The Star-Spangled Banner -- Poem & U.S. National Anthem

Robert McGill Mackall’s 1976 oil painting depicting Mary Young Pickersgil,
her 13 year-old daughter, Caroline, and a niece, Eliza Young, sewing the
Star-Spangled Banner, the U.S. Flag that flew over Fort McHenry
in Baltimore, Maryland during the War of 1812 (1812-1815).
Image courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society.

The Star-Spangled Banner

By Francis Scott Key

*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?

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 in the stream;

'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! 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 footsteps' 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.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation;
Bless'd 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
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

*The highlighted first paragraph and chorus make up the U.S. National Anthem.

The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner, U.S. Flag (1795-1818).

In 1813 the United States was once again at war with Great Britain, and the city of Baltimore, Maryland was preparing for an eventual attack by the British.

U.S. Army Major George Armistead, the commander of nearby Fort McHenry near Baltimore Harbor, felt that the fort was prepared for an attack, and only lacked a suitable flag. He expressed this concern in a letter to Major General Samuel Smith, the head of the military commander for Baltimore. Armistead wrote, "We, sir, are ready at Fort McHenry to defend Baltimore against invading by the enemy. That is to say, we are ready except that we have no suitable ensign to display over the Star Fort and it is my desire to have a flag so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance."

It was resolved that the flag of Fort McHenry would be a garrison flag measuring and incredible 30 X 42 feet.

The seamstress commissioned by Armistead to create this large flag was a 29-year-old local widow named Mary Young Pickersgill, the sister-in-law of U.S. Navy Commodore Joshua Barney.

In early summer 1813, she began the job with the assistance of her then 13 year-old daughter, Caroline, her two nieces, Eliza Young and Margaret Young, a 13-year-old African American indentured servant, Grace Wisher, and likely her elderly mother, Rebecca Young -- another notable flag maker. Additional local seamstresses were also hired during the summer.

Pickergill's team worked 10-hour days sewing the flag, using 300 yards of English wool bunting, often working late into the evening, until midnight at times. Initially they worked from Pickergill's home, but as their work progressed they needed more room and had to move to Claggett's Brewery across the street to continue their commission. The ladies were able to complete the job in six weeks and delivered the flag to Fort McHenry on Thursday, August 19, 1813.

The giant 15-Star U.S. flag flew over Fort McHenry peacefully for a year before the fort was attacked by the British Royal Navy during the Battle of Baltimore (September 12-15, 1814).

On Tuesday, September 13, 1814, British warships fired over 1,600 cannonballs and rockets onto Fort McHenry during an often rainy day and evening for nearly 25 hours until the next morning on September 14th.

A week earlier, Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old American lawyer and amateur poet, had boarded the British flagship on the Chesapeake Bay on a mercy mission in hopes of persuading the British to release of Dr. William Beanes, a friend who had recently been arrested and was a prisoner. The British agreed to release Beanes, but both Key and Beanes were forced to stay with the British until the attack on Baltimore was over. Key watched the proceedings from a truce ship under guard on the Patapsco River eight miles away.

On the morning of the 14th, Key saw the large 15-star American flag still waving above Fort McHenry. Inspired by the sight he began jotting down verses to the poem on the back of a letter he was carrying.

His brother-in-law, commander of an American militia at Fort McHenry, later read Key's words and had it distributed under the name "Defence on Fort M'Henry." It would be was printed in the Baltimore Patriot newspaper and, within weeks, Key's immortalized words would appear in print across the country.

Key's poem was later set to the tune of a British song called "To Anacreon in Heaven", the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century gentleman's club of amateur musicians in London. The song eventually became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner".

On Wednesday, March 4, 1931 U.S. President Herbert Hoover signed the bill passed by the U.S. Congress the day before officially making the Star-Spangled Banner the official U.S. national anthem.

As for the famous flag itself, following the War of 1812, the original Star-Spangled Banner of Fort McHenry remained in the possession of the Armistead family though some of the flag (including one of the stars) were stripped off and given as souvenirs by Armistead's widow in memory of her husband who died in 1818 and those who fell in defense of the fort. 

One anecdotal story claims that Armistead's nephew, Confederate Brigadier General Lewis "Lo" Armistead, carried a piece of the flag in his uniform coat pocket during the War Between the States (1861-1865) until his death at the Battle of Gettysburg following Pickett's Charge on Friday, July 3, 1863.

Today the restored original Star-Spangled Banner is on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.