From Broadside Ballad to Anthem

The Bombardment of Fort McHenry--the bombs bursting in air.

On September 14, 1814 a young Baltimore attorney, Francis Scott Key, dashed off a long poem, The Defense of Fort McHenry after his release from a British warship on which he was detained during the bombardment of the fort in the War of 1812.  It was published to considerable acclaim in the Patriot on September 20.  Street broadsides were soon circulating with the instruction to sing the words to the tune of a popular drinking song, To Anacreon in Heaven.  In later decades all but the first verse would become largely forgotten and the song would become known as The Star Spangled Banner.

Key had accompanied American Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner to the HMS Tonnant, flag ship of the British fleet, to appeal to commanders Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane, Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, and Major General Robert Ross for the release of civilian prisoners taken by shore parties.  Most particularly they sought the release of Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlboro, Maryland who had foolishly tried to place straggling and drunken English soldiers under citizen’s arrest for being disorderly in the streets.  The officers entertained Key and Skinner hospitably, including a fine dinner with good wine.  And they agreed to the requested release.  But because the men had seen the strength and disposition of the fleet, they were held on board pending what the British assumed, after the easy landings and attack on the Washington, would be the rapid reduction of Baltimore’s harbor fortification and the seizure of the city.

On board the British flag ship Francis Scott Key spotted a banner in the dawn.

Key and the other Americans had the freedom of the deck as the fleet opened up a 25 hour bombardment of the star shaped fortress.  About 1,800 cannon balls were fired at the recently completed modern fortification, and hundreds of rounds of explosive mortar shells were launched from five mortar barges.  The HMS Erebus launched Congreve Rockets, which were ineffective but exploded so impressively in the air that they were a highly useful psychological weapon.

Despite the heavy bombardment, American troops at the fort under Major George Armistead were able to concentrate fire on a British landing party west of the fort, squelching an attempted flanking maneuver in support of the main British army approaching the city from the east.  At dawn on September 14, Scott, peering through the smoke of cannon fire and morning haze, made out a giant flag flying defiantly over the fort.

Without being able to take the fort with its impressive fire power and without the support of the secondary land attack, Colonel Arthur Brooke, in command of the main 5000 man attacking force after General Ross was killed by an American sniper, ordered his men to withdraw.  After re-boarding their transports, the Army and fleet abandoned the attack on Baltimore and set sail for a rendezvous with destiny in New Orleans.   

The original Star Spangled Banner--the battered giant flag is preserved and on display at the Smithsonian.

The flag that Key observed was not the standard sized banner that had flown over the fort during the bulk of the bombardment.  That flag was heavily damaged.  In order to signal the survival of the fort and send encouragement to Baltimore’s ground defenders, Armistead ordered a giant, previously unused, ceremonial flag sewn by local flag maker Mary Pickersgill and her young daughter hoisted in its place.

Coming on the heels of the humiliation of the burning of the Capital the defense of Baltimore became a moment of immense national pride.  The first known public performance of the poem set to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven occurred soon after the publication of the broadside edition when actor Ferdinand Durang climbed on a chair and sang it to a cheering crowd at Captain McCauley’s tavern.  Newspapers around the country picked up Key’s poem and it slowly grew in popularity as a song.

But it was not the National Anthem.  The United States did not yet have one.  The most commonly played patriotic song was Hail Columbia which had been performed at George Washington’s inaugural and had become known as the President’s March.  That might have become an official anthem except for the inconvenient fact that the nation was not named Columbia and that another nation had rudely stolen the name in 1810.

In 1831 Samuel Francis Smith penned new lyrics to God Save the King to make the British ditty into an American patriotic song.  The simplicity of the tune, much easier to sing than the Star Spangled Banner, or even the popular My Country ‘Tis of Thee made America the dominant mid-19th Century flag waver.  It was adopted as an official anthem by the U.S. Navy in 1889 and was linked with the Pledge of Allegiance to become a morning ritual for school children across the country in the wave of patriotism in the wake of the Spanish American War.  Despite its use as an unofficial anthem, sharing the music with the official anthem of the country from which the U.S. had declared its independence and with which it had fought two wars, made it unsuitable for international use.

