On the morning of September 14, 1814, just a few days after the British had burned Washington, DC in the War of 1812, the American lawyer Francis Scott Key sat aboard a British naval ship seeking the release of William Beanes, an American doctor whom the British had captured. The previous day, Key had watched from his ship near Baltimore Harbor as the British fleet began its bombardment of the American Fort McHenry. In the course of the 25-hour exchange, the British launched nearly 2,000 cannonballs at the fort, where roughly 1,000 American soldiers under the command of Major George Armistead were hunkered down.
When Key awoke on the morning of the 14th, he saw that an oversized American flag had been raised over Fort McHenry and that the British attack had failed. Inspired, he began writing down verses of a poem that would eventually become our national anthem: “O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave / O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Take time to read and consider the words that Key penned. What is the meaning of the poem’s opening question: “O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming”? How does it differ from the question that concludes the first stanza? Why, according to the song, is the waving banner important? Why sing a song about a flag? The last stanza turns from the present war to the future. For what does it call? What relation does the song suggest between the flag and the motto “In God is our trust”? How does singing the song make you feel? Does thinking about the anthem’s words alter those feelings?
O! 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 thro’ 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.
O! 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! O! 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!
O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry 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!
Distinguished scholar-teachers Amy and Leon Kass demonstrate how short stories, speeches, and songs can be used to enhance civic education and how a pedagogical approach that stresses learning through inquiry can make primary sources come alive for students of all ages.
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