Every American has sung “The Star-Spangled Banner”
innumerable times, but not everyone knows the history of the song. Here is a brief narrative of the events that led to the writing of the words to our national anthem.
During the War of 1812, a District of Columbia lawyer named Francis Scott Key boarded a British truce ship in Chesapeake Bay to implore the British to release Dr. John Beanes, who had
been arrested by British troops after they had sacked Washington, D.C. On the night of September 13, 1814, while Key was aboard the ship during a heavy rain, the British bombarded
Fort McHenry, a stronghold guarding Baltimore, causing havoc in the fort.
The American cannons returned fire; Key wasdetained on the British ship overnight. Afraid that Fort McHenry would fall, and with it the new American republic, Key spent the night worrying. At dawn the rain stopped, and the British warships sailed away. Much to his relief, Key saw in the “dawn’s early light” that the American flag was still flying over the fort. However, it was not the small storm flag that Fort McHenry’s commander, Maj. George Armistead, had flown during the rain, but a gigantic flag he had recently purchased from a Baltimore flag maker.
Key, an amateur poet, was so inspired by the sight of the “star-spangled banner,” a sign that the British had not captured the fort, that although he was still aboard the truce ship, he wrote a poem on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. Key called the poem “In Defense of Fort M’Henry” and had it published anonymously in Baltimore. A little later, he renamed the poem “The Star-Spangled Banner.” In the same year the poem was set to the music of a popular English tune, and in 1931 Congress adopted the song as our national anthem.