Francis Scott Key couldn’t sing, and most critics agreed he wasn’t much of a poet. But on the morning after a brutal battle in 1814, as British ships pulled away from Baltimore Harbor, he saw the American flag still flying and put what he felt into words. The result was “The Defence of Fort McHenry”—a long, uneven, and almost impossible-to-sing poem that would later become “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Key never intended it to be a national anthem. He wrote it as a reaction, raw and immediate, to the shock of survival. The poem spread quickly, printed in newspapers and set to the tune of an old British drinking song. It caught on, not for its meter or melody, but for what it captured: the awe of a young country realizing it was still standing.
It would take more than a century before Congress made it official in 1931. Until then, the song lived in parades, rallies, and moments of pride, gradually becoming part of the national identity. Francis Scott Key might not have known how to carry a tune, but the lines he wrote still echo in stadiums and classrooms across the country.
Marc Leepson, author of What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life, brings us the story.
Image: Public Domain