There is a very moving, but entirely wrong, video going around about the national anthem.
It sounds like a preacher live in front of a church. In the video, he repeatedly refers to the “Patriots” (yes, the Americans in 1812 were patriots, but historically this term always means the 1776 guys; he further repeatedly alludes to “if we lost this war England would take over America” or words to that effect, namely that HE thinks this was the Revolutionary War. (In 1812, even had we “lost,” there was no chance in hell England either wanted to or could re-take America). He has Francis Scott Key on the British ship watching the bombardment. No, Key was in a boat, not on the ship.
This is important because this guy has Key down to the prison hold to “report” to the men down there that the “flag was still there.” Key was there to negotiate a prisoner exchange, and because he had overheard British plans to bombard the ship, he was held overnight both on the HMS Minden, on which he arrived under a flag of truce, the HMS Tonnant, where he had dinner with the British commander during negotiations, and the HMS Surprise. Contrary to the video, Key was not running down to the hold and back reporting on whether the “flag was still there.” He was not on one of the warships during the bombardment.
Instead, he observed the bombardment that night, but the smoke and haze obscured his view. He saw that the smaller “storm flag” had been flying, but in the morning, when dawn came, he could see the storm flag had been lowered and replaced with the larger 15-star/15-stripe flag made by Mary Pickersgill. (This was the first time our flag was called the “star spangled banner”).
The narrator has a scene where the soldiers inside Fort McHenry kept the flagpole up by their bodies. There is simply no historical record of this at all.
The “Star Spangled Banner” was only set to music later, and the original title of Key’s poem was the “Defence of Fort M’Henry”. It was first published nationally in The Analectic Magazine. John Stafford set it to music, borrowing an English tune, “The Anacreontic Song”. shortly afterward. The US Navy used the song officially in 1889, but it wasn’t declared the “National Anthem” until 1931 by Herbert Hoover. Until that time, many other songs, including “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (taken from “God Save the Queen”) was the de facto national anthem.
While I appreciate this preacher’s enthusiasm, if our kids are going to believe us, we have to tell them the truth. And the truth about Key’s song is as exciting and inspiring as it needs to be.
https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-star-spangled-banner
It was some of the natural events that make you go
Hmmmm. The raging storm that saved DC from burning to the ground after the Brits torched the WH, the winds and tide that bottled up the British fleet in the Chesapeake and led to the decision after Bladensburg to backtrack and attack Baltimore instead of continuing to pillage down the Atlantic seaboard, the raging storm that struck during the Battle of Ft McHenry, hampering the aim and effect of the British bombardment.
The extremely fortuitous MD militia planning and battle results defeating the British infantry at North Point on Sep 12 and killing their Commander. And then the death or capture of over 1000 British infantry during the raging stormy night as they attempted a landing from the Patapsco to attack the Fort from the rear
My son chose to do a history project on the SSB so we learned a lot!
BTW did your source state that a Defender killed at Ft McHenry was a Black man, William “Frederick” Williams, a slave who escaped a MD plantation that was burned by the Brits, and lied his way into the MD Infantry to fight the British? The Brits were offering the slaves amnesty and freedom to fight against America ( the “ hirelings and slaves” mentioned in verse of Key’s poem) but Williams chose to fight and died for America