The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the United States, was written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812 and set to the music of To Anacreon in Heaven, an old English tune. In the summer of 1813, Major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, which guarded Baltimore Harbor, commissioned Baltimore resident Mary Young Pickersgill, a “maker of colours,” to make an American flag so large that the British would have no trouble seeing it from a great distance. By August, Mrs. Pickersgill and her 13-year-old daughter Caroline had finished the flag, which measured 30 by 42 feet, and Armistead had it raised above Fort McHenry. In mid-August of 1814, the British fleet sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, invaded and captured Washington, D.C., and set fire to the Capitol and the White House, and it was expected that Baltimore would soon be attacked. Shortly afterward, Dr. William Beanes, an elderly Maryland physician, was captured by the British, and Francis Scott Key, an attorney, agreed to help local citizens try to secure his release, joined by Colonel J. S. Skinner, who had experience in prisoner exchanges. Key and Skinner were allowed to board the British warship where Beanes was being held, and although the British agreed to release him, they discovered that Key, Skinner, and Beanes had overheard plans to attack Baltimore and Fort McHenry, so they were kept captive on board. The British began an intense bombardment of Fort McHenry on the morning of September 13 and continued until the early morning of September 14, 1814, while Key and his companions watched the battle from the ship. In the predawn darkness, Key waited anxiously to see whether the flag still flew and the fort still stood, and when daylight came, both remained. Deeply moved, Key began writing a poem on the back of an envelope, later completed it, and titled it The Defense of Fort McHenry. After the unsuccessful attack, the British fleet withdrew, Key and his companions were released, the poem was quickly distributed on handbills in Baltimore and published in newspapers, it gained instant popularity, was soon renamed The Star-Spangled Banner, and in 1931 it was officially adopted by the United States Congress as the national anthem.
