Pulaski's Banner
Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
While Pulaski guarded this area in 1778, the Moravian women made a banner which his cavalry bore until he died at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. The banner was later immortalized in a poem by Longfellow.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
While the Polish cavalry officer Casimir Pulaski guarded this area in 1778, the Moravian women of Bethlehem stitched a crimson banner for his legion, which his horsemen carried until he fell at the Siege of Savannah in 1779. The gift became one of the Revolution's cherished legends, later immortalized in Longfellow's verse "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns." The story bound a foreign volunteer's sacrifice to the quiet devotion of a Pennsylvania religious community.
Why it matters
The banner joins two Revolutionary threads—the foreign volunteers who aided the cause and the women whose handiwork sustained it—into an enduring national legend.
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Related people
- · Casimir Pulaski
- · Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sisters' House
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1953
Built in 1744 and first used as a Brothers' House, this Bethlehem building soon became home to the Moravian community's unmarried women, who lived and worked here practicing the arts and crafts assigned to the sisterhood. In 1778, during the Revolutionary War, the sisters stitched the banner carried by Casimir Pulaski's cavalry legion—a piece of needlework later immortalized in American memory. The Single Sisters' choir was a distinctive feature of Moravian communal life, giving women a defined economic and spiritual role.
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