This is what remains of the garrison flag that flew over Fort McHenry on the morning of September 14, 1814, following the British bombardment. It is now part of the collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Roughly 9 feet of the flag had been cut off in snippets as souvenirs given to veterans and VIPs by the flag's first owner before it was donated to the museum. ()

There’s a classic joke from World War II in which a soldier returning from night patrol is stopped by a guard calling out for identification.

“I’m an American,” the soldier says.

“Prove it,” the guard says. “Recite the first verse of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

“I can’t remember it.”

“Pass through. You’re an American.”

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It was 200 years ago this fall that Francis Scott Key, a lawyer, author and amateur poet, penned the at-times enigmatic words to the song that became America’s national anthem on March 3, 1931, through an act of Congress.

In September 1814, Key was aboard the British HMS Tonnant in Baltimore harbor as an envoy negotiating the release of William Beanes, a frail, aging doctor taken captive during the War of 1812 against Great Britain. The British agreed to release him, but held the doctor, Key and another emissary on ship until after the bombardment of Fort McHenry on the nights of Sept. 13 and 14.

From that vantage point, Key famously witnessed the red glare of rockets, bursting bombs and a flag still fluttering in the morning.

Less known about Key and his song are these facts, gleaned from a biography of the songwriter, “Paradoxes of Fame,” by Sam Meyer.

Some historians believe that Key’s inspiration for the opening lines of “The Star Spangled Banner” was Beanes’ repeated questioning of his two rescuers as to whether the flag was still flying. Beanes had been roused abruptly from bed during the bombing and had no time to put on his glasses.

Key’s poem became an instant hit when it was printed as a handbill on Sept. 17, 1814, and published several days later in two Baltimore newspapers, but it was not attributed to him by name. By the following month, the poem had been set to music, appropriating its tune from an English tavern song called “Anacreon in Heaven.”

The poem’s original title was dull but literal: “Defence of Fort McHenry.” Key apparently had no part in the renaming, which first appeared in an advertisement in the Baltimore American newspaper announcing on Oct. 18, 1814, that “The Star Spangled Banner” would be sung at a theater the following day.

Americans rarely hear more than the song’s first verse, but there are four. The third verse, however, has left some listeners through the years squeamish over its not-so-genteel sentiment toward the British enemy:

“And where are the ones 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.”

Only once in his life was Key known to have publicly referred to the poem — 20 years after authoring it. During a dinner on Aug. 6, 1834, celebrating the accomplishments of Key’s brother-in-law in the administration of President Andrew Jackson, the assemblage toasted Key. “The honor is due, not to me who made the song,” Key said in response, “but to the heroism of these who made me make it.”

Key owned a large number of slaves on his family’s farm in Maryland, and he contended that the Bible neither sanctioned nor prohibited slavery. He was a founding member of the American Colonization Society, whose goal was to help freed slaves establish a colony in Africa or “such other places as Congress shall deem more expedient.”

By most accounts, Key was a flop as a soldier. He served two stints with the militia during the War of 1812, which at the time was called the Second War of Independence. In a later official inquiry of how the British in August 1814 were able to occupy the U.S. capital and set fire to the Capitol, president’s mansion, War Office and other buildings, Key was among those blamed for “poor disposition of forces.” Key himself wrote of being thrown over the head of his horse into a river while in uniform.

The military was an early adopter of the song. In 1889 the secretary of the Navy ordered that the song be played at morning and evening colors. In 1903 Army and Navy servicemembers were ordered to stand at attention whenever and wherever the song was played. Just prior to World War I, President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order making the song the national anthem, a directive that ended with his presidency.

Between 1910 and 1929, 15 congressmen and two senators submitted numerous bills to make the song America’s national anthem, and all failed. Other contenders were “Hail, Columbia,” “America,” “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “America the Beautiful.”

Giacomo Puccini used the song’s melody in the opera Madame Butterfly as the musical motif for the character B.F. Pinkerton, a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.

Key was nominated for induction into the United States Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1940, 1945, and 1965 but failed each time to receive enough votes. He was, however, inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Key was the namesake of his distant cousin, novelist Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.

Performers routinely stumble on the notoriously lofty lyrics in “The Star Spangled Banner.” Just prior to the world heavyweight fight on May 25, 1965, in Lewiston, Maine, between Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammad Ali), Robert Goulet began singing the national anthem, then abruptly stopped to check his crib sheet for the lyrics.

The USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN-657), a Benjamin Franklin-class ballistic missile submarine, was commissioned by the Navy in 1966, decommissioned in 1993 and scrapped in 1995.

“The Star Spangled Banner” is the world’s only national anthem devoted to its country’s flag.

olson.wyatt@stripes.com