Battle of Baltimore (1814): Fort McHenry and the Anthem

The Battle of Baltimore was fought on 12–14 September 1814, during the War of 1812, when a British army and fleet attacked the port city of Baltimore, Maryland, by land and sea. American militia slowed the British at North Point, strong earthworks halted their advance, and Fort McHenry withstood a 25-hour naval bombardment. The sight of the fort’s flag after the attack inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the US national anthem.

Background

In late August 1814 British troops had routed American militia at Bladensburg and burned Washington. Baltimore, about 60 kilometres to the north-east, was the next obvious target. With around 45,000 people it was the third-largest city in the country and a base for privateers that had seized hundreds of British merchant ships. British newspapers called it a “nest of pirates”.

The city used the weeks after Washington’s fall well. Major General Samuel Smith, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and a US senator, took command of the defences. Thousands of soldiers, militiamen and citizens, free and enslaved, dug a line of earthworks on Hampstead Hill east of the city. Ships were sunk across the harbour channel to block the approach to the inner port.

The water approach was guarded by Fort McHenry, a star-shaped brick fort on Whetstone Point commanded by Major George Armistead, with about 1,000 defenders. Armistead had earlier asked for a flag so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance. Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore flagmaker, sewed it with her daughter, her nieces and an African American indentured apprentice, Grace Wisher.

North Point

On 12 September about 4,500 British troops under Major General Robert Ross landed at North Point, at the tip of a peninsula some 16 kilometres from the city. Smith sent Brigadier General John Stricker with about 3,000 Maryland militia to delay them.

Ross rode forward with an advance party and was shot and mortally wounded, reportedly by an American rifleman; two young militiamen, Daniel Wells and Henry McComas, were long credited, though this is uncertain. Colonel Arthur Brooke took command. In the afternoon’s fighting the British pushed Stricker’s men back, but the militia withdrew in reasonable order after inflicting significant losses. Casualty figures vary: British losses are usually given as about 40–50 killed and 250–300 wounded, and American losses as about 25 killed, 140 wounded and 50 captured.

The bombardment of Fort McHenry

On 13 September Brooke’s troops approached Hampstead Hill and found it held by well over 10,000 men with around 100 guns. He needed the navy to bombard the earthworks and silence Fort McHenry before he could attack.

Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane’s ships could not come close because of the shallow water and sunken hulks. From about 6.30 in the morning of 13 September, five bomb vessels and the rocket ship HMS Erebus opened fire from roughly three kilometres away, out of range of most of the fort’s guns. Heavy mortar shells and Congreve rockets fell on the fort throughout the day and the following rainy night.

Around midnight a British boat force tried to slip past the fort up the Ferry Branch of the Patapsco to threaten the city’s flank. Gunners at Fort Covington and nearby batteries drove it back. By the morning of 14 September the fort had not been seriously damaged, and its garrison had lost only four men killed and 24 wounded. Brooke judged an assault on the earthworks too costly and withdrew; the fleet followed.

Francis Scott Key and the flag

Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old lawyer from Georgetown, had sailed out with John Stuart Skinner, an American agent for prisoner exchanges, to secure the release of Dr William Beanes, a physician arrested by the British. They won his freedom but were held behind the fleet until the attack was over.

Through the night Key watched the bombardment, unsure who had won. At dawn on 14 September the great garrison flag was raised over the fort. Moved by the sight, Key began writing verses on the back of a letter and finished them in Baltimore. The poem was printed as a handbill titled “Defence of Fort M’Henry” and set to the tune of a British song, To Anacreon in Heaven. Its images of “the rockets’ red glare” and bombs bursting in air describe what Key actually saw.

Consequences

The defence of Baltimore ended the British campaign in the Chesapeake. Coming at the same time as the American naval victory at Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain on 11 September, it strengthened the American position in the peace talks at Ghent, where a treaty restoring pre-war borders was signed on 24 December 1814.

For Americans, Baltimore helped erase the shame of Washington. The city built the Battle Monument to honour its dead, and 12 September, Defenders’ Day, is still marked in Maryland. Fort McHenry became a national park in 1925 and later a National Monument and Historic Shrine.

The anthem and the flag

Key’s song grew popular during the 19th century, especially during the Civil War, and was used by the army and navy. Congress made it the national anthem by an act signed on 3 March 1931. Only the first of its four verses is usually sung.

The flag remained with Armistead’s family until 1912, when it was given to the Smithsonian Institution. Souvenir cuttings had reduced it to about 30 by 34 feet. After a major conservation project, it is displayed in a special low-light gallery at the National Museum of American History in Washington.

Key people

Samuel Smith, a merchant, politician and militia general, organised the city’s defence and insisted on fortifying Hampstead Hill. Major George Armistead commanded Fort McHenry and became a national hero, though he died in 1818 aged 38. Brigadier General John Stricker led the delaying action at North Point. On the British side, Robert Ross was the army’s driving force until his death, and Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane decided that the fleet could not risk forcing the harbour.

Myths and facts

A popular belief holds that the famous large flag flew throughout the night of the bombardment. Accounts suggest that a smaller storm flag flew during the rain and that the great garrison flag was hoisted at dawn on 14 September, which is the moment Key described. It is also often said that Key wrote his poem aboard a British warship. In fact he was held on an American truce vessel behind the British fleet, under guard, when he watched the attack.

Timeline

• 1814, 24 August: British troops burn Washington after the Battle of Bladensburg.
• 1814, 11 September: American naval victory at Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain.
• 1814, 12 September: British land at North Point; Robert Ross is killed; Battle of North Point.
• 1814, 13 September: Bombardment of Fort McHenry begins at about 6.30 in the morning.
• 1814, 14 September: Bombardment ends; flag raised over the fort; British withdraw.
• 1814, 20 September: Key’s poem appears in the Baltimore Patriot newspaper after first circulating as a handbill.
• 1814, 24 December: Treaty of Ghent signed.
• 1931, 3 March: The Star-Spangled Banner becomes the official US national anthem.

Why it matters

The Battle of Baltimore stopped the most dangerous British offensive of the war and restored American confidence weeks after the fall of the capital. It is remembered above all for giving the United States its national anthem and one of its most treasured relics, the Star-Spangled Banner, a link between a local siege and national identity that lasts to this day. The war’s last major battle came at New Orleans in January 1815.