Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine
Since I am leaving the Washington, DC area in less than two months, I’ve been trying to visit all the monuments/battlefields/historical sites that I never managed to see during my decade on the east coast. So, a few weeks ago I went to Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Fort McHenry is most well-known for its role in the War of 1812, when, on September 13, 1814, British ships bombarded the fort for 25 hours in an attempt to invade Baltimore. The British, however, failed to subdue the fort and were forced to withdraw. An American lawyer and amateur poet by the name of Francis Scott Key had witnessed the battle from a British ship, which he was visiting in order to negotiate the release of a captured American prisoner. He was so moved by the sight of the American flag flying above Fort McHenry on the morning of September 14 that he composed the poem “The Defence of Fort McHenry”. This poem would later be renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner” and eventually became America’s national anthem in 1931.
The lyrics:
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?
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 washed out their foul footsteps’ 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 loved 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 preserved 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!
These aren’t the original cannons – they are Civil War era.
Re-enactor
More photos here.
