Spangled Banner - The Story Of Francis Scott Key - edizione con copertina flessibile

SPANGLED BANNER The Story of FRANCIS SCOTT KEY VICTOR WEYBRIGHT JARRAR fc RINBHART INC. ON MURRAY HILL NEW YORK TO HILDEGARDE FILLMORE PREFATORY NOTE THERE has never been a full-length biography o Francis Scott Key a discovery I made when I was thirteen years old. I was asked to accept on behalf of the little red Keysville School, in which I was a pupil, a spangled banner presented by a local patriotic society, and to my dismay, could find no book to draw upon for appropriate remarks. On the sum mer day when that flag ran up into the breeze as if wafted by oratory, and farmers and storekeepers, all dressed in their Sunday best, sang the anthem with sentimental tears in their eyes, there were aged men present who remembered Key and whose fathers had known him. Yet no one, with the exception of my grandfather and a few others, had gone to the trouble of preserving stories of him which survived in the neighbor hood. Not then indeed, not till six years ago did I decide to write this book. I was revisiting the redlands, strolling again through the orchard of Terra Rubra where I had rehearsed my flowery flag-acceptance speech, where Key himself doubt less had practiced youthful declamation, when I was struck with the advantages I possessed for research. Although I was not free to undertake die book till 1934, I immediately began to collect material and some of it I scarcely needed to collect. Some of it, of course, based on the tales of old men, is vague such as the persistent story that Key was born out-of-doors and not in the mansion. Yet it has a certain value. I have Vll viii PREFATORY NOTE striven to write a biography not too ponderously exhaustive a book containing all the salientdetails o Keys career, yet not overfreighted with dust from the archives. For that reason I have omitted many of his law cases and much of his corre spondence the best of his letters were those to his friend, John Randolph of Roanoke, which were published in Gar lands Life of Randolph in 1850. And, of his law cases, I have selected only those which indicate the direction of his practice. As the reader will discover, I have digressed to present as complete a picture as possible of the circumstances surround ing the writing of The Star-spangled Banner This story is of the Anthem, as well as of its author. The song made his name, if not his life, familiar to the generations which fol lowed him. VICTOR WEYBRJGHT. Rabbip Hill, 1934. ACKNOWLEDGMENT IT was my good fortune to meet with helpful assistance on nearly every hand while preparing this book, and I am sorry that I have not sufficient space to record the names of all to whom I am indebted. I wish to express my thanks to the staff of the Library of Congress, especially Mr. T. P. Martin of the Manuscript Divi sion, Mr. Volta Parma of the Rare Book Room and Messrs. David C Mearns and Verner W. Clapp of the Reference Room. Also to the staffs of the Peabody and Pratt Libraries in Balti more the staffs of the Maryland State and St. Johns College Libraries in Annapolis the staff of the New York Public Library, especially Mr. Wilmer Leech of - the Manuscript Division. Likewise, I wish to acknowledge my debt to Mr. Alan Dudley of the British Library of Information in New York to the custodians and trustees of the Taney House in Frederick and the Flag House in Baltimore to the Daughters of the American Revolution, and other organizations whichhave preserved his torical landmarks pertinent to my researches. I am grateful to the Honorable Henry L. Stimson for a letter concerning the Woodley mansion to Colonel Hampton Ander son for his courtesy in forwarding queries to the efficient archives office of the adjutant general of the United States army to Mrs. Gabrielle Eliot Forbush and Miss Mary Elizabeth Switzer in the office of the secretary of the treasury for f acilitat ix x ACKNOWLEDGMENT ing my exploration of the Jackson period to Mr...