And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

And this be our motto: And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

September 14, 1814, our flag signaled American victory over the British in the Battle of Baltimore.

Francis Scott Key, watching from a distance, was deeply moved by the courage of his fellow patriots in the struggle for liberty. In trust and thankfulness to God, he wrote the words to The Star-Spangled Banner.

The same tattered flag is now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. It has also been featured on the Jul/Aug, 2004, cover of American Spirit magazine.

Prepared By: The Star-Spangled Banner Project National Museum of American History, Behring Center In cooperation with the Public Inquiry Mail Service, Smithsonian Institution, November 2004 http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmah/starflag.htm

The Star Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!