First Navy Jack

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In the fall of 1775, as the first ships of the Continental Navy readied in the Delaware River, Commodore Esek Hopkins issued, in a set of fleet signals, an instruction directing his vessels to fly a striped Jack and Ensign. In retrospect this has been taken as the first U.S. Navy Jack and has traditionally been shown as consisting of thirteen red and white stripes with a superimposed rattlesnake and the motto "Don't Tread on Me." No representation or example of the ensign survives: patriotic historians have inferred the design from Hopkins' message and a color plate depicting a "Don't Tread Upon Me" ensign in Admiral George Henry Preble's History of the Flag of the United States, 1880.

The rattlesnake had long been a symbol of resistance to the British in Colonial America. The phrase “Don't tread on me” was coined during the American Revolutionary War, a variant perhaps of the snake severed in segments labelled with the names of the colonies and the legend "Join or Die" which had appeared first in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754, as a political cartoon reflecting on the Albany Congress.

The rattlesnake - the Timber Rattlesnake - is especially significant and symbolic to the American Revolution. The rattle has thirteen layers, signifying the 13 original colonies. And, the snake does not strike until provoked, a method embodied in the phrase "Don't tread on me."

In 1980, Edward Hidalgo, the Secretary of the Navy, directed that the ship with the longest active status shall display the First Navy Jack until decommissioned or transferred to inactive service. Then the flag will be passed to the next ship in line. This honor was conferred on the following U.S. Navy vessels:

1981 - 1982: Destroyer tender USS Dixie (AD 14), commissioned 1940
1982 - 1993: Destroyer tender USS Prairie (AD 15), commissioned 1940
1993 - 1993: Submarine tender USS Orion (AS 18), commissioned 1943
1993 - 1995: Repair Ship USS Jason (AR 8), commissioned 1944
1995 - 1995: Ammunition ship USS Mauna Kea (AE 22), commissioned 1957
1995 - 1998: Aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV 62), commissioned 1959.
On September 30, 1998, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), commissioned in 1961, became the oldest active-status ship in the United States Navy upon the decommissioning of Independence.

The Secretary of the Navy issued , dated 31 May 2002, directing all United States Navy ships to fly this flag in honor of those killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and it will be flown for the duration of the War on Terrorism. Most US navy vessels made the switch on September 11, 2002, the first aniversery of the terrorist attacks. Assuming the War on Terrorism is ended by Kitty Hawk's expected decommissioning date of 2009, Kitty Hawk will pass the First Navy Jack to USS Enterprise (CVN-65) on her decommissioning.

Other uses of 'Don't tread on me'

The phrase "Don't tread on me" also appears below a coiled rattlesnake that is about to strike on the yellow Gadsden flag, named for its deviser, Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina, which is said to have been flown by the Culpeper Minute Men, of Culpeper County, Virginia.

Songs with the title Don't Tread On Me have been written by such bands as Cro-Mags, Iced Earth, Metallica (The Coiled Snake also appears on the album cover in which the song is featured) and 311.

Nike Soccer, one of the main sponsors of the United States men's national soccer team competing in 2006 World Cup Soccer, has adopted the phrase "Don't Tread on Me" as a motto for the team. The phrase will be featured in some of the company's apparel, along with a picture of a rattlesnake coiled around a soccer ball.

An informal flag involving a snake wrapped around a computer was created to represent Dr. Clifford Stoll's hunt for a hacker that had penetrated the systems of the LBL laboratory in Berkeley. This hunt is chronicled in the book The Cuckoo's Egg.

External link

[CDR Michel T. Poirier, "A Brief History of the U.S. Navy Jack", in Undersea Warfare]

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