Salvation

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Fort McHenry is a star-shaped coastal fort which was built to protect the inner harbor of Baltimore, Maryland. During the War of 1812, Baltimore harbor was the site of a short yet pivotal military engagement which inspired America’s national anthem.

Beginning in the morning of 13 September 1814, British warships under the command of Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane continuously bombarded Fort McHenry for 25 hours. The bombardment was intended to support a subsequent landing of troops and invasion of the city. The British bombardment was visually spectacular but militarily ineffective. Having expended all their bombs and rockets to little effect, the British ceased their attack the next day and eventually withdrew their forces.

Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key had come to Baltimore to negotiate the release of a friend who had been detained by the British. Key was held for a time on a truce ship and witnessed the British bombardment of the fort. When he saw the flag emerge intact from the darkness in the dawn of September 14, he was inspired that very morning to write the poem “Defence of Fort M'Henry” which would later be renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Set to the tune of the song “To Anacreon in Heaven”, Key’s poem eventually became the official national anthem of the United States in 1931:

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 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?

The British decision to withdraw saved Baltimore from imminent destruction, and the words of Francis Scott Key’s inspirational anthem and the flag it represents have come to symbolize the salvation of our nation ever since.

From Chapter 7 of No More Patriots
Copyright © 2015 by Howard T. Uhal
All Rights Reserved