Don't Tread on Me — Gadsden 1775

Someone counted the rattles on a 1775 Marine drum. Thirteen. In an essay attributed to Benjamin Franklin, “An American Guesser” described a rattlesnake painted on a drum of “the marines now raising,” over the words “Don't tread on me.” Her rattles were “just thirteen, exactly the number of the Colonies united in America.” She never begins an attack, he wrote, “nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders.” In early 1776 Commodore Esek Hopkins of the Continental Navy flew a personal standard designed by Christopher Gadsden of South Carolina.

On the back: an engraved rattlesnake, coiled and rearing with jaws open, its thirteen-segment rattle raised, above a parchment banner reading “Don't Tread on Me” with “Gadsden 1775” beneath. On the chest: the original 1765 A Co. mark in our founder's own hand.

Built like a conviction: printed on the Bayside 5100, made in the USA ("From Dirt to Shirt, our products are made right here on American soil since 1995," in Bayside's own words), then printed to order in the USA. See the supply chain. Veteran-owned.