05/24/2026
On a rainy September 13, 1814, British warships sent a downpour of shells and rockets onto Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor, relentlessly pounding the American fort for 25 hours. The bombardment, known as the Battle of Baltimore came only weeks after British forces attacked Washington, D.C., burning the United States Capitol, the Treasury and the White House (then known as the President’s House). It was another chapter in the ongoing War of 1812
A week earlier, Francis Scott Key a 35-year-old American lawyer, had boarded the flagship of the British fleet on the Chesapeake Bay in hopes of persuading the enemy to release the physician William Beanes, a friend who had recently been arrested. Key’s tactics were successful, but because he and his companions had gained knowledge of the impending attack on Baltimore, the British did not yet let them go. Allowed to return to their own vessel, the Americans remained under heavy scrutiny. On September 13, Key and Beanes watched as the barrage of Fort McHenry began some eight miles away.
“It seemed as though mother earth had opened and was vomiting shot and shell in a sheet of fire and brimstone,”. But when darkness arrived, he saw only red erupting in the night sky. Given the scale of the attack, he was certain the British would win. The hours passed slowly, but in the clearing smoke of “the dawn’s early light” on September 14, he saw the American flag—not the British Union Jack—flying over the fort, announcing an American victory.
Key put his thoughts on paper while still on board the ship, setting his words to the tune of a popular English song. His brother-in-law, commander of a militia at Fort McHenry, read Key’s work and had it distributed under the name “Defense of Fort M’Henry.” The Baltimore Patriot newspaper soon published it, and within weeks, Key’s poem, now called “The Star-Spangled Banner,” appeared in print across the country, immortalizing his words and forever naming the flag it celebrated. The song remained popular throughout the 19th century, emerging as a symbol of unity during the Civil War, but only became the U.S.’s official national anthem (in 1931.
The flagthat inspired Key’s composition still survives today, though it’s fragile and worn by time. First lent to the Smithsonian Institution in 1907, this iconic artifactl in its own state-of-the-art gallery at the National Museum of American History
