You may know the words, O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave or the land of the free

and the home of the brave?

These lines written by Francis Scott Key were not penned in the aftermath of the U.S.

revolution and all its elation of defeating the world's greatest nation.

These lines were not penned in the euphoria of the late 1940s and early 50s and Americans

celebrating that we saved the world from the Axis powers.

Francis Scott Key's poem, that's now the national anthem, hails from not one of America's

high times, but one of its darkest.

The star-spangled banner that he saw is not a symbol of American dominance and strut,

but it is of mere survival in a dark moment.

As many may know, it was written in the midst of a war that Americans don't talk about much.

Mr. Madison's War, the War of 1812, the President in Congress responded to British mistreatment

of American ships and sailors on the high seas with the only logical thing, land grab

in Canada.

Take over Canada.

It wasn't pretty, and it was humiliating, devastating, and in August of 1814, the British

sacked and burned the nation's new capital, called Washington City, and burned the White

House in Congress, the US Capitol.

But at that point, Washington had only been the capital for 14 years, relatively minor

loss.

The prize for the British would be Baltimore, 40 miles away, one of the main cities.

A couple weeks later, September 12th to 1814, was the Battle of Baltimore.

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