FORTISVEX 35 Star U.S. Flag 3x5 Feet Nylon - Made in USA with Brass Grommets

35 Star U.S. Flag History

The thirty-fifth star represents West Virginia, admitted on June 20, 1863. Its addition to the national flag took effect on July 4, only two weeks later. West Virginia’s entry differed from the creation of a state out of a western territory: it emerged from counties within Virginia during the Civil War. The National Archives traces the new state to regional differences and the efforts of Unionists who petitioned the federal government for statehood. National Archives: West Virginia statehood; Smithsonian: the thirty-fifth star.

That process raised a constitutional problem because forming a new state within an existing state required consent. Unionist delegates at Wheeling rejected the secessionist government in Richmond and organized the Restored Government of Virginia. This government supplied the consent used in the statehood process. The new state’s constitution also incorporated a provision for gradual emancipation before admission. These circumstances make the thirty-five-star flag a marker of the political upheaval of the war as well as a stage in the nation’s growth. National Archives: the constitutional question.

The additional star did not replace Virginia’s. President Lincoln did not recognize the Confederate states as having lawfully left the Union, and their stars remained on the United States flag. The Smithsonian’s Civil War flag collection makes this distinction explicit. Its surviving thirty-five-star national flag has five rows of seven stars, the same basic row arrangement visible in this product’s gallery. This comparison supports the historical character of the layout without establishing that the product reproduces that individual museum artifact. Smithsonian: U.S. national flag.

The official thirty-five-star period ran from July 4, 1863, through July 3, 1865. Nevada’s star then brought the total to thirty-six. Those dates describe the authorized national star count, not a universal replacement date for every flag: the Smithsonian notes that many thirty-four-star flags remained in use through the war’s end. The design shown here retains thirteen stripes beneath and beside the blue canton. Smithsonian: flag chronology.

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