Some of us have never heard the story of the circumstances under which the Star Spangled Banner was written. And for those of us who did hear this story at one point in our lives, we might have forgotten. Over at MikeTodd.net, the story is posted, and it is a poignant one:
Listen closely to the words and it tells of a highly emotional moment in US history when the war with the British was being fought and of one man's relief in seeing the US flag still flying after a vicious bombardment.
Before the Battle
The War of 1812 had been a particularly nasty conflict with the British. They had burned down the Capitol and the White House in Washington, and were set on taking the port of Baltimore, which was protected in part by Fort McHenry, just to the south.
On September 7th, 1814, during the build-up to the attack on Baltimore, two Americans, Colonel John Skinner and a lawyer and part-time poet by the name of Francis Scott Key, had gone out to one of the British ships. They had come to negotiate the release of Dr William Beanes, a friend of Key who had been seized following the attack on Washington. The British agreed, but all three had learned too much about the forthcoming attack on Baltimore and so were detained by the British on board the frigate Surprise until it was over.
The Defense of Fort McHenry
The attack started on September 12th, 1814, and after an initial exchange of fire, the fleet withdrew to form an arc just outside the range of Fort McHenry's fire.
Skinner, Beanes and Key watched much of the bombardment from the British deck. The major attack started in heavy rain on the morning of September 13th. Just under three miles in the distance the three men caught glimpses of the star-shaped fort with its huge flag - 42ft long, with 8 red stripes, 7 white stripes and 15 white stars, and specially commissioned to be big enough that the British could not possibly fail to see it from a distance.
In the dark of the night of the 13th, the shelling suddenly stopped. Through the darkness they couldn't tell whether the British forces had been defeated, or the fort had fallen.
As the rain cleared, and the sun began to rise, Key peered through the lifting darkness anxious to see if the flag they had seen the night before was still flying. And so it was that he scribbled on the back of an envelope the first lines of a poem he called Defense of Fort M'Henry:
O, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming
Yesterday, Lex posted over at his blog a Dixie Chicks rendition of our national anthem as his favorite. On this we disagree. Whitney Houston captures and conveys powerfully the message of our nation surviving and overcoming-- and thereby prevailing:
Last night I watched ( with the aid of a VCR ) the fireworks shows on PBS, NBC and CBS ( Boston Pops ). On NBC something called " Jewell " mangled " America " by adding her own weird touches. Yuk. Shades of Roseanne Barr.
I agree with you Joe that Houston's rendition is far superior to the Bush hating trio's version.
They should stick to stuff like " Goodbye Earl "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GovJ4jAnr14
Posted by: Fred Gregory | July 05, 2009 at 02:04 PM
Fred, the arrangement Houston sang-- and her interpretation of it-- were soaring. We are fortunate to have it as a part of our cultural history.
Posted by: Joe Guarino | July 05, 2009 at 08:16 PM