Clausen Collection

Tallmadge's Dragoons

Date: 1776.

Pink field with thirteen stripes in the canton. Design includes thunderbolts, wings, and a Latin Inscription. [R39]

Not much is know about the design of this flag. The thunderbolts are Roman symbols, but they also could be exploding artillery shells.

After the British captured Long Island in 1776, the Manor of St. George in Shirley, L.I. became Fort St. George. The British used it as a supply base for land and sea forces. The fort was recaptured from the British and largely destroyed on Nov. 23, 1780 in a surprise 4:00 A.M. attack by American forces directed by Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge.

Tallmadge was close to General Washington and served directly under his command at Valley Forge. In 1778, the British hatched a plot to kidnap General Washington. He was shadowed by Loyalist agents and a British commando team for weeks until the plan was abandoned because, according to the British Intelligence Dispatches, the Second Dragoons were always with him.

Tallmadge's command was the last unit to be decommissioned by Washington in 1783. In December 1783, General Washington bid farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in NYC. Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge recalled the event in his Memoir: “Such a scene of sorrow and weeping I had never before witnesses.... We were then about to part from the man who had conducted us through a long and bloody war, and under whose conduct the glory and independence of our country has been achieved.”

Tallmadge (1754 - 1835) may be best know for organizing a spy ring that provided intelligence information to General Washington. He discovered the conspiracy between General Benedict Arnold and British Major John Andre.