2021-27 The Right Key

Imagine, if you will, the sounds of burning buildings…. The blasts from cannons hurling massive steel balls through the air that eventually come back down and destroy whatever is in their way… The yells and screaming of those who are on the front line of the fight. Now imagine the black smoke filling the sky. Black smoke that is billowing out from the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Library of Congress. This was the case in August of 1812.

After the British troops were finished with their invasion on Washington D.C., they turned their sites onto their next target. Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Francis Scott Key received word that his friend, Dr. William Beanes, had been taken prisoner by the British on one of their ships off the coast of Baltimore. In an effort to negotiate the release of his friend, Francis Scott Key found himself also stuck on the same ship 8 miles off the coast from Fort McHenry as both he and Beanes were not allowed to leave until the battle against the Fort was over as they both now had knowledge of the attack the British had planned against Fort McHenry..

With a front row seat of the battle. Francis Scott Key watched as the British fired upon the Fort. “It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone.” The battle raged all night as red was erupting in the sky. Key was sure that all would be lost for the Fort as the scale of the battle was highly in favor of the British. But, when “the dawn’s early light” came, and the smoke cleared, he saw the American Flag still standing strong.

While still being held captive on the ship, Key wrote his thoughts on paper. His brother-in-law who was a commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, read Key’s work and had it distributed under the name “Defense of Fort M’Henry”. The newspapers soon found out and it was eventually printed throughout the country. Today, we call this piece of work “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

The Star-Spangled Banner

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?