By the time that President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order that the Star Spangled Banner be used as an anthem by military and naval bands in 1916, other songs were emerging as contenders for the title of an official anthem. Katherine Lee Bates’ poem America the Beautiful was set to a tune by Samuel A Ward.  George M. Cohan’s rouser You’re A Grand Old Flag from the 1906 musical George Washington, Jr. also was another candidate.

Despite the competition, Congress finally designated the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem in 1931 and the resolution was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.

Key’s song, however, always had its detractors.  With its wide range, it is very hard for all but accomplished singers and its martial spirit offends those who would prefer their patriotism without belligerence.   

Kate Smith's rousing 1938 version of Irving Berlin's God Bless America made the song a leading contender as a replacement National Anthem.

Most commonly mentioned as an alternative is a song that Irving Berlin wrote for his Doughboy camp musical Yip, Yip Yank in 1917 but which had been cut from the show.  Years later, Berlin tinkered with the lyrics and Kate Smith sang it on her popular radio show in 1938.  God Bless America became an instant favorite and is often sung at public events either with or as an alternative to the Star Spangled Banner.

There has even been a movement to make Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land the anthem.  Guthrie wrote the song as a direct answer to Smith’s version of God Bless America in 1940 but did not record it until 1944.  It was not published until Woody put out a mimeographed pamphlet of 10 of his songs to sell at concerts in 1950.  It took off with the folk revival and political upheaval of the 1960’s and was recorded by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and, Peter Paul and Mary and many others.  As great as the song is, it is difficult to imagine a song with that political pedigree ever becoming the official Anthem.

Sentiment was growing to ditch the Star Spangled Banner until Whitney Houston's spectacular performance at the Super Bowl in 1998 during a spasm of patriotism during the Gulf War.

These days the song is under attack because of Key’s later legal career and political entanglements as an ardent defender of slavery, mouthpiece for strictly enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, and being an ally of John C. Calhoun and the nullifiers.  Critics insist that the Star Spangled Banner is the tainted fruit of a tainted tree.

Despite this and the difficulty in singing the song, it can inspire goose bumps even among the most blasé.

Key's anthem got a boost during the Civil War.  There was no mistaking the Star Spangled Banner for the Stars and Bars or the Confederate Battle Flag.

The Star Spangled Banner

Complete lyrics

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 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;

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 homes 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!

—Francis Scott Key

Failing to Fell Old Hickory

A woodcut illustration from a contemporary poster showing the attempted assassination of President Andrew Jackson.  The Old General thrashes his would be killer with his cane.

You have to feel a little sorry for Richard Lawrence.  He was in the right place at the right time, skulking around the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 30, 1835.  A funeral service for a member of Congress was breaking up.  All of the dignitaries of the government including the Chief Executive himself were in attendance and would have to pass within feet of him.  He carried in each side pocket of his coat one cocked and loaded single shot derringer flintlock pistol.  He had a plan.  What could possibly go wrong?

Lawrence was a 35 year old Englishman who had been hearing voices in his head for a very long time.  Some believe he may have been the victim of lead in the paint he used in his work. Back home those voices had told him that he was the son and the heir of Richard III and that somehow the American President had kept him from the Throne.  He believed what those voices told him with such certainty that he decided to cross the ocean and come to the United States to have his revenge.  Along the way he decided he was also King of the U.S. and that Andrew Jackson was a usurper.

Suddenly the doors of the Capitol flew open and the mourners, led by the President himself emerged.  Lawrence hid himself behind a pillar.  As Jackson neared, he drew his pistol and stepped in front of the President firing at his chest at point blank range.

Defiant young Andy Jackson is slashed by a British officer during the Revolution as seen is an 1876 lithograph.

We interrupt the narrative at this point to review a little bit about the victim of the assault.  Andrew Jackson was no stranger to violence. During the American Revolution acting as a courier for irregular troops in North Carolina at the age of 13 or 14, Jackson was captured by the Red Coats.  When he defiantly refused the order of a British officer to shine his boots, his cheek was slashed open by a saber. 

