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Chapter VI - By the Rockets Red Glare
By the Rockets Red Glare
Though Washington was practically razed. the British failed to capture Baltimore. Throughout the long night of September 13, 1814, British naval forces shelled Fort McHenry to no avail. Francis Scott Key, a Washington attorney, watched the relentless siege of Baltimore from a ship in the harbor. The sight of the American flag still proudly flying at dawn inspired him to write "The Star Spangled Banner." That flag had been placed at Fort McHenry a year before so that the British would see a "flag so large" that they would have no difficulty recognizing it from a great distance. This banner, some forty-two by thirty feet, had stars two feet across and alternating red and white stripes two feet in width. Perhaps for Key the flag symbolized all American victories in both the Northeast and the South. Little did the British know that they were also courting disaster with their plan to capture New Orleans.
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