The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 60: Something to Stand For

Episode Date: June 13, 2017

What do you get when you cross a Private, a General, a lawyer, a doctor and two teenagers?  Something worth standing for.

This is the way I heard it. As he rushed to prepare the fort for the looming attack, Private Williams calculated the odds of his survival. Not good. The 21-year-old recruit, along with hundreds of other American soldiers, would soon be bombarded by the British Navy. But, unlike his brothers in arms, Private Williams had no idea what his survival would actually mean,

because Private Williams was a runaway slave, who had escaped his master four months earlier, and been on the lamb ever since. Like every other slave in America, Private Williams knew the British Navy would guarantee his freedom in exchange for his service. But Private Williams wouldn't stand for that. He didn't want a king any more than he wanted a master.

He just wanted to be free. But since freedom was not an option, Private Williams joined the Maryland militia under an assumed name and prepared to defend the only home. home he knew. Meanwhile, eight miles away, two teenagers with rifles hid in the forest and marveled at the site before them. Daniel Wells and Henry McComis didn't understand why anyone, especially a British general who didn't want to be shot, would dress himself in a bright red coat and sit on a

white horse 100 yards in front of them. All they knew was the red coats had burned Washington, D.C. a few days earlier, and now they had come to burn Baltimore. Well, Daniel and Henry would not stand for that. So the boys took careful aim and fired. To this day, we don't know if it was Daniel or Henry whose shot found its mark. All we know is that the general's red coat was ruined, along with several vital organs. As his men scooped him off the ground and rushed him back to his warship, the British General thought about the American doctor still sequestered on board. He knew the doctor wouldn't stand by and watch him die even though they were enemies, because that same American doctor had already saved the lives of many other British soldiers wounded in battle.

I know. This is a very confusing story. Lots of important things happening all at the same time. In that same moment, for instance, as the British General, slowly bled to death, and as the runaway slave called Private Williams prepared for the looming bombardment of the fort eight miles away, the American doctor was commiserating with a lawyer about the circumstances that led to his sequester aboard the British generals' warship. Stay with me. This part's important. A week earlier, the American doctor had confronted a handful of British soldiers harassing women in the local village. The American doctor, a man who would not stand for bad manners had conducted a citizen's arrest and imprisoned the British

soldiers. The British general, however, he took exception to the American doctor's actions and therefore had him arrested and confined to this very ship. And so, the American doctor's lawyer was there to persuade the British general to pardon the American doctor. But the British general that the American doctor's lawyer wished to persuade was now mortally wounded by an American sharpshooter, and now his worsening condition cast much uncertainty upon the immediate future of all concerned. See what I mean? It's confusing, but important because while the American doctor and his lawyer were pondering their fate on the generals' warship, British command was postponing the bombardment upon the American Fort. This delay brought about by the shooting of the British General allowed private Williams

and the other defenders to better prepare the fort for the looming siege. Meanwhile, and this is also important, back in the forest eight miles from the fort, 18-year-old Daniel Wells and 19-year-old Henry McComis were dying in a withering volley of musket fire, even as the body of the general they killed was being preserved for a proper burial below the deck of his warship, a process that required the general's men to remove his clothes and push his naked corpse into a giant barrel of Jamaican rum. See what I mean? Confusing. But important. Because when the British bombardment finally got underway, 24 hours behind schedule, the American fort was fully prepared. Thus, the American Doctor and his lawyer found themselves with a front row seat to an historic battle,

right there on the deck of the deceased British generals' warship, now anchored just outside Baltimore. For the American Doctor's lawyer, the bombardment was hard to watch. Baltimore was his home, and all through the rainy night, he peered anxiously into the gloom, looking for proof that the fort guarding his city had not fallen. For the American doctor, the torment was even worse because there was nothing he could do to help the wounded. He could only pray and imagine what fresh hell was unfolding beyond those ramparts. Private Williams, on the other hand, didn't have to imagine anything. He was there to experience the reality of a 25-hour shelling up close and personal.

and when a cannonball took his leg off above the knee, leaving him flat on his back in the dawn's early light, the runaway slave looked up from a pool of his own blood and saw the broad stripes and bright stars of a flag that was still there, flying defiantly right over his head. No one knows what he was thinking as he stared up at that flag, but two miles away, the American doctor's lawyer was staring in wonder at that very same flag, and his thoughts scribbled down on the back of an envelope, are now a matter of public record. It must have been a hell of a sight.

A lawyer scribbling, a doctor praying, bombs bursting in air as a British general marinated in a barrel of rum, and a runaway slave died a free man underneath a star-spangled banner at a fort. called McKenry. Anyone who stayed awake through eighth grade social studies knows that our national anthem was written by a stubborn lawyer who would not stand for injustice. But Francis Scott Key would have never been on General Ross's worship if not for William Beans, a stubborn doctor who wouldn't stand for bad manners. And of course, the battle itself would have likely gone in a very different direction, if not for two stubborn teenagers from Baltimore

who simply would not stand for redcoats burning their city. And then there's the most unlikely patriot of all. Private William Williams, the runaway slave, who would not stand for living in bondage, even if it meant defending the country that would not stand for his independence. War is often confusing, and so is history, but our national anthem is,

It's a simple tribute to those who refuse to stand for kings or masters. That's why we stand when we hear it today, not because our country's perfect. We stand simply to honor those Americans who have died trying to make our country better. We stand for Daniel Wells and Henry Macomis. We stand for private William Williams. in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We stand for the star-spangled banner because standing is the very least we can do.

Anyway, that's the way I heard it.