Francis Scott Key awoke aboard a British warship after watching the terrifying 25-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry — and, by daybreak’s early gentle, was shocked to seek out that our flag was nonetheless there on at the present time in historical past, Sept. 14, 1814.
The Baltimore legal professional, in a match of patriotic fervor after witnessing the relentless naval assault on his American homeland, quickly put pen to paper and feverishly scribbled down his poetic account of the occasion.
We all know his phrases right this moment as our nationwide anthem.
“The rocket’s crimson glare, the bomb bursting in air/Gave proof by means of the night time that our flag was nonetheless there,” Key wrote over the subsequent two days.
“O say does that star-spangled banner but wave/O’er the land of the free and the house of the courageous.”
This display print illustration from 1941 depicts an American flag flying over Fort McHenry, based mostly on Francis Scott Key’s nationwide anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” (GraphicaArtis/Getty Photographs)
Key was stirred by the resolve of his fellow Individuals because the younger republic confronted despair within the Warfare of 1812 and attainable defeat by the hands of the British Empire.
America was humiliated simply three weeks earlier when British troops ransacked and torched Washington, D.C., destroying in a fiery blaze a lot of each the White Home and the Capitol.
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Key was sure that American defenses at Fort McHenry, simply 40 miles from the nation’s capital, would collapse below the assault’s depth.
“Mom earth … was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fireplace and brimstone.” — Francis Scott Key
“Superior British weapons pounded the fort from newly designed bomb ships anchored safely out of vary of the fort’s personal weapons,” the Nationwide Structure Middle wrote of the empire’s firepower.
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“It appeared as if mom earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fireplace and brimstone,” Key later wrote.
The impossibility of the fort’s survival — and the nation’s fiery refusal in its weakest second to bend to the British — fueled Key’s profound patriotic response.
Oil on panel portrait of Francis Scott Key (fragment). Attributed to Joseph Wooden (1778-1830). Assortment of the Walters Artwork Museum. (Public Area)
“His brother-in-law, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, learn Key’s work and had it distributed below the title ‘Defence of Fort M’Henry,” Smithsonian Journal reported in a 2007 account of the Battle of Baltimore.
“The Baltimore Patriot newspaper quickly printed it, and inside weeks, Key’s poem, now known as ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ appeared in print throughout the nation, immortalizing his phrases — and without end naming the flag it celebrated.”
Key’s poem turned the nationwide anthem by an Act of Congress that President Herbert Hoover signed in 1931.
“The rocket’s crimson glare/The bombs bursting in air/Gave proof by means of the night time/That our flag was nonetheless there.”
The precise flag raised over Fort McHenry by the daybreak’s early gentle on Sept. 14 enjoys a spot of honor right this moment on the Nationwide Museum of American Historical past in Washington, D.C.
It’s generally known as the Nice Garrison Flag.
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The fort’s star-spangled banner measured 42 toes by 30 toes and had 15 stars and 15 stripes.
It was the customized within the very early days of the nation so as to add each a star and a stripe with the addition of every new state to the Union.
The Star-Spangled Banner flag or the Nice Garrison Flag — the flag that flew over Fort McHenry in 1814 and impressed Francis Scott Key; display print, 1926. (Photograph by GraphicaArtis/Getty Photographs)
Maj. George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, had requested {that a} big flag be made to fly over the fort a yr earlier, with the Warfare of 1812 nicely underway and sure sooner or later he would come below assault.
“The job went out to a 37-year-old widow, Mary Pickersgill, a ship and sign flag maker,” stated the Nationwide Park Service of the Nice Garrison Flag’s historical past.
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“She labored for seven weeks together with her 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, two nieces, 13-year-old Eliza Younger and 15-year-old Margaret Younger, a 13-year-old African American indentured servant, Grace Wisher, and probably her mom, Rebecca Younger, who had taught her the commerce.”
The state of Maryland honors the protection of Fort McHenry with Defenders Day every Sept. 12.
The NPS continued, “They pieced collectively strips of loosely woven English wool bunting, then laid the entire flag out on the expansive ground of a brewery close to Mrs. Pickersgill’s Pratt Road home, now the Star-Spangled Banner Flag Home Museum.”
A smaller flag that flew over the fort throughout the bombardment has been misplaced to historical past, in response to the NPS.
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Fort McHenry right this moment enjoys a particular standing not solely as a nationwide monument however as a U.S. historic shrine.
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The state of Maryland honors the protection of Fort McHenry with Defenders Day every Sept. 12.
