In 1814, Napoleon was defeated, and the British began a more aggressive strategy against the United States and sent in three large invasion armies. Great Britain marched up America's East coast, burning and looting the White House, the Capitol, treasury, War Department and other public buildings. President James Madison and the entire government fled the City of Washington. The British continued their march up the Potomac to the prosperous ports of Alexandria and Georgetown. Now, they would turn their attention north to Baltimore, where they hoped to strike a knockout blow against the demoralized Americans. Baltimore was not only a significant commercial and naval center, it was also had become the heart of privateering. American privateers (private armed vessels) were serious threat to the British navy and British merchant ships. These privateers would seize British merchant ships, and Baltimore alone, accounted for 30 percent of the British merchant ships seized during the war. If Great Britain could destroy Baltimore, it very likely could have won the war.
One of the most famous battles of Baltimore was the Defense of Fort McHenry. On September 13, the British fleet sent 19 ships to pound the fort with Congreve rockets and mortar shells. The fleet continued to bombard the fort for 27 hours. British riflemen made landfall and began firing on the fort, but were given orders to withdraw if there were 2000 or more men in the fort. Then, on the morning of September 14th, an over sized American flag made earlier by local flag maker Mary Pickersgill and her 13-year old daughter was raised over Fort McHenry (the flag is shown above as displayed at the Smithsonian in 1964). Fort McHenry only had about 1000 soldiers, but the British were not certain of this and had to retreat. Perhaps it was the oversized flag that dissuaded them.
Francis Scott Key captured the battle in a poem that will forever live with us. Francis Scott Key was an American lawyer and poet on a mercy mission to release a prisoner of the British. From a truce ship in the Patapsco River, Key watched as the British pounded Fort McHenry. When that over sized flag was raised and the smoke cleared, Francis Scott Key could see that the Fort had survived. Inspired by this, he began jotting down versus on the back of a letter he was carrying. These verses became a poem entitled "Defense of Fort McHenry, and later would become our National Anthem.
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
James Madison, yet unaware of the significance this battle would bring, shared the good news with congress in 1814, as he listed a number of victories for America that year.
"In the recent attempt of the enemy on the city of Baltimore, defended by militia and volunteers, aided by a small body of regulars and sea men, he was received with a spirit which produced a rapid retreat to his ships, whilst concurrent attack by a large fleet was successfully resisted by the steady and well-directed fire of the fort and batteries opposed to it."
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https://armyhistory.org/
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Star_Spangled_Banner_Flag_on_display_at_the_Smithsonian%27s_National_Museum_of_History_and_Technology%2C_around_1964.jpg
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watch’d were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream,
’Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d 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.
And this be our motto - "In God is our trust"!
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