According to the 1777 Flag Resolution, the United States flag had 13 stars.
On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress specified thirteen alternating red and white stripes and thirteen white stars on a blue field. The stars represented the thirteen states that had declared independence from Great Britain. The resolution did not prescribe a particular arrangement, so early flags used several patterns.
The 13-star flag was not the same as the earlier Continental Union Flag, which had thirteen stripes but displayed the British Union in its canton rather than stars. The number of stars increased as new states joined the Union, while the number of stripes was later fixed at thirteen to represent the original states.
The modern flag has fifty stars, one for each state, but the 13-star design remains a powerful symbol of the Revolutionary era. The popular Betsy Ross story is not firmly supported by contemporary documentary evidence, and no single maker is proven to have created the first official design.