“Star-Spangled Banner, The”

The national anthem of the United States, “The StarSpangled Banner,” is a musical composition long associated with the power of the American military. Although many consider it little more than the formality before the first [Page 808]pitch of a baseball game, the poem carries within its lines the ability to stir the American imagination about the nation's greatness and its past military glories. As powerful as it can be to hear, it has an equally stirring story behind its creation.

The writing of the poem originated during the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the United States. In the summer of 1814, the British successfully attacked and burned the American capital city of Washington, D.C., as part of a largely successful raid in the Chesapeake Bay area. The inhabitants of Baltimore, seething with anti-British sentiment, knew they were the Redcoats’ next intended victims. The garrison at Baltimore's Fort McHenry braced for the battle that lay ahead.

The preceding summer, garrison commander Maj. George Armistead, believing British assault upon the fort was imminent, had requested the creation of a flag large enough that when the British arrived they could not possibly fail to see it from a great distance. Under government contract, Mary Young Pickersgill, a local maker of merchant ship flags, created for Armistead a garrison flag 30 feet wide and 42 feet long.

A year later, in the summer of 1814, the raiding British arrested Dr. William Beanes of Maryland for arranging the arrests of British deserters and stragglers. John Skinner, a federal agent in charge of prisoner exchanges, accompanied by attorney and poet Francis Scott Key, won Beanes's release; nevertheless, since the three men knew when the British planned to attack the city, they were detained until the end of hostilities on a truce ship, eight miles from the fort.

The attack on Fort McHenry began on the evening of September 13, 1814. During the ensuing 25-hour bombardment, the three men watched anxiously aboard the truce ship. At dawn, Key viewed the fort. To his surprise, Armistead's men, in an act of defiance, hoisted the large garrison flag over the fort. The presence of the flag meant the fort had not surrendered. Inspired by the sight of the huge ensign waving in the breeze, Key immediately began writing the poem “The Defence of Fort McHenry.”

Upon his return to the city on the night of September 16, Key checked in at a hotel and revised the draft of the poem he had written while at sea. Published first as a handbill, the original publication contained an introduction conveying the context and background of the poem, but did not name Key as the author. On September 20, the poem appeared with a new title, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” set to a well-known tune of the day, “To Anacreon in Heaven.” “Anacreon” was a drinking song often performed by the members of the Anacreontic Society of London, named after the ancient Greek poet Anacreon of Teos. Charles Durang performed Key's poem publicly in Baltimore for the first time to its new tune in October of 1814.

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