The unique state flag of South Carolina features a white Palmetto tree and a crescent moon upon a blue field. Colonel William Moultrie, commander of Fort Moultrie, designed the flag during the American Revolution. It then bore only the crescent moon and was flying over the fort during the epic 16 hour British naval bombardment on June 28, 1776. The British fleet failed to crush Moultrie’s defenders and take Charleston. The flag became known as the “Liberty Flag,” the first American flag to fly over the South. The Palmetto tree, added in 1861, also refers to the defense of Fort Moultrie. The fort survived the British bombardment because it was constructed of Palmetto trees laid over sand walls. After Confederate guns opened the Civil War by forcing Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor to surrender in 1861, a variation of this flag was unfurled over its ruins. It became the first Confederate flag to fly over captured US territory. Today, the flag is ubiquitous. It can be found on coffee mugs, wallets, shirts, belts, and shoes, and here it flutters from a balcony of a beach house on the Isle of Palms. I play its diagonal flow against the contrasting diagonal of a hammock in the background.