America the Beautiful Day 12: The Star-Spangled Banner

I’ve always enjoyed the story of how our nations anthem came to be.  I think Veteran’s Day weekend is the perfect time to revisit it.

During the war of 1812, the British were ready to attack Baltimore.  However, before they could get to it, they had to get past Fort McHenry.  Seamstress Mary Young Pickersgill had stitched a giant 15-Stripe Flag America Flag that hung over the Fort.  Before the attack began, a young lawyer named Francis Scott Key had sailed to one of the British warships.  A friend of his was being held, and he hoped to negotiate his release.  He was successful in gaining the release of his friend.  However, the British thought Key might have learned too much of their plans and capabilities.  Because of that, they forced Key and his friend to stay on the ship until the end of the battle.

Key paced the deck of the ship, worried what the outcome of the battle would be.  As Bennett and Cribb write in the American Patriot’s Almanac:

On September 13 the big British guns took aim at the flag and let loose a horrifying fire, including huge bombshells that often blew up in midair.  When dark fell, gunpowder-filled Congreve rockets traced fiery arcs across the night sky.  it was a spectacular sight.

Key agonized all night long.  Legend has it that “by dawn’s early light,” he asked a British sailor if he could see the flag flying over the fort.  When it was spotted through the haze, he was so moved that he quickly wrote a poem about the experience.  The poem became popular and was soon set to music.  In 1931, Congress designated it the National Anthem.

If you’ve been to any sporting event, you’ve heard the first verse.  But I am also really fond of the last verse:

Oh, those be it ever when free men shall stand

Between their loved homes 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!