Key was inspired by the large U. The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society , a social club in London. This setting, renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner", soon became a popular patriotic song. With a range of 19 semitones, it is known for being very difficult to sing, in part because the melody sung today is the soprano part.
Although the poem has four stanzas , only the first is commonly sung today with the second to fourth being rarely sung. On March 3, , the U. Congress passed a joint resolution 46 Stat. The resolution is now codified at 36 U. A friend of Key's, Beanes was accused of aiding the detention of several British Army stragglers who were ransacking local homesteads in search of food.
On September 2, , Key wrote a letter from his home in Georgetown to his mother, ending with:. I am going in the morning to Baltimore to proceed in a flag-vessel to Genl Ross. I hope to return in about 8 or 10 days, though [it] is uncertain, as I do not know where to find the fleet. He located Col. John Stuart Skinner, an American agent for prisoners of war, who leased a foot The ship had a nine-man crew and was captained by a co-owner, John Ferguson.
They sailed from Baltimore the next day September 5 out through the Patapsco River and then south, down the Chesapeake Bay. On September 7, around noon, they spotted Tonnant near the mouth of the Potomac.
The flagship then anchored and brought Key and Skinner aboard. Ross initially refused to release Beanes, but relented after reading letters, brought by Key, written by wounded British prisoners of war praising American doctors for their kind treatment.
