The Purple Heart began as Washington's 1782 cloth badge
On this day · 7 August 1782
Washington's purple cloth heart rewarded enlisted men for merit, then vanished for 150 years. Revived in 1932, it only became a wounds medal in 1942.
The Purple Heart descends from the Badge of Military Merit, a heart of purple cloth or silk that General George Washington created on 7 August 1782 as the first American military decoration for enlisted men.
Washington had a problem: the Continental Congress had forbidden him to grant commissions or promotions as a reward for merit. His answer cost almost nothing. Privates, corporals and sergeants who performed “any singularly meritorious action” could stitch the heart over the left breast, and they gained a real privilege — the right to pass guards and sentinels as freely as commissioned officers.
“The General ever desirous to cherish virtuous ambition in his soldiers, as well as to foster and encourage every species of Military merit…” — George Washington, general orders, 7 August 1782
The usual shorthand, that it is America’s oldest medal in continuous use, skips two things: the badge disappeared for about 150 years, and Washington created it for merit, not wounds.
- 1782–83: Recipients’ names were to be kept in a “Book of Merit”. It has never been found, possibly lost in the fire that consumed the War Department in 1800. Only three recipients are verified: Sergeants Elijah Churchill, William Brown and Daniel Bissell, and just two reputed original badges survive.
- 1932: For the bicentennial of Washington’s birth, War Department General Orders No. 3, issued by Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur, revived the award as the Purple Heart, now a metal medal bearing Washington’s portrait.
- 28 May 1932: 136 First World War veterans received the new medal at Temple Hill in New Windsor, New York — the site of the Continental Army’s last encampment.
- 1942: The Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard could award it, posthumous awards were allowed, and the new Legion of Merit took over the merit role. From then on the Purple Heart was for those wounded or killed in action.
So the medal Americans know is a 1932 revival of an idea from 1782, and its wounds-only meaning dates only from 1942.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
