CHAPTER XVII. THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER. Circumstances under which it was written-Two Accounts-Capture of Dr. Beans and other Americans-F. S. Key goes for their Release and is detained on a British Ship. GENERALLY well known as are the main circumstances under which our stirring national song of the "StarSpangled Banner" was written, the particulars thereof are not so familiar to all as not to be worthy of record in this place. Recently, in examining a file of the old National Intelligencer, I came across this song as first published in that paper on the 27th of September, 1814, a fortnight only after the battle of North Point, Baltimore. It appears there with the following heading and preface: "6 DEFENCE OF FORT M'HENRY. "(From a Baltimore paper.) "The annexed song was composed under the following circumstances: A gentleman had left Baltimore, with a flag of truce, for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet a friend of his, who had been captured at Marlborough. He went as far as the mouth of the Patuxent, and was not permitted to return, lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be disclosed. He was therefore brought up the bay to the mouth of the Patapsco, where the flag vessel was kept under the guns of a frigate, and he was compelled to witness the bombardment of Fort M'Henry, which the Admiral (Cockburn) had boasted that he would carry in a few hours, and that the city must fall. He watched the flag at the fort through the whole day with an anxiety that can be better felt than described, until the night prevented him from seeing it. In the night he watched the bomb-shells, and at early dawn his eye was again greeted by the proudly waving flag of his country. "Tune-Anacreon in Heaven." Here follows the song, at the bottom of which is this note in brackets: "(Whoever is the author of those lines, they do equal honor to his principles and his talents.-NatInt.)" It would appear that this famous song had not yet received its characteristic name, by which it has long been so well known throughout the civilized world. With the name of its author, Francis S. Key, it is destined to live as long as American independence shall hold a record in the history of mankind. In Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll's "Sketch of the Second War between the United States and Great Britain," pubblished in 1849, the following not less interesting account is given as having been furnished to him by "a gentleman of Bladensburg," writing of the remarkable battle fought there on the 24th of August, 1814. "The [British] army having passed the village of Upper Marlborough en route for their shipping (the second day after the battle), leaving several stragglers to follow, several gentlemen of that village formed the determination to cut some of them off and make them prisoners of war. The principal of these gentlemen were Dr. William Beans, as prime mover, and General Robert Bowie and John Rodgers, who succeeded in making several prisoners, who were confined. The British officers, hearing of this occurrence, however, that night sent back a strong party to the village, who liberated the prisoners, and, taking these gentlemen out of their beds, hurried them off without allowing them a moment to clothe themselves, and, thus placing them on old horses, carried them, no doubt amid the jeers of the soldiery, to the shipping. After many entreaties and expostulations, two of the gentlemen were let off and permitted to return to Upper Marlborough, but they considered Dr. Beans a fair prize, and determined to take him to Halifax or England. Having the doctor on board, the fleet left the Patuxent River, and, ascending the Chesapeake Bay, appeared off Fort M'Henry. The numerous and influential friends of Dr. Beans immediately set to work to devise some plan by which an effort might be made to obtain his release from the fleet. Accordingly a petition was signed by some of the most respectable citizens of Prince George's County, among whom were individuals who had acted very kindly towards Colonel Wood and other British officers and soldiers who had been left [wounded] in Bladensburg, on the return of the British army, of which the commander of the army or fleet was no doubt aware. These preparations being made, the eloquent and talented. Francis S. Key, the friend of Dr. Beans, was appointed as the messenger and champion to go to the rescue. He accordingly proceeded to Annapolis, and, by means of a small craft and the white flag, he boarded the Admiral's ship, to make known his mission. The fleet being about to make an attack on Fort M'Henry, while the army effected a landing at North Point, Mr. Key was detained on board, and compelled, from his position, to witness the furious bombardment of Fort M'Henry. The novelty of his situation, a near view of the powerful means then operating for the reduction of Baltimore to the power of the enemy, and the further desecration of the American flag, his solicitude for the successful resistance of his countrymen, and noble emotions of a patriot heart thus excited and warmed, produced, amid the storm and strife by which he was surrounded, a memento worthy of the man and honorable to his country; and long will the 'Star-Spangled Banner' be sung, to light up in every American bosom the sacred fire of patriotic devotion to the flag of his country." Francis S. Key was born in 1779, and died (I think) in Washington, in 1843. I remember him about that time as a mild, agreeable, entertaining gentleman; and I also recall the fact of having, on a Sunday afternoon, heard him eloquently address the Sunday-school scholars of the city in the East-Capitol park. PART IV. CHAPTER I. EMPLOYMENT NECESSARY TO HAPPINESS IN every age and clime since Time began, The world has aye been furnished, ready made, And others "D.D.," as their high degree, While those are common who these honors lack, Well, so it is, among this class you find It matters not; 'tis now, alas! too late, Do what he may, for him to shun his fate; 877 Your kind forbearance, therefore, he would ask, At once, then, let us offer, if we can, Go, visit yonder farm-house on the green, And when the well-planned, hard day's work is done, The wife and daughters, cherish life's rich joys, Next turn we to those forests, deeply green, |