A Little Known Verse

As I was catching up on some reading today I was at Jules Crittenden's Blog. He had a very interesting post that I thought I would share.

Hitchens On Jefferson's War

Hitchen's has a balanced and informative must read via City Journal, one with quite a bit of interesting research. I didn't realize one of the early verses of the Star Spangled Banner actually referred to Islam due to the Barbary Coast. h/t C

Jefferson versus the Muslim Pirates addresses the role of Barbary Coast piracy in the early formulation of the Republic and also suggests that it sowed the seeds of our own Civil War because of the way it influenced the early slavery debate in America.

Francis Scott Key composed a patriotic song to mark the occasion. As I learned from Joshua London’s excellent book, the original verses ran (in part):

In conflict resistless each toil they endur’d,
Till their foes shrunk dismay’d from the war’s desolation:
And pale beamed the Crescent, its splendor obscur’d
By the light of the star-bangled flag of our nation.
Where each flaming star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turban’d head bowed to the terrible glare.
Then mixt with the olive the laurel shall wave
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.