The Tone Deaf, Bad Poet Who Wrote The National Anthem

On this episode of Our American Stories, Francis “Frank” Scott Key was not someone you would have picked to write our national anthem… but he did and right after one of America’s great military victories.

Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories. And as you know, we
love to tell stories about everything here on this show,
particularly history, and all of our history stories are brought
to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. For
the last century, Americans have honored our country by singing
words that were written by a tone deaf lawyer to
the tune of a British social club song. Francis Frank

(00:32):
Scott Key was not someone you would have picked to
write our national anthem. Here's Mark Leipson, author of a
biography on Key, What's so proudly we held? To tell
us more about the unlikely events that brought us our
national anthem? And here's the story of how Francis Scott Key,

(00:56):
the big Washington d c. Lawyer, the pious patriot, wrote
the words that will become our national anthem, what will
become known as a star spangled banner. This story starts
during the War of eighteen twelve with the Battle of
Bladensburg Bladensburg, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC. This is

(01:20):
one of the most embarrassing defeats in US military history.
The British who changed the complexion of the War of
eighteen twelve after defeating Napoleon in eighteen fourteen and sent
thousands of crack troops over here. They were raiding up
the Chesapeake Bay. They came to the outskirts of Washington
and they overran just a pathetic group of last minute

(01:44):
thrown together militiamen. On August twenty sixth overran them and
came into Washington, and most people remember that they burned
the White House, Treasury Department, and other public buildings and
embarrassing defeat. Not so much in the terms of how
many were killed. There weren't many, because the British just

(02:05):
moved right through. So after the Battle of Bladensburg, the
British left Washington. They went back to the Chesapeake Bay,
and they got on their ships and they headed toward Baltimore,
which people didn't know at the time, but when they did,
they took prisoner a man named doctor William Beans who
owned a farm an Upper Marlborough, Maryland, which was on

(02:26):
the way out east of Washington, d c. And he
made the mistake of taking a couple of British stragglers prisoner.
When the Brits saw them, they were not very happy
about it, and so they took doctor Beans prisoner. He
was an older man, he was in his sixties. They
took him away and they headed up to Baltimore, which was,
like I said, not known at the time. Prisoner releases

(02:50):
and prisoner exchanges were common during the War of eighteen twelve.
It happened all the time. And the man who was
chosen to argue for doctor Beans who release was a
man named Francis Scott Key. He was a big lawyer
in Washington, d C. He was born and raised in Maryland,
in what was then Frederick County, north of the city

(03:12):
of Frederick. He went to law school. He read the
law at Saint John's College in Annapolis, and he had
a thriving practice in Washington, D C. He was known
for his eloquence in front of juries. He could talk
people into things. He was asked by the family of
doctor Beans to arrange his release. He was a member
of a prominent family in Washington. Francis Scott Key was

(03:33):
by the way, they called him Frank, so everybody called
him Frank, so we'll call him Frank for the rest
of the story. Frank Key was asked by the Beans
family to arrange the release. He got permission from President Madison,
and on September second, eighteen fourteen, he got on his
horse and he rode up to Baltimore. When he got
to Baltimore, he met up with a US Army lieutenant

(03:55):
colonel named John Skinner. Skinner's job was to arrange prison
releases and prisoner exchanges. So he met up with Skinner.
They got on a small American ship and they went
out and looked for the British fleet, and they found
them and they were welcomed on board the flagship of
the British Fleet. They made their case. They did it

(04:17):
over lunch or dinner. Wine was consumed and Frank used
his powers of persuasion. In the British agreed. One of
the things that helped his cause was that before they
left Washington. Where he left Washington, he picked up a
packet of letters, letters from British prisoners who had been
taken prisoner during the Battle of Bladensburg and the sacking

(04:38):
of Washington, d c. And they testified to the fact
that they were being treated very well by the Americans.
So that convinced the Brits and they said, we'll let
doctor Beans go. However, we have some work to do.
We are going to destroy the city of Baltimore. Now,
the British purposely did not burn any private homes in Washington.

