06.30.07

Supported By A Cross

Posted in Uncategorized at 2:33 pm by Danny Sims

Like so many others, our family has visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History and seen The Star Spangled Banner. This is the very flag that flew over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry in 1814 when Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became our national anthem.

The flag is huge. It originally measured 42 by 30 feet. It was its tremendous size that allowed Key to see it ten miles out to sea on a boat. It was the end of a twenty-five hour British bombardment of Fort McHenry that the rocket’s red glare enabled Key to write, "…that our flag was still there."

Here’s a question: How can a flag that large be flown on a pole?

You can visit Fort McHenry today. It’s on Baltimore’s inner harbor. And there, in one of the barracks, are two oak timbers, 8 foot by 8 foot, joined as a cross.

The cross-shaped support was found buried under nine feet of dirt and debris near the entrance to Fort McHenry in 1958. It helped locate the original site from which the star spangled banner flew as well as answer the mystery of how such a large flag could fly in stormy weather without snapping the pole.

The symbol of our national freedom was supported by a cross.

Most are unaware that The Star Spangled Banner has four verses. What we sing and hear at ballgames is only the first. The last stanza ought to be remembered, like the cross that supports us.

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!

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