Francis Scott Key Penned the Poem, the ‘Star Spangled Banner’, Later to Become the National Anthem

Francis Scott Key penned the words to the US National Anthem after watching the bombardment for 25 hours and seeing “Bombs bursting in air, missiles, so much debris, he strained to see. Was the flag still there? He couldn’t see a thing. All night long, he couldn’t. At the crack of dawn, he ran out to the banister, and he looked, straining his eyes, but all he could see was dust and debris, and then there was a clearing, and he beheld the most beautiful sight he had ever seen: The torn and tattered stars and stripes, still waving.”

During the War of 1812, Key, accompanied by the British Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner, dined aboard the British ship HMS Tonnant, as the guests of three British officers: Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Rear Admiral George Cockburn, and Major General Robert Ross. Skinner and Key were there to negotiate the release of prisoners, one of whom was Dr. William Beanes, a resident of Upper Marlboro, Maryland who had been arrested after jailing marauding British troops who were looting local farms. The town feared Dr. Beanes would be hanged so they asked attorney Francis Scott Key to sail with Colonel John Skinner under a flag of truce to the British flagship Tonnant in order to arrange a prisoner exchange.

Skinner, Key, and Beanes were not allowed to return to their own sloop because they had become familiar with the strength and position of the British units and with the British intent to attack Baltimore and avenge their embarrassing loss two and a half decades prior to the fledgling nation that emerged under their own tyrannical wing. Their sites were set on a small fort, Fort McHenry, named for Secretary of War James McHenry, who had signed the Declaration of Independence.  At 7 a.m. that morning, the British bombardment began and the 30′ x 42′ flag, made by Mary Young Pickersgill and  her thirteen year old daughter Caroline, commissioned by Maj. George Armistead who had asked the previous summer for a flag so big that “the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance,” was ready to meet the enemy.

The bombardment continued for 25 hours, the British firing more than 1,500 bombshells that weighed as much as 220 pounds and carried lighted fuses that would supposedly cause it to explode when it reached its target. But they weren’t very dependable and often blew up in mid air. From special small boats the British fired the new Congreve rockets that traced wobbly arcs of red flame across the sky. The Americans had sunk 22 vessels so a close approach by the British was not possible. That evening the cannonading stopped, but at about 1 a.m. on the 14th, the British fleet roared to life, lighting the rainy night sky with grotesque fireworks.

During the Battle of Fort McHenry, the citizens of Baltimore extinguished every light in every window so that the British would not be able to use them to get their aim. A thunderstorm providentially blew in and rained so hard the ground was softened, allowing most of the cannon balls to sink in the mud nullifying their explosive power. Key, Col. Skinner, and Dr. Beanes watched the battle with apprehension. They knew that as long as the shelling continued, Fort McHenry had not surrendered. But, long before daylight there came a sudden and mysterious silence. “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?,” they wondered. What the three Americans didn’t know was that the British land assault on Baltimore as well as the naval attack, had been abandoned. Judging Baltimore as being too costly a prize, the British officers ordered a retreat.

Waiting in the predawn darkness, Key waited for the sight that would end his anxiety; the joyous sight of Gen. Armisteads great flag blowing in the breeze. When at last daylight came, the flag was still there! Smoke stained, torn, and shredded, but there it waved… “o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!”

Being an amatuer poet and having been so uniquely inspired, Key began to write on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. Sailing back to Baltimore he composed more lines and in his lodgings at the Indian Queen Hotel he finished the poem. Judge J. H. Nicholson, his brother-in-law, took it to a printer and copies were circulated around Baltimore under the title “Defence of Fort M’Henry”. Two of these copies survive. It was printed in a newspaper for the first time in the Baltimore Patriot on September 20th, 1814, then in papers as far away as Georgia and New Hampshire. To the verses was added a Tune: “Anacreon in Heaven” by music publisher, Thomas Carr. In October a Baltimore actor sang Key’s new song in a public performance and called it “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

Immediately popular, it remained just one of several patriotic airs until it was finally adopted as our national anthem on March 3, 1931. But the actual words were not included in the legal documents. Key himself had written several versions with slight variations so discrepancies in the exact wording still occur.

