The Star-Spangled Banner | Page 5

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THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER
by John A. Carpenter

On August 18, 1814, Admiral Cockburn, having returned with his fleet
from the West Indies, sent to Secretary Monroe at Washington, the
following threat:
SIR: Having been called upon by the Governor-General of the Canadas
to aid him in carrying into effect measures of retaliation against the
inhabitants of United States for the wanton destruction committed by
their army in Upper Canada, it has become imperiously my duty, in
conformity with the Governor-General's application, to issue to the
naval forces under my command an order to destroy and lay waste such
towns and districts upon the coast as may be found assailable.
His fleet was then in the Patuxent River, emptying into the Chesapeake
Bay. The towns immediately "assailable," therefore, were Baltimore,
Washington, and Annapolis.
Landing at Benedict's, on the Patuxent, the land forces, enervated by a
long sea-voyage, marched the first day to Nottingham, the second to
Upper Marlborough. At the latter place, a town of some importance,
certain British officers were entertained by Dr. Beanes, the principal
physician of that neighborhood; and a man well-known throughout
southern Maryland. His character as a host was forced upon him, but
his services as a physician were freely given, and formed afterward the
main plea for his lenient treatment while a prisoner.
As the British army reached Upper Marlborough, General Winder was
concentrating his troops at Bladensburg. The duty of assigning the
regiments to their several positions as they arrived on the field was
performed by Francis Scott Key, a young aide-de-camp to General
Smith. Key was a practising lawyer in Washington who had a liking for

the military profession. He was on duty during the hot and dusty days
which ended in the defeat of the American army. Subsequently, he
could have read a newspaper at his residence in Georgetown by the
light of the burning public buildings at Washington, and he passed with
indignant heart the ruins left by the retreating army when, after a night
of frightful storm, they silently departed in a disorderly forced march of
thirty-five miles, to Upper Marlborough. He then knew what any other
city might expect upon which the "foul footsteps' pollution" of the
British might come.
The sorry appearance of the British army gave the Marlborough people
the idea that it had been defeated, and on the afternoon of the following
day Dr. Beanes and his friends celebrated a supposed victory. Had they
stayed in the noble old mansion that the worthy but irascible doctor
inhabited near Marlborough, "The Star-Spangled Banner" would never
have been written. Tempted by the balminess of a warm September
afternoon, however, the party adjoined to a spring near the house,
where, the negro servant having carried out the proper utensils, the cool
water was tempered with those ingredients which mingle their
congenial essences to make up that still seductive drink, a Maryland
punch. It warms the heart, but if used too freely it makes a man
hot-tempered, disputatious, and belligerent. Amid the patriotic jollity,
therefore, when three British soldiers, belated, dusty, and thirsty, came
to the spring on their way to the retreating army, their