rising star count. Its connections to Vermont and Kentucky, early exploration, and the defense of Baltimore give it several clear interpretive settings without assigning this modern layout to one particular ship, expedition flag, or battlefield artifact.

Explore the States Represented in This Flag

• Vermont history · Shop Vermont flags
• Shop Kentucky flags