" In
the second stanza, also, the dash after "'T is the star-spangled
banner" makes the change more abrupt, the line more spirited, and
the burst of feeling more intense, than the usual semicolon. The
other variations are unimportant. Some of them were made in
1840, when Key wrote out several copies for his friends.
The song, in its broad-sheet form, was soon sung in all the camps
around the city. When the Baltimore theater, closed during the
attack, was reopened, Mr. Hardinge, one of the actors, was
announced to sing "a new song by a gentleman of Maryland." The
same modest title of authorship prefaces the song in the
"American." From Baltimore the air was carried south, and was
played by one of the regimental bands at the battle of New
Orleans.
The tune of "Anacreon in Heaven" has been objected to as
"foreign"; but in truth it is an estray, and Key's and the
American people's by adoption. It is at least American enough
now to be known to every school-boy; to have preceded Burr to New
Orleans, and Fremont to the Pacific; to have been the inspiration
of the soldiers of three wars; and to have cheered the hearts of
American sailors in peril of enemies on the sea from Algiers to
Apia Harbor. If the cheering of the Calliope by the crew of the
Trenton binds closer together the citizens of the two English-
speaking nations, should its companion scene, no less thrilling,
be forgotten--when the Trenton bore down upon the stranded
Vandalia to her almost certain destruction, and the encouraging
cheer of the flag-ship was answered by a response, faint,
uncertain, and despairing?
Almost at once, as the last cheer died away:
Darkness hid the ships.
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