DEFENCE OF FORT M'HENRY

From the Baltimore American, Sept. 21, 1814.
This was attached to the first printing of the song.
"The annexed song was composed under the following circumstances: A gentleman had left Baltimore, in a flag of truce for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet a friend of his who had been captured by 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 forced to watch the bombardment of Fort M'Henry, which the Admiral had boasted 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."

The defense of Fort McHenry under Major Armistead began on the morning of Sept. 13, and lasted until the early hours of Sept. 14, 1814. The 'gentleman' was Francis Scott Key, who at first concealed his authorship from the public. The British designs on Baltimore failed.

From Oscar Sonneck, "Report on the Star-Spangled Banner, Hail Columbia, America and Yankee Doodle," 1909 (Dover and other Reprints).
Sonneck was Chief, Music Division, Library of Congress.