The flag that flew in Fort McHenry on the night of September 13, 1814. It is now in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
In September 1814, America was at war with Great Britain. Several weeks after an attack on Washington, D.C., a British fleet attacked Baltimore, Maryland, in an attempt to capture the critical port city. To capture the port, the British had to defeat the defenses of Fort McHenry that guarded the entry into Baltimore from the sea.
It was under these circumstances that The Star-Spangled Banner was written. A young lawyer named Francis Scott Key was in the harbor the night of the British attack, attempting to secure the release of a friend held by the British. Although he was successful in helping his friend, the British held Key on a ship until after their attack, fearing he would reveal details of their plan. From his view on the ship, Key was able to witness the entire battle.
What struck Key was a large American flag that flew over Fort McHenry that night. As bombs were exchanged between the two sides and heavy smoke was in the air, the flag still stood. The defenses of Fort McHenry held, and the British attack was repelled. Key wrote down what he witnessed in words that eventually became the national anthem.
Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland
Originally titled “Defence of Fort McHenry,” Key’s poem was printed in Baltimore a few days after the battle. People set it to the music of a popular song of the time, “The Anacreontic Song,” sometimes referred to as “To Anacreon in Heaven,” composed by John Stafford Smith. Many believe Key wrote his work with “The Anacreontic Song” already in mind.
The Star-Spangled Banner, as it became known, was popular in America through the 1800s. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order proclaiming the song should be played before all official events. On March 3, 1931, Congress made The Star-Spangled Banner America’s national anthem in a bill signed by President Herbert Hoover.
Many Americans do not know that The Star-Spangled Banner is four verses, not just the one popularly sung. Below is the entirety of The Star-Spangled Banner as written by Francis Scott Key:
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bomb 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, 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 – 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 wash’d 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.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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.