O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O’er the ramparts we watch’d 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?

 

The United States’ national anthem is instantly recognisable, its first few notes leaping straight into a strong and uplifting melody which carries the lyrics forward on a tide of stirring patriotism. 

But what are those lyrics actually describing?  A ‘star-spangled banner’ which is still flying, apparently by some miracle, after a ‘perilous fight’?  Was that a genuine historical event, and if so, where did it take place?  

The answer is that the lyrics do indeed describe a historical event, one that was instrumental in shaping the identity of the United States.

In 1812, war broke out between Britain and the US, provoked partly by Britain’s blockade of American merchant ships that were heading for France.  Britain was already fighting a long-running war with France, where Napoleon’s Grande Armée was threatening to overpower much of western Europe.  Starving France of supplies from across the Atlantic was an effective naval tactic, but it backfired because it also stifled US trade. 

In addition, the Royal Navy was seizing men from American merchant ships and impressing them into service on British warships;  and there were other factors, too, relating to the territorial control of North America.  It was only 38 years since the Thirteen Colonies had signed the Declaration of Independence, and heightened tensions kindled a two-year war that neither Britain nor the US really wanted.

Initially, the war on land consisted largely of inconclusive attempts by the US to gain territory in Canada.  However, when Napoleon abdicated in 1814, the withdrawal of British armed forces from Europe meant that more warships and servicemen could be sent to America.  A land-based expeditionary force marched on Washington and set its government buildings ablaze, and meanwhile a squadron of Royal Navy ships headed for the strategic eastern port of Baltimore.  Paradoxically, it was hoped that the losses of both Washington and Baltimore would halt the hostilities and allow peace to be agreed.  But first, Baltimore had to be captured.

On a promontory overlooking the entrance to Baltimore’s harbour was a military bastion called Fort McHenry.  Batteries of cannons were poised on its star-shaped earthworks, and waiting to defend the harbour was a garrison of about 1,200 men under the command of Major George Armistead of the US Corps of Artillery. 

Fort McHenry (US National Parks Gallery)

 

Cannons at Fort McHenry

Clustered in the Patapsco River, a mile or two outside the harbour entrance, the Royal Navy ships must have been a daunting sight.  They included five Vesuvius-class bomb vessels, designed to launch mortars that exploded in a burst of shrapnel, and a rocket-ship equipped with newly-invented Congreve rockets. 

The bombardment that began at half past six on the morning of 13th September shook the houses of Baltimore to their foundations and could be heard 100 miles away in Philadelphia.  Throughout that day and all the following night, more than 1,500 mortar shells and rockets rained down on Fort McHenry.  As if this ferocious display of firepower wasn’t sufficient, a thunderstorm broke overhead, unleashing torrential rain on defenders and besiegers alike.

‘A View of the Bombardment of Fort McHenry’ by John Bower, c.1815 (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

In retaliation, the soldiers at Fort McHenry raked the ships with cannon fire.  They were dangerously exposed on top of the earthworks, but one or two factors were in their favour.   The first was that, before Baltimore came under attack, a line of merchant vessels had been deliberately sunk across the harbour entrance, and a metal chain had been stretched across it for good measure.  Even if they braved the fort’s cannons, the British vessels could get no closer, and at two miles’ distance their bomb ships were at the limit of their range.  Also assisting the garrison, although they might not have known it at the time, was the fact that attempts to attack the fort from the landward side had been blocked by US soldiers.

Shortly after daybreak on September 14th, as it became clear that Baltimore couldn’t be captured, the British squadron gave up and prepared to withdraw.  Several bomb ships had sustained damage and one was taking on water.  At Fort McHenry, the casualties were amazingly light:  only four men had been killed and 24 injured.  By some miracle, a mortar bomb had glanced off a building containing 200 barrels of gunpowder, merely making a hole in the roof.

Promptly at nine o’clock that morning, as four young fifers and drummers played ‘Yankee Doodle’, the storm flag that had flown over Fort McHenry throughout the battle was lowered, and in its place the enormous garrison flag was raised.  This flag, which Major Armistead had had specially made a year or so earlier, measured 30 by 42 feet and was customarily hoisted every morning at reveille.  That morning, however, it took on a special significance.  Looking back, a midshipman on board a departing Royal Navy frigate observed that ‘…as the last vessel spread her canvas to the wind, the Americans hoisted a most superb and splendid ensign on their battery, and fired at the same time a gun of defiance.’

The Great Garrison Flag of Fort McHenry.  When commissioning it, Major Armistead had specified ‘a flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.’  It is now preserved in the National Museum of American History. 

