Star-Spangled Banner 2014 Forever Stamps — 200th Anniversary, First-Class Postage

Issue facts

Issue Date: January 28, 2014
City: Independence, MO
Printed by: CCL Label Inc.
Printing Method: Photogravure

The photograph

Gary Clark shot the flag flying over Fort McHenry during fireworks at the annual Defenders' Day celebration. Coordinating the two in a stiff wind was the hard part — the flag and the burst had to land in the same frame at the same instant.

The flag itself

During the War of 1812, officials commissioned Mary Pickersgill to make a flag large enough that the British could see it from a distance, to fly over Baltimore's Fort McHenry — a certain target.

She produced "one American ensign, 30×42 feet, first quality bunting," plus a smaller storm flag for bad weather. It took over 400 yards of wool bunting, and the assembly was done on the floor of a nearby brewery after hours because nowhere else was large enough.

September 13, 1814

The British bombardment ran 25 hours. Francis Scott Key watched from a ship in Chesapeake Bay, and given the heavy rain, what he saw at "twilight's last gleaming" was probably the smaller storm flag. Toward morning the oversized ensign went up over the fort, and Key started writing.

It came closer to ending differently than most people realize. Only the fort's commander knew that the gunpowder magazine — which took some 2,000 shells over the course of the night — was not bombproof. One direct hit would have destroyed Fort McHenry outright.

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