cceeding generations of Americans, the facsimile of the original
draft is here reproduced by the kindness of Mrs. Edward Shippen, a
granddaughter of that Judge Nicholson who took the first copy of the
poem to the "American" office, and had it set 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 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. As those on shore listened for the crash,
another sound came up from the deep. It was a wild bur