Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner?
Answer
Francis Scott Key
Explanation
Francis Scott Key wrote the lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner. Born on August 1, 1779 at Terra Rubra, his family's plantation in Frederick County, Maryland, Key was a graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis and a successful Washington-area lawyer who argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and served as U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia from 1833 to 1841.
During the War of 1812, on September 13 and 14, 1814, Key was sent to the British fleet in the Chesapeake Bay under a flag of truce to negotiate the release of Dr. William Beanes, a friend and Maryland physician held prisoner by the British. The British agreed to release Beanes but detained Key and Colonel John Skinner aboard a British vessel, the truce ship HMS Tonnant or HMS Surprise, until after the planned attack on Baltimore. From the deck of his ship, Key watched the 25-hour British bombardment of Fort McHenry, which protected Baltimore Harbor, on the night of September 13 to 14, 1814.
At dawn on September 14, after the bombardment ended, Key saw the enormous 30-by-42-foot garrison flag (sewn by Mary Pickersgill and her assistants in Baltimore the previous year) still flying over the fort, signaling that the American defenders had withstood the attack. He began drafting a poem on the back of a letter while still aboard the ship, finished it in his Baltimore hotel that evening, and titled it Defence of Fort M'Henry. The poem was printed as a handbill on September 17, 1814 and published in the Baltimore Patriot newspaper on September 20, 1814 with a note suggesting it be sung to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven, an English drinking song already familiar in the United States.
The song became popular and was adopted by the Army and Navy in 1889 and 1916, and Congress made it the official national anthem on March 3, 1931. Key continued his legal career, served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and worked closely with President Andrew Jackson. He was also a slaveholder and a vocal supporter of the American Colonization Society's project to resettle freed African Americans in Liberia. He died of pleurisy in Baltimore on January 11, 1843 and is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland.
Why this matters for your test
Knowing that Francis Scott Key wrote the anthem in a specific historical moment, watching a real battle, ties the song to the War of 1812 and to the resilience of the flag. It helps applicants understand the anthem as a description of an actual event rather than abstract patriotic sentiment.
Source: USCIS 128 Civics Questions (2025)
