America Mourns
September 11, 2001
In memory of the innocent lives that were abruptly snatched from our lands. In dedication to the thousands that work unselfishly and untiringly thru the weathering storms in search of our missing and buried. And to a nation that remains �One Nation Under God�, we mourn.
Francis Scott Key
The Star Spangled Banner
At 7 a.m. on the morning of September 13, 1814, the British bombardment began, and our flag was ready to meet the enemy. This continued for 25 hours. The British fired the rockets that arced red flame across the sky. . That evening the firing stopped, but at about 1 a.m. on the 14th, the British fleet roared to life, lighting the sky once again.
Francis Scott Key and others watched the battle with apprehension. They knew that as long as the shelling continued, Fort McHenry had not surrendered. But, before daylight a sudden and mysterious silence occurred. What Key and the others did not know was that the British's land attack on Baltimore as well as the naval attack, had been abandoned.
Waiting in the predawn darkness, Key waited for the sight that would end his anxiety; the joyous sight of Gen. Armisteads great flag blowing in the breeze. When at last daylight came, the Flag Was Still There!
On This very morning of September 14, 1814, Key began to write on the back of a letter he had in his pocket. Sailing back to Baltimore he composed more lines and in his lodgings at the Indian Queen Hotel he finished the poem. It was printed in a newspaper, the Baltimore Patriot, on September 20th,1814. In October a Baltimore actor sang Key's song in a public performance and called it "The Star-Spangled Banner".
The University of Oklahoma Law Center
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, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, 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, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band 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 wiped out their foul footstep's 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 the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Our Flag is Still There
Eleanor L. Wyatt