The Star-Spangled Banner flag flown over Fort McHenry had 15 stars.
The enormous flag also had 15 horizontal stripes. Congress authorized the design in the Flag Act of 1794 after Vermont and Kentucky joined the Union, adding two stars and two stripes to the earlier thirteen-star, thirteen-stripe pattern.
Mary Pickersgill and assistants stitched the flag in Baltimore in 1813 and 1814. It flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in September 1814, when British forces attacked the fort during the War of 1812. Francis Scott Key saw the flag and wrote the poem that became the national anthem.
The flag’s fifteen-star design is different from today’s flag, which has 50 stars and 13 stripes. It is also distinct from the first official United States flag, which had 13 stars. Although the flag is now smaller because pieces were removed as souvenirs and because of deterioration, its original design had fifteen stars arranged in rows.