Celebrating this great country today, many will indulge in patriotic music, parades, cook-outs, time with family and friends and fireworks. July 4th has become the biggest day of the year when we commemorate the birth of our country.
And a large part of this celebration is music. Songs like “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “America the Beautiful,” “My Country Tis of Thee,” “God Bless America,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the greatest of them all, “The Star Spangled Banner.” It is our National Anthem.
In most dictionaries, a “national anthem” is defined as “a rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause,” or it is “a solemn patriotic song officially adopted by a country as an expression of national identity.”
This tradition traces back to the Olympics, where, from 1924, the national anthem of the gold-medal-winning athlete or team was played while they stood before their rising flag.
From then on, playing national anthems at international sporting events becameincreasinglypopular, incentivizing countries that did not have an official song to introduce one.
The national anthem is played in America before all sporting events, even if both teams are American, from the smallest Little League baseball games to the Superbowl final. It has also been played before many civic and political events. Hardly any big gathering of Americans occurs without the playing of the National Anthem.
Sadly, in recent years, athletes and others have rejected the importance of our national anthem and used the playing of this beautiful and powerful song as a time to protest. In 2016, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a protest of the American Flag by kneeling during the playing of the NationalAnthem. Regarding his protest, Kaepernick stated: 'I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” His protest spread to more athletes and others around the country. He eventually became the face of a Nike ad campaign, with the catchphrase, “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
Regardless of what Kaepernick and others like him believe they are protesting, they are dishonoring great men and women who have sacrificed everything for this country. Men of color who sacrificed something real… not just money or playing time. Men who sacrificed and bled and died for that very flag that Kaepernick and others believe oppresses people of color.
Itwoulddothemallgoodto be reminded that it was men, both white and black, who fought under that very flag tofreeandemancipatepeople of color. The Civil War was fought primarily to end slavery in America. Men of every color fought, bled and died for that flag. The victory of those fighting under that flag led to the defeat of slavery. It led to the emancipation of African Americans. It freed them from oppression. Yes, at one time, slavery existed all over America, but that ended in the North in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and it ended in all of America after the Union victory in 1865. Yes, there were, and still are, problems because there will always be some people unwilling to see the truths of our nation. Self-evident truths, like the truth that all men are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
But 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is not just a song. It is an eyewitness account of a pivotal event in America’s struggle to be free from British control and a history lesson in musical form. The historic event giving rise to the song was the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812.
The War of 1812 pitted the young United States in a war against Great Britain, from whom the American colonies had won their independence in 1783. The conflict was a byproduct of the broader conflict between Great Britain and France over who would dominate Europe and the wider world.
In Britain’s effort to control the world’s oceans, the British Royal Navy encroached upon American maritime rights and cut into American trade. In response, the young republic declared war on Britain on June 18, 1812. The two leading causes of the war were the British Orders-in-Council, which limited American trade with Europe, and impressment, the Royal Navy’s practice of taking seamen from American merchant vessels to fill out the crews of its chronically undermanned warships. Under the authority of the Orders in Council, the British seized some 400 American merchant ships and their cargoes between 1807 and 1812. Press gangs, though ostensibly targeting British subjects for naval service, also swept up 6,000 to 9,000 Americans into the crews of British ships between 1803 and 1812. Some impressed sailors were born in British possessionsbuthadmigrated to the United States. In contrast, many others had attained citizenship that was either in question or could not be documented.
One of the pivotal battles of the War of 1812 was the “Battle of Baltimore.” On 24 August 1814, British troops led by Rear Admiral George CockburnandMajorGeneral Robert Ross entered Washington. They captured the city with a force of 4,500 'battle- hardened' men during the burning of Washington. British troops, commanded by Ross, set fire to a large number of public buildings, including the White House, the United States Capitol and many other major public buildings.
On their way to Washington, the British seized the manor house of Dr. William Beanes, a feisty 65-year-old man who had been greatly involved in the American Revolution. Upon hearing the shot heard around the world at Lexington and Concord, which started the American Revolutionary War, Beanes offered his medical expertise following the battle at the General Hospital in Philadelphia. Following his service at theGeneralHospital,Beanes attended to wounded soldiers on the frontlines after the battles of Brandywine, Long Island, and through the winter at Valley Forge. Following Beanes’ service in the Revolution, Beanes settled in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, where he became a respected doctor in the region. In 1799, Beanes and doctors John and Thomas Archer established the Medical Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, now knownastheMarylandState Medical Society.
But Beanes played a much larger role in the War of 1812. In the summer of 1814, British forces sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, landing several regiments of soldiers along the Patuxent River. Marching up to Upper Marlboro, the British noticed that the town was deserted, except for Dr. Beanes, who offered his home as a base of operations for the British. Thinking that Beanes was sympathetic to the British, they used his home as a base of operations for the Battle of Bladensburg and the burning of Washington, D.C., in August of 1814. Soon after the burning of Washington, British deserters went in search of food. The deserters ransacked local farms nearby; one of the farms was owned by the 11th Governor of Maryland, Robert Bowie. Bowie, enraged, asked anyone in the area to assist in tracking down the British deserters and take matters into their own hands. Dr. Beanes caughtwindofBowie’scallfor help and asked Doctors William Hill and Philip Weems to help. The group arrested a small number of the deserters and confined them in the Prince George’s County Jail. However, one of the deserters escaped the jail and promptly returned to the British ships in Southern Maryland. After hearing the news, General Ross and Admiral Cockburn orderedthearrestofthethree doctors. Doctors William Hill and Philip Weems were released by the end of August. However, the British would not release the now 65-yearold doctor under the pretense that the British believed he was a spy.