The flag, our beloved Star-Spangled Banner, went on view, for the first time after flying over Fort McHenry, on January 1st, 1876 at the Old State House in Philadelphia for the nations’ Centennial celebration. It now resides in the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of American History. An opaque curtain shields the now fragile flag from light and dust. The flag is exposed for viewing for a few moments once every hour during museum hours.

Francis Scott Key was a witness to the last enemy fire to fall on Fort McHenry. The Fort was designed by a Frenchman named Jean Foncin and was named for then Secretary of war James McHenry who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His son, John McHenry, fought in the battle. Fort McHenry holds the unique designation of national monument and historic shrine. Since May 30th, 1949 the flag has flown continuously, by a Joint Resolution of Congress, over the monument marking the site of Francis Scott Key’s birthplace, Terra Rubra Farm, Carroll County, Keymar, Maryland.

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?

The first verse is well-known, but the fourth verse had an even more enduring affect, as it contained a phrase which became the United States’ national motto:

O thus be it ever when free men shall stand,
Between their loved home 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, 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,
Over the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Americans honor the flag, as it is the symbol of the “republic for which it stands.”

A “republic” is where the people are king, ruling through their representatives–their public servants. When someone dishonors the flag, what they are saying is they no longer want to be king, they no longer want to participate in ruling themselves, they want someone else to control their lives!

Francis Scott Key had actually reworked a previous song he had written nine years earlier to celebrate the American victory over the Muslim Barbary pirates titled “When the Warrior Returns from Battle Afar,” 1805:

In the conflict resistless, each toil they endured,
Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation,
And pale beam’d the Crescent, its splendour obscured
By the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation.
Where, each radiant star gleam’d a meteor of war,
And the turban’d heads bow’d to the terrible glare;
Then mix’d with the olive the laurel did wave,
And form’d a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Muslim pirates had enslaved an estimated 180 million Africans and over a million Europeans. Virtually every African slave brought to America had been purchased from Muslim slave markets.Those intent on removing reminders of past groups which participated in enslaving Africans must, by extension, remove Islamic symbols.

After the Battle of Fort McHenry, President James Madison proclaimed, Nov. 16, 1814:

“The national legislature having by a Joint Resolution expressed their desire that in the present time of public calamity and war a day may be recommended to be observed by the people of the United States as a day of public humiliation and fasting and of prayer to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States, His blessing on their arms, and a speedy restoration of peace. … I … recommend … offering … humble adoration to the Great Sovereign of the Universe, of confessing their sins and transgressions, and of strengthening their vows of repentance … that He would be graciously pleased to pardon all their offenses against Him … that He would in a special manner preside over the nation … giving success to its arms.”

Remembering American history is necessary to counteract a communist tactic of deconstruction, which is:

• say negative things about a country’s founders so people emotionally detach from them
• then the people are moved into a neutral position where they don’t remember where they came from
• then they can be easily brainwashed into the communist future planned for them

Francis Scott Key labored for seven years before the Supreme Court to free 300 African slaves from the ship Antelope captured off the coast of Florida in 1820.

Jonathan M. Bryant wrote in “Dark Places of the Earth: The Voyage of the Slave Ship Antelope” (2015): “Most startling of all, Key argued … that all men were created equal. … If the United States had captured a ship full of white captives, Key asked, would not our courts assume them to be free? How could it be any different simply because the captives were black?”

In 1841, two years before his death, Francis Scott Key helped former President John Quincy Adams free 53 African slaves in the Amistad case. Francis Scott Key became a board member of the American Sunday School Union and the American Bible Society.

He told the Washington Society of Alexandria, March 22, 1814: “The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, ‘a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.’ … He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation.”

Francis Scott Key wrote a detailed account of the Battle of Fort McHenry to Thomas Jefferson’s cousin, John Randolph, Oct. 5, 1814. John Randolph was a U.S. Congressman from Virginia who went on to become a U.S. Senator, 1825-1828. President Andrew Jackson appointed John Randolph as U.S. Minister to Russia, 1830.

Francis Scott Key shared his faith with John Randolph: “May I always hear that you are following the guidance of that blessed Spirit that will ‘lead you into all truth,’ leaning on that Almighty arm that has been extended to deliver you, trusting only in the only Savior, and ‘going on’ in your way to Him ‘rejoicing.’”