"The Flag, The Poet & The Song: The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner," by Irvin Molotsky. Dutton. 240 pages. $22.95.
The story surrounding the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is certainly a familiar one to Marylanders, since it happened in their own backyard. Or is it?
Irvin Molotsky, a New York Times reporter, has unmasked and exposed much of the historical nonsense that has surrounded the creation of the national anthem since its writing in 1814. And in doing so, he has written a thoroughly fascinating and meticulously researched account which examines the personalities and historical background behind "The Star-Spangled Banner."
It is replete with such delightful and little-known factoids as Francis Scott Key being a slave holder even though he described his country as "the land of the free" in "The Star-Spangled Banner."
And so was Mary Pickersgill, the seamstress who, in her East Pratt Street home, sewed the two flags that were commissioned by Maj. George Armistead and later flew over Fort McHenry during the British attack in 1814.
Molotsky reports that the Star-Spangled Banner did not have 13 stripes and 13 stars, but rather 15 stripes and 15 stars. It was only after 1818, when Congress passed a law, that the number of stripes was reduced to 13 with a star being added for each new state.
Because it was raining, forts did not fly their prized flags. Instead, a storm flag measuring 25 X 17 feet was flown rather than the 42-foot long-flag that Key saw waving the morning after the battle.
"If one element had been missing, we would not have 'The Star-Spangled Banner' today as our national anthem," Molotsky suggests.
It's such brilliant trivia as this that keeps the pages turning and the mind engaged.
He raises another point that the death of British Maj. Gen. Robert Ross, who led the invasion force at North Point and was a hero of the Napoleonic wars, so demoralized the troops that in effect it saved America.
After breakfast the morning of the invasion, Ross exclaimed, "I'll dine tonight in Baltimore -- or in hell." Shortly afterward, he was shot to death by two teen-age sharpshooters, Daniel Wells and Henry McComas, who were later killed.
The one name that seems to be missing here is that of Mrs. Reuben Ross Holloway, formidable Baltimore grande dame whose trademark cylindrical beaver shako hat was as famous as her effort to make Key's song the national anthem. She was behind the federal law that President Herbert Hoover eventually signed in 1931.
A known fanatic who jumped to her feet when she heard "The Star-Spangled Banner," she replied to a reporter who asked what she would do if she heard it being played while in a bathtub.
"Young man, I stand when I hear 'The Star-Spangled Banner,'" she replied imperiously.
One final bit of irony: Molotsky reports that Francis Scott Key never visited Fort McHenry and when he died in 1843, no flag was displayed at his funeral.
Frederick N. Rasmussen has, for the last eight years, been The Sun's chief obituary writer. Before that, he spent almost a generation on the newspaper's research library staff.
