The Star Spangled Banner

Two hundred years ago today one of the defining moments in American history took place at a star-shaped fort on the Patapsco River near Baltimore, Maryland. The British had invaded the United States and for a few weeks after they had captured Washington City, the future of America as an independent nation was in the balance. At Fort McHenry the British found an immoveable obstacle and the independence of a nation was secured. What is most remembered about the battle, however, is a poem written by a lawyer describing the battle and the anxious anticipation of the outcome.

Internet legends are notorious for stretching the truth, or just outright deception, and sometime ago one appeared claiming that the soldiers defending the fort literally gave their lives stacking their bodies up to hold the flag in position when the flagpole had been damaged. Recently somebody made a YouTube video of the battle purporting to have done extensive research in the preparation, and only embellishing it with a little dialogue. It is heart stirring and patriotic sounding, but it is all false. It is only a regurgitation of the phony story that has been floating around the Internet. The truth of the Battle of Fort McHenry is far different, and it is wildly patriotic without the deception of the Internet legend.

It begins with the British Empire. One of the enigmas of world history is how the tiny island nation of England became the largest empire in terms of both territory and influence that the world has ever seen. Protected by the natural barriers of the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, and the North Sea, the British isles have not been successfully invaded since the Normans under William the Conqueror landed on its shores in 1066. The Normans were French and for centuries England claimed the northern part of France as its own possession until at end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 they were driven off the continent.

The English then turned to the sea and after defeating the mighty Spanish Armada in 1588, became the greatest maritime power in the history of the world. In spite of its small size, well trained and equipped British armies occupied and built a colonial empire that stretched from Canada to the Cape of Good Hope, across Africa and the Middle East to India, Malaya, and Singapore, and into the South Pacific to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. In 1707 Scotland united with England and Wales to create the United Kingdom, which Ireland then joined in 1801. For over three hundred years Great Britain dominated world affairs. From 1688 to 1763 the British fought four wars with the French, Spanish and Austrians, collectively known as the French and Indian Wars, in which they were victorious in every one.

The British then virtually stood alone against Napoleon as he conquered Europe in the early 1800s, and at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 Lord Nelson's victory over the French fleet effectively ended France's standing as a sea power. But there was one thorn in the British side, the Declaration of Independence and thirteen American colonies becoming the United States of America after defeating the British in the American Revolution. The Americans owed part of their success to the support of the Marquis de Lafayette and the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse.

The British were looking for a way to get back at their former colonies and began stopping American ships on the high seas and impressing American seamen into the British Navy to fight the Napoleonic Wars. The practice had been going on for years when it reached a breaking point and in 1812 President James Madison called for a declaration of war against Britain. The United States entered the War of 1812 on the side of the French. The war has sometimes been called the Second American War for Independence, because the British came back to their former colonies with the intent of retaking them.

After two years the outcome was still in question when Napoleon's mighty army collapsed in 1814 after a disastrous campaign in Russia. Sixteen thousand British troops were then sent from Europe to Canada to drive south in a pincer move to join a British army led by General Robert Ross moving north up the Chesapeake Bay. After defeating an American army at the Battle of Bladensburg, the British occupied Washington City and burned many government buildings including the White House, and in the process took a Washington doctor, William Beanes, prisoner. Beanes had found some British stragglers looting, arrested them, and took them to the British garrison, whereupon he was promptly arrested. As President Madison was fleeing the city, his wife, Dolly, famously rescued America's founding documents, the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Ross then embarked his army on Navy ships, which sailed down the Potomac and back up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. Baltimore was a port city with shipyards that the British believed were outfitting and supplying privateers. Determined to capture and destroy the port, the British landed Ross and his army of about 4,500 men at North Point to the east of Baltimore on September 12, 1814, and then sailed 19 ships up the bay to the Baltimore harbor.

A Georgetown lawyer, Francis Scott Key, was asked to help secure the release of Dr. Beanes. At Baltimore he met Colonel John Skinner, a government prisoner exchange agent. They approached the British flagship HMS Tonnant under a flag of truce on September 5, and were treated to dinner with Rear Admiral George Cockburn and General Ross. The release of Dr. Beanes was agreed to, but in the process Key and Skinner had overheard the British battle plans. They were forced then to remain on board with Beanes until the campaign was over.

Ross marched his army toward Baltimore until he ran into a small force under Brigadier General John Stricker, whose purpose was to delay the British advance while the Americans dug in and prepared for an attack at the city. Ross was killed in the skirmish, and his army sat out the night in a rainstorm before advancing on the city on the 13th. At the gates of the city, however, the British found 12,000 well-entrenched American troops and withdrew to North Point.