(04:59):
They only went after public buildings, but not so in Baltimore.
Why did they want to destroy Baltimore. Well, you know,
we may forget, but as in the case of most
of our wars, before we got into the War of
eighteen twelve, it was a very controversial thing. Basically, it
was a North South split, with Southerners generally in favor
of going to war and Northerners against it. Francis Scott Key,

(05:20):
he was born in the North and grew up there,
but you really have to categorize him as a Southerner
an outlook. You know, Maryland was a state in which
slavery was legal. His family owned slaves. He grew up
on a plantation, and he did have a conservative Southern outlook.
But he was against the Americans going into the War
of eighteen twelve. But keys views changed on the war

(05:44):
when the Brits started invading up the Chesapeake Bay. He
actually joined a Georgetown militia unit. He went out to
the Chesapeake served as a quartermaster officer. He did not
serve very long, just about a week and he got
tired of the war, so he quit and he went
back to Georgetown. But he did support the war after that. Now,
why were the Brits so intent on destroying Baltimore. Well,

(06:08):
the country was divided, but not in Baltimore. The people
of Baltimore were very warhawkers in the War of eighteen twelve.
And you know, the US was not prepared militarily to
go into this war, especially with the navy. So the
call went out to private ship owners if they wanted
to use let their ships be used in the cause
against the Brits. They could, and Baltimore led the country

(06:31):
in lending private ships. They were called Baltimore Clippers. They
were very fast ships and they gave the Brits a
lot of trouble on the season. The Brits did not
like this. One British newspaper writer referred to Baltimore as
a nest of feeds. So Franciscott, Key, Doctor Beans, and

(06:52):
Skinner were taken back to their American ship. Sometimes you
hear that they were held prisoner during the Battle of Baltimore.
That was not quite true. They couldn't leave, but it
wasn't like they were below decks you know, on bread
and water. They were on the deck and they had
a bird's eye view of what became the largest sustained
bombing in military history. To that time. The Brits had
nineteen ships out there in Baltimore Harbor. Four of them

(07:15):
were bomb ships. These were squat ships with giant two
hundred and fifty pound cannons firing away. On that night
of December thirteen, fourteenth, some fifteen hundred bombs, mortars and
rockets were fired onto the city of Baltimore rockets. You know,
this was only the second time in the history of
war that rockets were used. They were called Congreve rockets.

(07:38):
They looked like what we know rockets looked like long
and cylindrical with fins on the bottom. But they didn't
have any guidance system. The rockets red glare, and bombs
were bursting in air, but they weren't aimed very well.
And there was very very well there were There were
no There was no loss of life in Baltimore or
at Fort McHenry, which fired back with plenty of cannon

(07:59):
on its own, although the people in Baltimore were terrified
because the houses were shaking. I mean, that's how terrifying.
The bombardment was. Plus there was a giant storm that night,
a thunderstorm, could have been a tornado, could have been
a hurricane. We don't really know. But it was an
amazing night of fifteen hundred bombs, rockets going off, thunder lightning.

(08:22):
And there also was a land component to the Battle
of Baltimore, which not to get into very much here,
but just to know that the bridge tried under the
cover of that bombing to attack and they got pretty
close to the city, but their leading general was shot
and killed off of his horse neck, sort of took
the steam out of the land component. Plus Baltimore was
fortified much better than Washington was. You know, the people

(08:45):
in Baltimore could see the fires of Washington burning on
August twenty six, so they were prepared. And we're listening
to Mark Leaps and tell an important chapter of American history,
the War of eighteen twelve, the Luctionary War was continuing.
This was chapter two and great storytelling by Mark Leapson

(09:06):
on the life of Francis Scott Key. When we come back,
more of Mark Leaps in his book, By the way,
What's so proudly we haild pick it up at Amazon
or the usual suspects. When we come back more of
this remarkable American story, the story of our national anthem.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our

(09:41):
American stories and the story of our national anthem, which
of course means telling the story of Francis Scott Key.
Let's return to author Mark Leapson. It lasted twenty five
straight hours. But then in the middle of the night,

(10:01):
at about three o'clock in the morning, everything stopped. And
Francis Scott, Key, Beans and Skinner, who were pacing the deck,
didn't know what happened. It was dark, it was foggy, rainy,
and all they knew that was the battle was over.

