The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner
In September 1814, American lawyer Francis Scott Key and physician John Skinner sailed out to a British ship (HMS Tonnant) in Baltimore Harbor. They aimed to negotiate the release of Dr. William Beanes, a local physician whom the British had arrested.
The British agreed to release Dr. Beanes, but because Key and Skinner had overheard secret details about the upcoming attack on Baltimore, the British kept them detained on board the ship.
Just weeks prior in August 1814, British forces had invaded and burned Washington, D.C., including the White House and the Capitol. Baltimore was the next major target. If Fort McHenry fell, the British navy would have gained a vital harbor to anchor their fleet, likely resulting in the fall of Baltimore and potentially a British victory in the entire war.
Commissioned massive flag
To ensure the British could see the fort was not surrendering from afar, commander George Armistead had commissioned a massive 15-star, 15-stripe American flag sewn by Mary Pickersgill.
Defending Fort McHenry
Defending Fort McHenry and keeping the flag flying carried profound military risks and physical sacrifice, as the battle was essentially a do-or-die stand for the United States during the War of 1812.
The giant flag served the 19th-century warfare, lowering a fort's flag or failing to replace a damaged one was the universal signal of surrender. The defenders knew that if the flag came down, the British fleet would assume the Americans had broken, triggering an immediate land invasion.
American defenders
The 1,000 American defenders faced a brutal, 25-hour bombardment from a fleet of British bomb ships and rocket vessels. The British utilized newly invented Congreve rockets and massive mortar shells that exploded into deadly iron shrapnel directly over the fort. Francis Scott Key described it as though the earth was "vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire".
The battle coincided with a fierce driving rainstorm. To keep the flag operational, soldiers braved both the toxic smoke and the extreme weather. The defending soldiers put their own lives at risk to hold up a shattered flagpole, the documented reality was the troops had to repeatedly venture into the open, exposed areas of the fort under direct enemy fire to maintain the ramparts and switch from the soaked storm flag to the massive garrison flag at dawn to signal their defiance.
British force
Around midnight during heavy rain, a British force of about 1,200 men attempted a stealthy rear assault in barges. Fort defenders and shore batteries opened a heavy fire guided by enemy muzzle blasts and rockets, forcing the landing party to retreat.
Ultimately, the sacrifice of the defenders forced the British to conclude that capturing Baltimore would cost more than it was worth, prompting their full retreat and securing American independence.
Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became "The Star-Spangled Banner" on September 14, 1814, after watching the British navy bombard Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
Lyrics
O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
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;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?