Our National Anthem:
The Star-Spangled Banner
by Francis Scott Key
Francis Scott Key was a respected young lawyer living
in Georgetown just west of where the modern day Key Bridge crosses the
Potomac River. He made his home there from 1804 to around 1833 with his
wife Mary, their six sons & five daughters. At the time, Georgetown
was a thriving town of 5,000 people just a few miles from the Capitol,
the White House, and the Federal buildings of Washington.
But, after war broke out in 1812 over Britian's attempts to regulate
American shipping & other activities while Britain was at war with
France, all was not tranquil in Georgetown. The British had entered Chesapeake
Bay on August 19th, 1814, and by the evening of the 24th of August, the
British had invaded & captured Washington. They set fire to the Capitol
& the White House, the flames visible 40 miles away in Baltimore.
President James Madison, his wife Dolley, & his Cabinet had already
fled to a safer location. A
thunderstorm at dawn kept the fires from spreading. The next day more
buildings were burned & again a thunderstorm dampened the fires. Having
done their work the British troops returned to their ships in & around
the Chesapeake Bay.
In the days following the attack on Washington, the American forces
prepared for the assault on Baltimore (population 40,000) that they knew
would come by both land & sea. Word soon reached Francis Scott Key
that the British had carried off an elderly & much loved town physician
of Upper Marlboro, Dr. William Beanes, & he was being held on the British
flagship TONNANT. The townsfolk feared that Dr. Beanes would be hanged.
They asked Francis Scott Key for his help, & he agreed, & arranged
to have Col. John Skinner, an American agent for prisoner exchange to accompany
him.
On the morning of September 3rd, he & Col. Skinner set sail from
Baltimore aboard a sloop flying a flag of truce approved by President Madison.
On the 7th they found & boarded the TONNANT to confer with Gen. Ross
& Adm. Alexander Cochrane. At first they refused to release Dr. Beanes.
But Key & Skinner produced a pouch of letters written by wounded British
prisoners praising the care they were receiving from the Americans, among
them Dr. Beanes. The British officers relented but would not release the
three Americans immediately because they had seen & heard too much
of the preparations for the attack on Baltimore. They were placed under
guard, first aboard the H.M.S. Surprise, then onto the sloop & forced
to wait out the battle behind the British fleet.
Now let's go back to the summer of 1813 for a moment. At the star-shaped
Fort McHenry, the commander, Maj. George Armistead, asked for a flag
so big that "the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance".
Two officers, a Commodore & a General, were sent to the Baltimore home
of Mary Young Pickersgill, a "maker of colours," & commisioned the
flag. Mary & her thirteen year old daughter, Caroline, working in an
upstairs front bedroom, used 400 yards of best quality wool bunting. They
cut 15 stars that measured two feet from point to point. Eight red &
seven white stripes, each two feet wide, were cut. Laying out the material
on the malthouse floor of Claggett's Brewery, a neighborhood establishment,
the flag was sewn together. By August it was finished. It measured 30 x
42 feet and cost $405.90. The Baltimore Flag House, a museum, now occupies
her premises, which were restored in 1953.
At 7 a.m. on the morning of September 13, 1814, the British bombardment
began, & the flag was ready to meet the enemy. The bombardment continued
for 25 hours, the British firing 1,500 bombshells that weighed as much
as 220 pounds & carried lighted fuses that would supposedly cause it
to explode when it reached its target. But they weren't very dependable
& often blew up in mid air. From special small boats the British fired
the new Congreve rockets that traced wobbly arcs of red flame across the
sky. The Americans had sunk 22 vessels so a close approach by the British
was not possible. That evening the connonading stopped, but at about 1
a.m. on the 14th, the British fleet roared to life, lighting the rainy
night sky with grotesque fireworks.
Key, Col. Skinner, & Dr. Beanes watched the battle with apprehension.
They knew that as long as the shelling continued, Fort McHenry had not
surrendered. But, long before daylight there came a sudden & mysterious
silence. What the three Americans did not know was that the British land
assault on Baltimore as well as the naval attack, had been abandoned. Judging
Baltimore as being too costly a prize, the British officers ordered a retreat.
Waiting in the predawn darkness, Key waited for the sight that would
end his anxiety; the joyous sight of Gen. Armisteads great flag blowing
in the breeze. When at last daylight came, the flag was still there!
Being an amatuer poet & having been so uniquely inspired, Key began
to write on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. Sailing back to
Baltimore he composed more lines & in his lodgings at the Indian Queen
Hotel he finished the poem. Judge J. H. Nicholson, his brother-in-law,
took it to a printer & copies were circulated around Baltimore under
the title "Defence of Fort M'Henry". Two of these copies survive.
It was printed in a newspaper for the first time in the Baltimore Patriot
on September 20th,1814, then in papers as far away as Georgia & New
Hampshire. To the verses was added a note "Tune: Anacreon in Heaven." In
October, a Baltimore actor sang Key's new song in a public performance
& called it "The Star-Spangled Banner".
Immediately popular, it remained just one of several patriotic airs
until it was finally adopted as our national anthem on March 3, 1931.
But the actual words were not included in the legal documents. Key himself
had written several versions with slight variations so discrepancies in
the exact wording still occur.
The flag, our beloved Star-Spangled Banner, went on view ,for the first
time after flying over Fort McHenry, on January 1st,1876 at the Old State
House in Philadelphia for the nations' Centennial celebration. It now resides
in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History. An opaque
curtain shields the now fragile flag from light & dust. The flag is
exposed for viewing for a few moments once every hour during museum hours.
Francis Scott Key was a witness to the last enemy fire to fall on Fort
McHenry. The Fort was designed by a Frenchman named Jean Foncin and was
named for then Secretary of war James McHenry. Fort McHenry holds
the unique designation of national monument & historic shrine.
Since May 30th, 1949 the flag has flown continuously, by a Joint Resolution
of Congress, over the monument marking the site of Francis Scott Key's
birthplace, Terra Rubra Farm, Carroll County, Keymar, Maryland.
The copy that Key wrote in his hotel September 14,1814, remained in
the Nicholson family for 93 years. In 1907 it was sold to Henry Walters
of Baltimore. In 1934 it was bought at auction in New York from the Walters
estate by the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore for $26,400. The Walters Gallery
in 1953 sold the manuscript to the Maryland Historical Society for the
same price. Another copy that Key made is in the Library of Congress.