As a young man he took leave of his widowed mother keeping in mind a single piece of advice which he would follow to the letter the rest of his life, “Never sue for libel in a Court of Law.”  By that she meant that in affairs of honor the manly thing was confronting the offender personally and if possible, kill him. 

In the raw new territory of Tennessee Jackson read and began practicing law.  He also developed a reputation of being quick to anger and as a common tavern brawler.  As he rose in the society of Nashville, he assumed the manners and character of a gentleman.  Which meant he abandoned wrestling in the mud, eye gouging, and trying to bite your enemy’s ear off.  Instead he subscribed to the Code Duello.  Over the years he was in several affairs of honor and was both shot and did the shooting. 

In one case he challenged a man who publicly asserted—truthfully—that his beloved wife Rachel was at least an inadvertent bigamist for marrying him before a divorce to her first husband was final.  On the field of honor his enemy purposefully “wasted” his shot.  In most cases the other party would do the same and both could leave the field with honor.  But Jackson took slow and steady aim at the defenseless man and shot him dead through the heart.

In 1806 Jackson coldly shot and killed Charles Dickinson in a duel after  the other man had puposefully wasted his shot and was defenseless. 

In 1813 a feud between Jackson, by then General of the Tennessee Militia and a former friend and subordinate officer Col. Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse erupted into a wild street fight.  As Jackson closed to kill Thomas with a brace of pistols, Jesse snuck up behind him and shot him at point blank range in the side.  A ruckus between partisans of both sides ensued.  The Benton brothers fled town and Tennessee, although Tom would later reconcile with the old General and become a political ally as a Senator from Missouri.  Jackson nearly bled to death and lost partial use of his left arm.  Jesse’s ball remained lodged in his body and caused him almost constant pain for the rest of his life.

Then, of course, there was Jackson’s well documented heroics and adventures as an officer against Native American tribes, especially in the Red Stick War against the Creeks, at the legendary defense of New Orleans against the British, and finally marching through Florida in defiance of orders putting the nation at risk of a new war with Spain.

Back at the Capitol steps, when Lawrence fired a loud pop was heard and a cloud of black powder smoke briefly engulfed the two men.  But for some reason it was just a misfire and the ball never left the barrel.

As the smoke cleared the enraged 67 year old President lurched for Lawrence and began beating him with his heavy gold headed cane.  Lawrence stumbled.  He had trouble getting his second pistol out of his pocket while fending off blows.  When he did get it out, the second gun also misfired.  Jackson continued raining blows on the now prostrate man until witnesses physically dragged him away.

Jackson was unscathed, although he didn’t realize he had not actually been shot until he got back to the Executive Mansion and discovered nothing more than powder burns on his clothing.

Lawrence was taken to jail unconscious.  When he recovered he was examined by a doctor who declared that he was suffering from “morbid delusions.”

Later that spring Lawrence was put on trial.  The prosecutor was Francis Scott Key, better known as the writer of the Star Spangled Banner. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity, one of the first such verdicts in American history.  He lived his life out in various mental institutions until his death in 1861.

Jackson believed that Richard Lawrence was not insane but an agent of one of his many enemies, probably backers of the the Second Bank of the United States.

Jackson didn’t believe it for a second.  He was sure that Lawrence was a hireling of his political enemies in the emerging Whig Party or perhaps of the bankers irate over his blocking the renewal of the Charter of the Second Bank of the United States.  Vice President Martin Van Buren agreed.  Ever after he carried a brace of pistols to the Capitol to fulfill his Constitutional duties of President of the Senate.

Many historians have examined the matter and none have found any connection between Lawrence and Jackson’s many enemies.  That did not prevent the spread of the first of the conspiracy theories which seem to arise naturally from all assassinations and attempts.

Lawrence’s pistols ended up in the Smithsonian Institution.  Around the centennial of the attack, researchers there tested both guns to try to find out why they had misfired.  Both fired perfectly on the first attempt to shoot them.  The scientists placed the odds of both functional pistols misfiring at 1 in 250,000.  Jackson was a lucky man.

Even luckier that he did not live in the 21st Century when his assailant might have a Glock with an extended clip.  No gold headed cane would protect him from that.