With the advent of the opening of the NFL season, and considering the recent protests about the Star-Spangled Banner, I thought it necessary to relate its history and story behind it. The story here is a legend combined from both historical accounts and witnesses, and although the facts cannot be confirmed definitively, it is the accepted story of how it was written. I cannot take credit for this story; I only relate it here as I have heard it.
It is our song when we Americans go to a ballgame; or we stand on our church services, or go to any sporting event. We sing the words of that song and they float over our minds in our lips and we don’t even realize what we’re singing. Most of us have memorized it as a child but we’ve never really thought about what it means. It is not a song of racism or hate, but one of heroism, and what it means to be an American.
Francis Scott Key was a lawyer in Baltimore and the American colonies were engaged in vicious conflict with the mother country Britain, later called the War of 1812. Because of this conflict in the they had accumulated prisoners on both sides. The American colonies had prisoners, and the British had prisoners
The American government initiated a move for peace. They went to the British and they said “Let us negotiate for the release of these prisoners” The British said we want to send a man out to discuss this with you. They were holding the American prisoners in boats about a thousand yards offshore and they said, we want to send a man by the name of Francis Scott Key. He will come out and negotiate to see if we can make a mutual exchange.
On the appointed day, in a rowboat, Key went out to this British and he negotiated with the British officials and they reached a conclusion that men could be exchanged on a one-for-one basis. Jubilant with the fact he had been successful, Key went down below in the boats and what he found was a cargo hold full of men and he said, “Men I’ve got news for you tonight. You’re free. Tonight, I have negotiated successfully your return to the colonies. H then said, “You’ll be taken out of this boat, out of this filth, out of your chains.”
As he went back up on board to arrange for their passage to the shore the British admiral came and he said, “We have a slight problem. We will still honor our commitment to release these men but it’ll be merely academic, because after tonight it won’t matter”
Francis Scott Key asked, “What do you mean?”
The admiral answered “Well, Mr. Key he said tonight we have laid an ultimatum upon the colonies. Your people will either capitulate and lay down the colours of that flag that you think so much of, or you see that fort right over there, Fort Henry? We’re going to remove it from the face of the earth.”
Key asked “How are you going to do that?”
The admiral said, “If you will scan the horizon of the sea sir” Key looked, and he could see hundreds of little dots and he the admiral said, “That’s the entire British war fleet, and all of the gun power all of their armaments are being called upon to demolish that fort. They will be here within striking distance in a matter of about two and a half hours. The admiral continued, “The war is over these men would be free anyway”
Kay said, “You can’t do that! That for is full of women and children, it’s predominantly not a military fort!”
The British admiral said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ve left them a way out. You see that flag way up on the rampart? We have told them that if they will lower that flag, the shelling will stop immediately and we’ll know that they’ve surrendered, and they’ll then be under British rule.”
Francis Scott Key went down below and told the men what was about to happen and they said, “How many ships?” Key said, “A hundred or more ships” Key went back up on top and he said, “Men, I’ll shout down to you what’s going on as we watch!”
As twilight began to fall and as the haze hung over the ocean as it does at sunset, suddenly the British war fleet unleashed its fire. The sound was deafening. There were so many guns that there were no reliefs pauses. It was impossible to talk. The light though darkening was suddenly lit from down below. All he could hear, were the prisoners saying to tell them where the flag is.
“What have they done with the flag?!” they yelled. “Is the flag still flying over the rampart? Tell us!”
One hour, two hours, three hours into the shelling, every time the bomb would explode and it would be close to the flag. They could see the flag in the illuminated red glare of that bomb and Key would report down to the men below. “It’s still up! It’s not down!”
The admiral came and he said angrily, “Your people are insane! What’s the matter with them? Don’t they understand this is an impossible situation?
Francis Scott Key said he remembered what George Washington had said; the thing that sets the American apart from all other people in the world, is the he will die on his feet before he’ll live on his knees.
The admiral said we have now instructed all of the guns to focus on the rampart to take that flag down. He said we don’t understand something; that our reconnaissance tells us that that flag has been hit directly again and again and again and yet it’s still flying. We don’t understand that, but he said now we’re about to bring every gun for the next three hours to bear on that point.
Key said the barrage was unmerciful, all that he could hear was the men down below praying, a prayer to God to keep that flag flying where we last saw it.
Sunrise came, and he said there was a heavy mist hanging over the land. The rampart was tall enough to see it, and there stood the flag, completely nondescript in shreds, and even the flagpole itself was in a crazy angle, but the flag was still at the top of that rampart.
Key went aboard and immediately wanted a boat to Fort Henry, to see what had happened and what he found it. What happened was that that flag holding that flag had suffered repetitious direct hits, and when hit, had fallen. Yet men– fathers who knew would it meant for that flag to be on the ground and although knowing that all the British guns were trained on it– walked over and held it up until they died, their bodies were removed, and others took their place. Francis Scott Key said that what held that flagpole in place at that unusual angle were the patriots bodies. He then penned the song in their memory, “The Star-Spangled Banner”
Complete lyrics:
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 thru 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.
Oh, 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! Oh 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!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n 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!
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For more information on the song you can go to these links:
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner
USA Flag Site: http://www.usa-flag-site.org/song-lyrics/star-spangled-banner/
The National Museum of American History: http://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-lyrics.aspx
The History channel: http://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-star-spangled-banner
The Smithsonian: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-story-behind-the-star-spangled-banner-149220970/
