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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 boasting met with an incredulous denial, which soon
led to their summary arrest as chicken-stealers and public
enemies. Confined in the insecure Marlborough jail, one of them
speedily escaped, and reached a scouting-party of British
cavalry, which, by order of Cockburn, returned to Upper
Marlborough, roused Dr. Beanes out of his bed at midnight, and
conveyed him to the British ships at Benedict's.
As soon as Key heard of the arrest of Dr. Beanes, one of his most
intimate friends, he hurried, under the protection of a flag of
truce, to the British fleet at the mouth of the Patuxent to
arrange for his release. John S. Skinner of Baltimore, then
commissioner for exchange of prisoners, accompanied him with his
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