Of course, this is a big week in America! Independence day is Friday and I'm sure there are already folks partying in various cities in the US. While I love that our national holiday gets us a day off, I am saddened to see that a very large section of our society has reduced it to a day of drunken carousing. There is so much more to America than fireworks and beer. This week I will be relating some wonderful information about our country and the people in it. Some of my information will be taken from an article in the Reader's Digest; "Why We're Happy. Turns out, happiness has a lot to do with values-and it's key to our prosperity as a nation." Other posts will be from our constitution and some from general headlines.
So here's to America, her citizens and her zest for the pursuit of happiness!
Musical Monday-Patriotic
The Creation of the National Anthem!
Before the Battle
The War of 1812 had been a particularly nasty conflict with the British. They had burned down the Capitol and White House in Washington, and were set on taking the port of Baltimore, which was protected in part by Fort McHenry. After an initial land attack had been thwarted, 16 ships of the British fleet positioned themselves for a massive attack on the fort.
Before the fleet came within canon range, two Americans, Colonel John Skinner and a lawyer and part-time poet by the name of Francis Scott Key, had gone out to one of the British ships. They had come to negotiate the release of Dr William Beanes, a friend of Key who had been seized following the attack on Washington. The British agreed, but all three had learned too much about the forthcoming attack and were detained by the British on board the frigate Surprise until it was over.
The Defense of Fort McHenry
The attack started on September 12th, 1814, and continued for the next two days. Skinner, Beane and Key watched much of the bombardment from the deck and, through the nights of the 12th and 13th they caught glimpses of the star-shaped fort with its huge flag - 42ft long, with 8 red stripes, 7 white stripes and 15 white stars, it had been specially commissioned to be big enough that the British could not possibly fail to see it from a distance.
In the dark of the night of the 13th, the shelling suddenly stopped - through the darkness they couldn't tell whether the British forces had been defeated, or the fort had fallen.
As the sun began to rise, Key peered through the lifting darkness anxious to see if the flag they had seen the night before was still flying. And so it was that he scribbled on the back of an envelope the first lines of a poem he called Defense of Fort M'Henry:
"O, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming"
As the mist started to clear he was aware that there was a flag flying - but was it the British flag? It was difficult to tell:
"What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?"
But finally the sun rose, and with intense relief and pride he saw that the fort had withstood the onslaught ...
"'Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
The poem becomes a hymn and anthem
On the way back to shore, and later in his hotel room, he completed all four verses of the poem, and the following morning he took it to his brother-in-law, a local judge, who thought it so good that he arranged to have it printed as a handbill.
It is very likely that Key only ever intended this as a poem. However, there was a very popular tune of the time which had the same form and metre, and there can be no doubt that Key was heavily influenced by it - ironically, this was the tune of a British drinking song!
When the handbills were printed, they bore the name of this tune to which the poem should be sung - Anacreon in Heaven. Nobody is sure whether this was Key's idea, or whether his brother-in-law had made the connection, but to this day the American National Anthem is sung to the tune of a British drinking song.
(gbjann.com)