After learning that Beanes would not be released, Beanes’ friends hurried to Georgetown to meet with a prominent lawyer, Francis Scott Key. Key, a Frederick, Maryland native and prominent Georgetown lawyer, decided to go with Prisoner Exchange Colonel John Stuart Skinner to negotiate Beanes’ release. Upon arriving on the HMS Tonnant, the British decided that Beanes was no longer a threat or a spy. However, the British would not allow the three Americans to leave the Tonnant because they knew too much about the British positions in the Chesapeake Bay. The three were forced to returntotheAmericanvessel thePresidentandwaitwithin the ranks of the British Navy until the upcoming Battle of Baltimore was finished.
At the same time as Key was on the HMS Tonnant, watching the battle of Baltimore, one of the soldiers manning Fort McHenry was a former slave named Frederick Hall. Frederick Hall was a runaway slave who enlisted in the United States Army during the War of 1812. He enlisted under the alias of William Williams. Hall escaped his master’s plantation in Maryland in early 1814. He then enlisted in the US Army in mid-1814. He was assigned to the 38th US Infantry in Baltimore and received an enlistment bonus of $50 and wages of $8 per month. Interestingly, though, the British government offered freedom and free land to any slave who enlisted in the British army or navy. Despite that offer, Hall joined the US Army. Once enlisted, Frederick Hall was posted to Fort McHenry. Hall was on duty in Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814.
On the morning of September 13, 1814, the Bombardment of Fort McHenry and the battle for Baltimore began. For the next 27 hours, theKeyandhistwocomrades watched in horror as the British fired their cannons, firearms, and rockets at Fort McHenry.Duetotheamount of smoke released into the air, the three could see nothing throughout the day and night. By nightfall, with the bombs bursting in the air, their view of Fort McHenry was obscured.
OnthemorningofSeptember 14, a 30 ft × 42 ft oversized American flag, made a year earlier by local flag maker Mary Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter, was raised over Fort McHenry, replacing the tattered storm flag that had flown during battle.
Originally, historians said that the oversized Star-Spangled Banner Flag was raised to taunt the British, but that is not the case. The oversized flagwasraisedeverymorning for reveille and was lowered at night following twilight.
The British had failed, and the war turned. Shortly after the British failed to take Baltimore, fighting in the north ended. In the Southeastern United States, American forces and Indian allies defeated an anti-American faction of the Muscogee. In early 1815, American troops repulsed a major British attack on New Orleans, which occurred during the ratification process of signing the TreatyofGhent,whichended the conflict.
During the siege of Fort McHenry, Frederick Hall lost his leg when a British cannonball hit him. As he lay bleeding from his mortal wounds…Hall could see that old flag proudly waving. He died two months later. He bled, and he died fighting to keep that flag waving. He stood strong for that flag. He did not kneel and protest. He bled and died for that flag. I wonder what Frederick Hall would think of those who protest that flag. I wonder if Hall would agree that Kaepernick sacrificed something. I doubt he would. But Hall believed in something. He believed in that old flag and the nation for which it stood. He could have joined the British and fought against the nation that so many believe oppresses people of color, but he fought for the United States and that flag that others hate. And he gave the last full measure. He sacrificed everything.
So, the next time you hear and sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” remember it isn’t just a song. It is a history lesson. A recounting of an event that turned the tide and brought about victory for America in the War of 1812. It is a reminder that men like former slave Frederick Hall lived and died protecting this county and its flag.
For, throughout the night of August 13, 1814, Francis Scott Key watched “o’er the ramparts” of the HMS Tonnant, in horror as the “rockets red glare” and “bombs bursting in air” were launched at Fort McHenry to destroy it and thenBaltimore. Key was terrified that when the first light of dawn approached, he would see a destroyed Fort McHenry.
But “by dawn's early light,” Key finally saw what “so proudly” he “hailed at twilight’s last gleaming” on the night of August 13th. For on that morning, he saw the “broad stripes and bright stars” of that 30 X 42-foot flag “so gallantly streaming.” Key saw that beautiful “starspangled banneryet”waving.
Key originally drafted the song's words as a poem on the back of an envelope. When the British released him and sent him ashore, the fleet withdrew, and Key finishedthepoemandmadea good copy of it in a Baltimore hotel the next day.
According to some accounts, Key showed the poem to his wife's relatives in Baltimore, who had it printed immediately and distributed throughout the city on a handbill entitled “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” Within a couple of weeks, Baltimore newspapers published the poem. It gained instant popularity and was renamed“TheStar-Spangled Banner.” An actor sang it to the popular British tune at a public performance in Baltimore.
With the start of the Civil War, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became popular nationally. During World War I, a drive began in Congress to make it the official anthem of America’s armed forces. There were other contenders for the title, including “America the Beautiful” and “Yankee Doodle.” Maryland legislators and citizens were amongthemostactivegroups and individuals who pressed to get Francis Scott Key’s words and accompanying English tune ratified into law as the country’s first nationalanthem.Thatfinally happened when President Herbert Hoover signed legislation on March 3, 1931.
So, today, when you watch the flag pass by during the parade, stand and honor her and men like Frederick Hall. And when you watch fireworks light up the night sky and hear the sweet refrains of The Star-Spangled Banner, remember that it isn’t just a song. It is a history lesson. A lesson about America’s greatness and her victory against tyranny. And it is a reminder that real men died trying to protect her and everything for which she stands. O say, can you see By the dawn’s early light What so proudly we hailed, At the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars Through the perilous night O’ertherampartswewatched Were so gallantly, streaming. And the rocket’s 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.
Happy Fourth of July God Bless America. .