A Tribute To America

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,

In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream.

'Tis the Star-Spangled Banner. Oh! long may it wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,

And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation,

Blest with vict'ry 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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem of the United States. Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer and amateur verse writer, wrote the song during the War of 1812. The melody comes from "To Anacreon in Heaven," a drinking song created by composer John Stafford Smith of Britain in the late 1700's. The U.S. Congress officially approved the song as the national anthem in 1931.

How the song came to be written. In August 1814, British forces near Washington, D.C., arrested an American civilian, William Beanes of Upper Marlborough, Maryland. They held Beanes prisoner aboard a warship in Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Potomac River. General John Mason, the United States official in charge of prisoner exchanges, asked two Americans to communicate with the British in an effort to have Beanes released. These Americans were Key, a friend of Beanes's, and John S. Skinner, a government agent.

Key and Skinner went to Baltimore. There, they boarded a United States flag of truce ship, a ship used to conduct negotiations with the British. The flag of truce ship took Key and Skinner to the British warship just as the vessel was preparing to bombard Fort McHenry, which stood near Baltimore's harbor. The British agreed to release Beanes. But they did not want the Americans to reveal plans of the attack. They therefore held the Americans on the flag of truce ship at the rear of the British fleet until after the battle ended.

The bombardment started on Tuesday, Sept. 13, 1814, and continued all day and almost all night. Key and his friends knew that Fort McHenry had little defense. The prisoners paced the deck all night. When dawn came, they saw the American flag still flying over the walls of the fort. Key was deeply moved. He pulled a letter from his pocket and started writing verses. Later that day, the British released the Americans, and Key returned to Baltimore. There, he finished revising the song.

How the song became famous. A few days after the bombardment, Key's poem, titled "Defense of Fort M'Henry," was printed on handbills (printed notices) and distributed in Baltimore. A note on the handbills said the poem should be sung to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven." Americans knew the melody, which had been used for a popular political song named "Adams and Liberty" and many other patriotic songs. Key himself had used the melody in an earlier song. By November 1814, the song had been published in Baltimore under the name "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was soon published in several other American cities, and it quickly gained popularity. The U.S. Army began to sing it at the daily raising and lowering of the flag in 1895. Today, by government permission, the United States flag flies continuously over Key's grave at Frederick, Maryland, and over Fort McHenry.

The Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the U.S. national anthem, hangs in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Key saw the flag flying over Fort McHenry in Baltimore while he was held prisoner by the British during the War of 1812. The flag, which is 50 feet (15 meters) long, covers an entire wall.

Valerie Woodring Goertzen, "Star-Spangled Banner," World Book Online Americas Edition, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage/na/ar/co/529760, May 4, 2002.

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