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May 29, 2008

The History of "The Star-Spangled Banner"
Our Country's National Anthem

Do you know the words to the National Anthem? More than the first verse?

Here is how it all started:
A flag flying over Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the 1814 battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner". This flag was a 15-star, 15-stripe, garrison flag made in 1813 and loosely woven so that it could fly on a 90-foot flagpole.

The words were written by Francis Scott Key on Sept. 14, 1814, during the War of 1812 (1812-1814) with Great Britain, and the song was adopted by Congress as the U.S. national anthem in 1931. For many years before Congress made this choice, the song was popular and regulations for military hands required that it be played for ceremonies.

Though Key wrote the words during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, the melody was an English tune well known in America by the 1790's. It was the music for a poem, "To Anacreon in Heaven, " written about 1780 as the official song of a British social and musical organization, the Anacreontic Society. In fact, Key had use the music in 1805 to accompany another poem he wrote to honor Commodore Stephen Decatur.

Key Detained While Negotiating

Key was a well known 34-year-old lawyer-poet. The British had captured Washington and taken William Beanes, a physician, prisoner. They were holding him aboard ship off the Baltimore shore. Friends of Beanes persuaded Key to negotiate his release. Key went out to the British fleet and succeeded in gaining Beanes' release but, because the British planned to attack Baltimore at that time, both were detained.

During the night of Sept. 13-14, Key watched the bombardment of Baltimore from the deck of the British ship. Although rain obscured the fort during the night, at daybreak he could see the American flag still flying from Fort McHenry . The fort still stood after the British had fired some 1,800 bombs, rockets and shells at it, about 400 of them landing inside the fort walls. Four defenders were killed and 24 wounded. Key drafted the words of a poem on an envelope. The American detainees were sent ashore, the British fleet withdrew, and Key finished the poem and made a good copy of it in a Baltimore hotel the next day.

Poem an Instant Hit in Baltimore:

According to some accounts, Key showed the poem to relatives of his wife in Baltimore who had it printed immediately and distributed throughout the city on a handbill, entitled "The Defense of Fort McHenry." Within a couple of weeks, Baltimore newspapers published the poem. It gained instant popularity and was renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner." An actor sent it to the popular British tune at a public performance in Baltimore.

Only with the start of the Civil War did "The Star-Spangled Banner" become a nationally popular song. During World War I, a drive began in Congress to make it the official anthem of America's armed forces. There were other contenders for the title, including, "America the Beautiful" and "Yankee Doodle." Maryland legislators and citizens were among the most active groups and individuals who pressed to get Francis Scott Key's words and accompanying English tune ratified into law as the country's first national anthem. That finally happened when President Herbert Hoover signed legislation on March 3, 1931.

The anthem has four verses, each ending with the line, "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

The Flag pictured right is THE Flag that inspired Francis Scott Key. It has been restored since this photo (taken in 2001) and is on display at the Smithsonian American History Museum in Washington, D.C.

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, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O 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, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O 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 wiped out their foul footstep's 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 homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!