(10:21):
So they were pacing the deck and they waited until
the dawn's early light. And Key looked out of his
glass and he could see that Fort McHenry had a
flag flying over it. But you know, those flags were big,
they were made of wool. It had rained all night.
The flag was just hanging there. He couldn't tell what
it was. That flag was taken down, another flag was

(10:45):
put up. There was a little bit of a breeze,
and what did he see? He saw that our flag
was still there, and this inspired him to write the
words that would become the national anthem. You know, Francis
Scott Key, Frank Key was a poet. He wasn't a
good amateur poet. But his poetry was never meant to

(11:05):
be shown beyond family and France, which makes it even
more ironic that the words that he wrote that day.
You know, hundreds of millions of Americans know those words.
The other thing that people might not know about the
Battle of Baltimore is that it was a turning point
in the War of eighteen twelve. There were peace talks
going on, but after the British slunk out of Baltimore,

(11:28):
you know, he realized when he saw the stars and stripes,
our flag was still there. The British ships were gone.
We had one. The peace talks continued, the Treaty of
Ghent was signed in January of eighteen fifteen. But Frank
knew that Baltimore was saved. He had a letter in
his pocket. Now people often say that he wrote the

(11:49):
words on an envelope. Well, you know, technically there were
no envelopes. Back then, there were no envelopes. It wasn't technically,
but letters themselves were the envelope, so on the back
of the letter Frank scrawled a few verses. He and
Skinner and Beams were released. He went back to Baltimore
to a hotel and finished the four Stanzas in the hotel. Now,

(12:13):
what happened next there are a lot of question marks
about We don't know the details. One reason is because
even though Francis Scott Key lived for thirty more years,
he spoke in public about it just once. Did not
mention the flag, and all the letters that he wrote
that have been uncovered, well, he mentions it only once
in a letter to a friend in early October, and
then he writes about that night, but he doesn't again

(12:35):
mention writing the words that will become national anthem. He
talks about how brave the Americans were and how much
he didn't like the British officers. What we know about
what happened next was from a book that came out
in the eighteen fifties, and it was written by Key's
brother in law, Roger Brooke Tawney, who was married to

(12:58):
Frank Key's only sister. They were very close the two families,
and we know Roger Brooke Tawney as Chief Justice of
the United States. He claims that this is what Frank
told him. What happened. Now, we can corroborate a lot
of this with good primary source evidence, such as newspaper
stories and some journals and diaries. So here's what we

(13:18):
think happened after that. Somebody could have been Tawny, could
have been another one of Keyth's brother in law's took
what Frank wrote to a printer, because we do know
that the next day those verses appeared on a broadsheet
and they were plastered all over Baltimore. In fact, people
that defenders at Fort McHenry had them. The title was

(13:39):
not the star spangled banner. The title was Defense of
Fort McHenry, and it said on there to be sung
to the tune of an Acreon in Heaven. So what
is a Nacreon in Heaven? And Acreon in Heaven is
a song that was the theme song of a British
men's club called the Anacreontic Society. And these men would
meet taverns for dinner and for drinks. They would play

(14:04):
their song, they would drink, they would discuss issues of
the day. You often hear that the national anthem is
sung to the tune of a British drinking song. Not
quite true. It's not in the category of ninety nine
bottles of Beer on the Wall. It was a little
more high minded than that. But it was the theme
song of a kind of like a high Fluton men's
book club that met in taverns. So there's a little

(14:26):
bit of truth to that. Now, it was not uncommon
for the words of songs to be put to tunes
that people knew in the early nineteenth century, and that's
exactly what happened with this one. And there were the
people who know this stuff have counted something like seventy
five fifty to seventy five songs that were put to

(14:49):
an acrion in Heaven, including Adams and Liberty, which was
a very popular patriotic song. We do know that in
November of eighteen fourteen, the song was printed on sheet
music by Cars Music Store in Baltimore and the title
was changed to the Star Spangle Banner. And you know,
there's been controversy or just you know, historians have not

