The Star Spangled Banner at 200

Former President Harry S. Truman once said in a college commencement address, “It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Please keep that in mind while you read the story behind the history of our National Anthem.
After the British set fire to our Capital and the White House in August 1814 the American forces prepared for an attack on Baltimore, Md. Major George Armistead, much earlier had been placed in command of defending Fort McHenry, the harbor entrance leading to Baltimore. One of his first directives was to order a “flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it.”
Mrs. Mary Pickersgill, her 13-year-old daughter Mary, and seven seamstresses were commissioned to make the flag, which measured 30 x 42 feet at a cost of $405. The flag was laid out and sewn on the floor of Claggett’s Brewery in Baltimore.
Francis was a respected lawyer, renowned enough to have defended Sam Houston and good enough to serve as U.S. District Attorney. He was asked to accommodate Col. John Skinner, an agent for prisoner exchange, and to negotiate the release of Dr. William Beanes, M.D. who was being held on the British flagship Tonnant. The British finally agreed to Dr. Beanes’ release but first the three Americans were forced to wait out the impending naval bombardment of Fort McHenry.
Two hundred years ago, at 7:00 a.m. on September 13, 1814 the British began bombardment of Fort McHenry. Key, Beanes and Skinner realized during the 25-hour siege that as long as the oversized flag was flying, the fort had not surrendered. After firing over 1,500 bomb shells (rockets’ red glare) at the fort, the British cannons fell mysteriously quiet in the pre-dawn hours of the 14th of September. That is when Key observed, “Our flag was still there.”
Key began writing on the back of a letter what he had observed throughout the night. He continued composing lines while sailing back to Baltimore and finished his poem at the Queen Hotel. His brother-in-law, Judge J.H. Nicholson had copies printed and they were circulated around Baltimore under the title, “Defence of Fort McHenry.” Copies of the poem quickly spread to local newspapers and within a week the news had reached Georgia and New Hampshire. By October of 1814 the poem was put to music and sung onstage for the first time as “The Star Spangled Banner.”
The tune Key chose for his newest poem/hymn was Stafford Smith’s famous “To Anacreon in Heaven” written in 1775 for the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen’s music club in London – go figure!
Now you have heard the rest of the story except for:
• The original copy of Key’s verses are in the Maryland Historical Society.
• The hymn proved a rallying point of the Civil War and by 1890 the military used it for ceremonial events.
• “The Star Spangled Banner” became our National Anthem through the efforts of Mrs. Reuben Halloway and Congressman J. Charles Linithicum, from Maryland in 1931.
• Mrs. Pickersgill’s flag was flown at the Centennial Expo in Philadelphia (1876) and now resides at the Smithsonian Institute in D.C.
• Major George Armistead was one of five brothers who served in the War of 1812 and whose nephew Brig, General Lewis A. Armistead led Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
• By a Joint Resolution of Congress an American flag has flown continuously over the monument marking the site of Francis Scott Key’s birthplace in Keymar, Md.