Also watching this event, and scarcely able to believe his eyes, was a 35-year-old American lawyer called Francis Scott Key.  A few days before the battle began, Key and a US official had approached the British fleet on board an American truce ship and had negotiated the release of an American civilian who was being held prisoner.  Having completed their mission, however, the Americans were not allowed to return to shore in case they’d overheard details about the plan of attack.  Instead, for the duration of the battle, their truce ship was tethered to a British vessel in the Patapsco River, some six miles away from Fort McHenry. 

For this reason, Key had a grandstand view of the entire bombardment, and on the night of 13th September it is unlikely that he or anyone else within several miles of Baltimore got any sleep.  But next morning, when he took out his spyglass and scanned the shore anxiously, he caught sight of the huge US flag flying above Fort McHenry, and realised with profound relief that Baltimore hadn’t fallen. 

Key sighting the flag over Fort McHenry, by Edward Percy Moran (1913)

As Key waited to be released, his poured his emotions into the lyrics of a song which he called ‘Defence of Fort McHenry’, and which soon became known as ‘The Star-spangled Banner.’  Key’s words vividly recalled the spectacle that he’d just witnessed - ‘the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air’ - and they also expressed his joy on realising that somehow, his beloved country had prevailed:  the ‘heav’n-rescued land’, as he calls it in the third verse, ‘the land of the free, and the home of the brave.’

When Key was allowed to go ashore, a Baltimore printer lost no time in publishing 1,000 copies of his song which were freely distributed to the soldiers who had defended the fort.  Newspapers eagerly took it up, and it soon gained widespread popularity.   Key had specified that the words be sung to an existing English tune entitled ‘To Anacreon in Heaven,’ and it is said that Key himself sang it at a dinner to honour the heroes of Baltimore.

Francis Scott Key, attributed to Joseph Wood (c.1825)

By the late 1800s, ‘The Star-spangled Banner’ customarily accompanied the raising of flags by the US Navy, but it wasn’t until 1931 that a formal bill to adopt it as the United States’ national anthem was passed by Congress.  Spanning one and a half octaves, it can be a challenging song to sing or play, and sometimes the key is changed to ease the demands on voices and instruments.  

In the more immediate future, after the US victory at Baltimore, peace talks between US and British negotiators in modern-day Belgium resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814.  Both protagonists agreed to return to the status quo that existed before the war, and to re-open trade.  It is now considered that the Treaty ‘created a framework for future friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain.’   (News of the agreement, however, didn’t reach the US before the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, when British forces were again repulsed.)

Fort McHenry is now designated as a National Monument and Historic Shrine, and the courageous defenders of Baltimore are still remembered every year on Defenders’ Day, 12th September, which is Maryland’s oldest state holiday.

A soldier stands in front of the battle-scarred Great Garrison Flag of Fort McHenry, photographed in 1873 in Boston Navy Yard by George Henry Preble.

Footnotes

Here is a moving performance of ‘The Star-spangled Banner’ at Fort McHenry by The United States Army Field Band:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCfW5wvoAq  

All four verses of the song can be read here:  https://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-lyrics.aspx 

Among the Royal Navy bomb vessels at Fort McHenry was HMS Terror.  She was later converted into a polar exploration ship used by Sir George Back in the Arctic and Sir James Clark Ross in the Antarctic.  In 1845, along with HMS Erebus, she sailed in Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.

The US flag has gone through many stages of evolution.  The flag that Key saw was adorned with 15 stripes and 15 stars, which at the time represented the 13 original states plus Kentucky and Vermont.  In 1818 the number of stripes was reduced to 13, and more stars were added periodically as further states joined the Union.  The current version, displaying 50 stars, was adopted in 1960 after the admission of Hawaii.

Incredibly, a photograph was taken in 1880 of a group of proud and gallant veterans from Fort McHenry.  This can be seen on the website of the American Battlefields Trust:  https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/o-say-can-you-see-bombardment-fort-mchenry

 

Reference

American Battlefields Trust:

The Star-spangled Banner https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/star-spangled-banner

‘O Say Can You See’  https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/o-say-can-you-see-bombardment-fort-mchenry

USS Constitution Museum:

The 1812-14 War https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/major-events/war-of-1812-overview/

US National Park Service:

The Bombardment of Fort McHenry, Part 1 https://www.nps.gov/fomc/learn/historyculture/bombardment-of-fort-mchenry-pt-1.htm 

Part 2 https://www.nps.gov/fomc/learn/historyculture/bombardment-of-fort-mchenry-pt-2.htm

Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine:  https://www.nps.gov/fomc/index.htm

The Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/british/brit-3.html