(15:12):
agreed until relatively recently whether or not Francis Scott Key
had in mind the fact that he was writing a
song that night until relatively recently, historians believed that he
wasn't because he wasn't a songwriter. He did write two hymns.
You know, he was a very religious man. He almost
went into the episcopal priesthood. There's a letter that he

(15:35):
wrote to the Bishop of Baltimore in which the bishop
had asked him to join the priesthood, and Frank said
he really wanted to, but you know, he had a
family and he needed to feed his family. He didn't
have that. He needed to make money as a lawyer.
He had. He wound up having eleven children. He was
very active in his church. He was a lay minister,
and he was very religious, as the words the spar

(15:56):
spangle banner indicate. So was he writing a song or not.
Historians have changed their mind in the last four or
five years, and the people who studied this now believe
that he did have the song in mind, even though
he wasn't a musical man. There's several reasons for this.
One is that he wound up writing these words in
rhyme and meter that fit exactly the song, and also

(16:20):
that a few years earlier there was a dinner given
in Washington, DC for Stephen Decatur, the hero of the
Tripolitan Wars, and a song was written for that and
played that night by Francis Scott Key. There's an article
in the newspaper in Georgetown that describes it, and it
includes the words, and in those words are the word

(16:42):
star Spangled banner. So putting it all together, storians do
believe that Frank had in mind that he was writing
a song, even though he was just a poet, an
amateur poet that night. The Star Spangled Banner did not
become the national anthem until officially until nineteen thirty one.
The United States did not have an national anthem until
nineteen thirty one, but it was one of the songs

(17:03):
that was played at patriotic gatherings such as Fourth of July.
But in a few years after he wrote it, all
throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century became
more and more popular, but still it was only one
of many songs that were played, including Yankee Doodle Dandy
and others, and it wasn't until nineteen thirty one a

(17:24):
Congress enacted a resolution that made the Star Spangle Banner
in the national anthem. It was controversial. They were hearings
on Capitol Hill. People argued against it, saying it was
hard to sing, which people still argued today. They're said
it was written by a brit The tune and others
set it glorified war. The proponents of it brought in
a soprano to sing it on Capitol Hill during the hearings,

(17:47):
and that sort of turned the tide, and the star
Spangle banner became the national anthem in nineteen thirty one,
even though it was written in eighteen fourteen. And one
last thing, talking about little bit of irony here, I
told you that Francis Scott Key was not a good poet,
and if you don't believe me, just read his poetry.

(18:07):
You can read it online. But he also was, you know, unmusical.
There was an article that I found when I was
doing research for my book What's Probably we Hailed the
biography of Francis Scott Key that I had. It was
an interview with a Philadelphia newspaperman with one of Francis
Scott Key's granddaughters. And you know, they always would ask,

(18:29):
you know, tell us about your grandfather, tell us about
your father, you know, did he play an instrument? Etc?
And the woman said no. As a matter of fact,
he was unmusical. And then she told an anecdote which
may or may not be true. She said that he
was in Alabama in eighteen thirty three. He was doing
some legal work for President Andrew Jackson, and he was

(18:52):
at some kind of gathering, and as would happen, the
band was there and they played the Star Spangled Banner,
and so Francis Scott Key was sitting with some people
the band was playing, and after it was over, the
granddaughter told this newspaper reporter, my grandfather turned to the
woman next to him and said, that was a beautiful air,

(19:12):
a beautiful tune. What's the name of it? So you
know it's probably apocryphal, but it does go to show
that that man who wrote that song, the man who
wrote the song that so many hundreds of millions Americans
know the first verse of, was a bad poet, and
he most likely was tone deaf. And beautiful work on

(19:40):
that piece by Robbie as always, and a special thanks
to Mark Leapson, author of What So Proudly We Held?
A tone deaf bad poet ends up writing our national anthem.
As always, our stories, our history stories are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. The story
of the tone deaf, bad poet who at the National Anthem,

(20:01):
Francis Scott Keys Story, Frank keys Story. Here on our
American Stories.