Francis Scott Key

Francis Scott Key was born in 1779 in Frederick County, Maryland, into a prosperous gentry family with deep roots in Tidewater society. He studied law, established a successful practice in Georgetown, and became a figure of some note in Washington legal circles, arguing cases before the Supreme Court and cultivating a reputation as a thoughtful, devout man of Episcopalian faith. Though he had no significant military experience, the War of 1812 drew him into proximity with its defining moment in a way that neither he nor anyone else could have anticipated.

In September 1814, Key traveled to the British fleet anchored in the Chesapeake Bay to negotiate the release of an American civilian prisoner, Dr. William Beanes, who had been detained after the burning of Washington. He succeeded in securing Beanes's release, but the British, having revealed their plans for the imminent assault on Baltimore, declined to allow Key and his companions to return to shore until the operation was concluded. Key was thus compelled to watch from a truce vessel in the Patapsco River as the British fleet bombarded Fort McHenry through the night of September 13 and into the morning of September 14, 1814, with the fate of Baltimore — and potentially the entire American war effort — hanging on whether the fort could withstand the attack. When dawn revealed the American flag still flying above the battered fortification, Key was moved to compose the poem he titled Defence of Fort McHenry on the back of a letter he had in his pocket.

The poem was published almost immediately, set to the tune of a popular British drinking song, and spread rapidly through American newspapers. It was performed publicly, celebrated as a patriotic anthem, and gradually became associated with the nation's most solemn ceremonies over the following decades. Congress officially designated it the national anthem in 1931. Key himself continued practicing law, served briefly as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, and died in 1843, his place in American memory secured entirely by those verses written on a single remarkable night in the Chesapeake.