Fort McHenry sat at the end of a peninsula between two branches of the Patapsco River. The Northwest Branch, which passed to the north of the fort, led into Baltimore harbor. The Middle Branch passed to the south, and also had two smaller forts up river, Covington and Babcock, to support McHenry. McHenry was commanded by Major George Armistead who had a compliment of about one thousand men. Armistead's nephew, Lew Armistead, would give his life leading Pickett's Charge at the third day of Gettysburg forty-nine years later during the American Civil War. The fort was named for James McHenry, a signer of the Constitution, whose son John fought in the battle.

The bombardment of Fort McHenry began on the morning of the 13th. The British had guns, mortars and rockets that could reach the fort from over two miles away. McHenry had only twenty short-range guns and was unable to return fire in the early hours of the battle. Believing the fort had been damaged, Admiral Cockburn moved his fleet in closer for more effective fire, but when in range, Armistead's guns replied so furiously that Cockburn had to move back out of range. The bombardment continued all day and into the night when rain began to fall.

Armistead ordered a small rain flag raised during the storm and through the night the light from the streaking rockets and exploding bombs cast a glow over the fort revealing the flag. By morning nearly 1800 projectiles had been fired at the fort. The most intense moment came when a mortar, a large canon ball launched in an arc to fly over the walls and explode within the fort, landed near the powder magazine. Providentially, it did not explode. The magazine was in an exposed, unprotected area of the fort, so the troops went to work moving the powder and shot to covered, secure areas.

After dark the British loaded 1200 men into small boats and rowed up the Middle Branch to put troops ashore behind the fort. After safely landing they fired several signal rockets to alert the fleet, but the rockets gave away their position. Heavy fire from Forts Covington and Babcock forced the troops to withdraw with severe losses.

As dawn began to break on the 14th, twenty-five hours after the bombardment began, the rain stopped and Armistead ordered a 30 x 42 foot battle flag raised to show the fort was still standing. Four U.S. soldiers had been killed and 24 wounded, including Private William Williams, a run-away slave, who died two weeks later.

Eight miles away at North Point, Key, Skinner and Beanes had remained on the deck of the ship and watched the bombardment through the night. In the morning the guns fell silent as the rain stopped and a fog rolled over the bay. Not knowing the outcome they apprehensively waited. Then as the rising sunlight burned away the fog they saw the huge battle flag waving defiantly in the breeze. McHenry had not surrendered. Suddenly inspired, Key began to write out the story in verse on the back of an envelope.

In New York the British fleet on Lake Champlain had been defeated at the Battle of Plattsburgh on September 11, and the division of troops from Europe were ordered back to Canada. Peace talks were already underway in Europe, but the British, wanting to punish their former colonies, would be disappointed. These two losses strengthened the U.S. position and led to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24. Two weeks later on January 8, 1815, not knowing that the war was officially over, the British suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. The British would recover their pride six months later with the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, but the Americans had secured for the second time their independence from Britain and their right to be free.

Key published his poem originally as The Defense of Fort McHenry. Later it took on its more popular name, The Star Spangled Banner. It was not until 1931, however, that a resolution from Congress officially made it our National Anthem. Sung to the lively tune of an old drinking song, it is a rousing hymn that begins and ends the first verse with a question. The first reveals the suspense of impatiently waiting through the night to find the outcome upon which the fate of the nation rested. It describes the intensity of the rockets and bomb blasts lighting up the flag and proving it still flew.

The second question is timeless. Does it still wave today? Is it still the proud banner once respected and admired around the world? Are the American people still free? Is America still the home of the brave?

Oh 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 rockets 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?

It became one of baseball's first traditions to sing the anthem before games, and then the idea spread to other sports and events as well. There were actually four verses written, but only the first and last are regularly sung, and most often only the first. The last verse assures the listener that America will always rise to causes that are just, and praises God in heaven, in Whom we trust, for preserving the nation by His power. With that trust in God the flag will continue to wave in triumph over the land.

Oh thus be it ever when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes, and the wars desolation.
Blessed 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.

We can proudly say today that yes, it does still wave, we are still free, and we still have brave heroes giving their lives on battlefields around the world to preserve our liberties. But considering the direction the government has gone in recent years, the moral decay of the culture, and the war on Christianity within our own country, one has to wonder whether or not the next generation will be able to say, "Yes it does still wave and we are still free."