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Star Spangled Banner
Photo credit:
Francis Scott Key
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By :Karen Holt
The son of Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy and Captain John Ross Key, Francis Scott Key was born on his family’s 2,800-acre plantation, Terra Rubra, in Frederick County (now CarrollCounty), Maryland, on August 1, 1779. John Key served as an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, along with being a lawyer and judge. The Key family, well known for their hospitality, counted President George Washington among their distinguished guests in July 1791.
As a lad, Key became an excellent horseman and attended St. John’s College in Annapolis. He graduated from prep school in 1796 and continued on to earn his law degree from St. John’s College while working in the office of his uncle, Philip Barton Key. He began his law practice in Frederick City, Maryland, but then moved to Washington and later became the district attorney for the District of Columbia.
After establishing his law practice in 1801, Key married Mary Taylor Lloyd, daughter of a prominent Maryland family. Eleven children – six boys and five girls – were born to the couple. In 1803, the family moved to Georgetown where Key joined his
uncle’s practice. Two years later, he took it over.
By 1810, hostilities between the United States and England were beginning to build again. In 1812, the United States declared its ‘second war for independence.’ During this time, Key had maintained a pacifist attitude because of his faith. His attitude changed; however, when following England’s defeat of France in 1814, the British turned their full attention on war with the US. Key immediately became an avowed patriot and enlisted in the District of Columbia militia where he was appointed an aide to General Walter Smith.
Anticipating a British attack on Baltimore, the American forces strengthened their presence there. The British, however, chose to land near Washington, D.C. and captured the city in August 1814. During the attack, they burned down the Capitol building and the White House. They also captured Dr. William Beanes, a Maryland physician and patriot strategist who was a close friend of Key’s. Learning of his capture and imprisonment on a British warship, Key was elected by the American military leaders to meet with the British and negotiate the doctor’s release.
On September 3, 1814, Key collected a number of letters written by various British prisoners which detailed the excellent care they had received from Dr. Beanes and carried them with him. Sailing out to meet the British fleet at the mouth of the Potomac River on September 7th, Key was told by the captors they would not release the doctor. He presented the letters he carried and after reading the British testimonials, they relented. Dr. Beane and Key, however, were not allowed to leave at that time to prevent them from revealing British plans to launch a full-scale attack against Baltimore. Instead, their sloop was towed behind the British fleet as it approached Fort McHenry.
The fleet was comprised of sixteen British warships. As they arrived and formed a semicircle around the fort, Key noticed General Armistead’s American flag – 30’ x 42’ in size – flying over Fort McHenry. On September 13th, the British began a bombardment of the fort, which continued over the course of the next 24 hours.
As Key watched from his sloop, approximately 1,800 British shells were exploded in and around the fort. The effects from the explosions lit up the night sky. American forces in the fort and on sea mounted a counterattack at the same time. All Key could do was sit in the sloop and watch as the events transpired before him. Due to the intensity of the attack, he feared when all was said and done, there would be nothing left of the fort.
The sky was still dark as the last enemy fire fell on Fort McHenry. Key sat in anticipation, full of concern as to how the structure had faired during the conflict. The first rays of dawn provided him the answer. Through the lingering smoke and mist - though tattered and torn - the American flag was still flying in a defiant manner over Fort McHenry. This told Key the American forces had prevailed.
The beautiful sight enhanced Key’s patriotic emotions. An amateur poet, he immediately began to express his feelings in the words he quickly scribbled on the back of one of the letters he carried in his pocket. More words were added to this collection as he sailed back to Baltimore. He finished the poem at the Indian Queen Hotel.
Judge J. H. Nicholson, Key’s brother-in-law, carried his poem to a printer and copies immediately began to circulate. Published under the title, Defence of Fort M'Henry, the patriotic flavor of the composition enhanced its popularity. First published in the Baltimore Patriot on September 20, 1814, newspapers around the country quickly shared it with Americans everywhere.
Before long, the poem was incorporated with the tune, To Anacreon in Heaven. In 1815, Key renamed the song, The Star Spangled Banner. In October of that year, a Baltimore actor sang the song during a public performance. It was later used by the Union army during the Civil War and proclaimed the anthem of the American military during World War I. In 1931, Congress finally named it to be the national anthem of the United States of America.
The flag which inspired Key’s patriotic poem was removed from Fort McHenry and later placed on display in the Old State House in Philadelphia on January 1, 1876 in celebration of the nation’s Centennial. Today it resides in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. Now aged and very frail, the flag is shielded from dust and light by an opaque curtain in an effort to preserve it. When open to the public, the museum puts the banner on display for a few moments each hour.
The Star-Spangled Banner
Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
* * * * * * *
Patriotism is a virtue. To hate or despise one's own country is as unnatural as hating or despising one's father or mother.A patriot is not one who is blind to his/her country’s faults and mistakes, because to do so is unhealthy. Instead, it is required of patriots to become aware of these weaknesses in an effort to strive for improvement.
The Star-Spangled Banner embodies wholesome sentiments of the love of country. It is a shame so many people today no longer know how to sing it, or sing it in such a way as to ruin the original style of the melody.
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