Part 4 (2/2)
Prior to this, Dr. William Beane, a citizen of Baltimore and a non-combatant, had been captured at Marlboro and was held a prisoner on one of the vessels of the British fleet. To secure his release, Francis Scott Key and John Skinner set out from Baltimore on the s.h.i.+p _Minden_ flying a flag of truce. The British admiral received them kindly and released Dr. Beane; but detained the three on board s.h.i.+p pending the bombardment of the fort, lest in their return to land the intentions of the British might be frustrated.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET THEY WATCHED THE SHOT AND Sh.e.l.l POURED INTO THE FORT AND NOTED WITH INFINITE JOY THAT THE FLAG STILL FLEW.]
Thus from the side of the enemy they were constrained to witness the efforts of destruction urged against the protecting fortress of their own city. From sunrise to sunset they watched the shot and sh.e.l.l poured into the fort and noted with infinite joy that the flag still flew.
Through the glare of the artillery, as the night advanced, they caught now and then the gleam of the flag still flying. Would it be there at another sunrise? Who could tell! Suddenly the cannonading ceased. The British, despairing of carrying the fort, abandoned the project. In the emotion of the hour and inspiration born of the victory, Key composed the immortal lines now become our national anthem, ”The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The flag is preserved in the museum of Was.h.i.+ngton and is distinctive in having fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, one of the very few national flags with this number.
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
OH, 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 thro' the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched 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; Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the sh.o.r.e dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now s.h.i.+nes in the stream; 'Tis the star-spangled banner; oh, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that land who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and wild war's desolation; Blest with vict'ry and peace may the Heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: ”In G.o.d is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.
THE DEFENSE OF THE CRESCENT CITY
UPON every recurrence of January the eighth, the city of New Orleans dons gala attire and shouts herself hoa.r.s.e with rejoicing. She chants the _Te Deum_ in her Cathedrals; and lays wreaths of immortelles and garlands of roses and sweet-smelling shrubs upon the monument of Andrew Jackson in Jackson Square.
”The Saviour of New Orleans,” the inhabitants called Jackson in the exuberance of their grat.i.tude for his defense of the city, and their deliverance from threatened peril, that fateful day of January, 1815.
From capture and pillage and divers evil things he saved her, and the Crescent City has not forgotten.
Neither indeed has the nation become unmindful of his great achievement, but upon each succeeding anniversary of the battle of New Orleans--that remarkable battle that gloriously ended the War of 1812, and restored the national pride and honor so sorely wounded by the fall of Was.h.i.+ngton--celebrates the event in the chief cities of the United States.
During our second clash of arms with England, the Creek War, wherein the red man met his doom, brought Jackson's name into prominence. At one bound, as it were, he sprang from comparative obscurity into renown.
In 1814 he was appointed a major general in the United States army, and established his headquarters at Mobile. He repulsed the English at Fort Bowyer, on Mobile Point, and awaited orders from Was.h.i.+ngton to attack them at Pensacola, where, through the sympathy of the Spaniards who were then in possession of the Florida peninsula, they had their base of operations.
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