up in broad-sheet form by Samuel Sands, a printer's apprentice of
twelve. He was alone in the office, all the men having gone to
the defense of the city. It is written in Key's hand. The
changes made in drafting the copy will be seen at once, the
principal one being that Key started to write "They have washed
out in blood their foul footsteps' pollution," and changed it for
"Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution." 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