Table of Contents
Why did the British attack Fort McHenry?
In context. Initially, the British strategy during the War of 1812 had been defensive. The British were more concerned with defeating Napoleon in Europe than fighting a minor war with the United States. The imposing Fort McHenry, at the mouth of the inner harbor, provided the linchpin for the American defenses.
Did the British burn the American flag?
Fires, Flight, Flag: The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner. When British troops burned the U.S. Capitol and White House during the War of 1812, three lesser-known elements of American history came together. A president fleeing Washington, D.C. A lost silver plate under the U.S. Capitol cornerstone.
What was under attack when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner?
The anthem’s history began the morning of September 14, 1814, when an attorney and amateur poet named Francis Scott Key watched U.S. soldiers—who were under bombardment from British naval forces during the War of 1812—raise a large American flag over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.
What happened to the flag at Fort McHenry?
Today it is permanently housed in the National Museum of American History, one of the Smithsonian Institution museums on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The flag was given to the museum in 1912, and has undergone multiple restoration efforts after being originally restored by Amelia Fowler in 1914.
Why did British burn the White House?
On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United States and England, British troops enter Washington, D.C. and burn the White House in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1813.
Why was Francis Scott Key detained by the British during the attack?
Key was in British custody due to an incident that had occurred two weeks earlier, when a 65-year-old physician, William Beanes, confronted some British soldiers who had tried to plunder his Upper Marlboro, Maryland, home. One of the soldiers complained to his officers, who had the doctor placed under arrest.
Why did Mary Pickersgill make a flag for Fort McHenry?
The daughter of another noted flag maker, Rebecca Young, Pickersgill learned her craft from her mother, and, in 1813, was commissioned by Major George Armistead to make a flag for Baltimore’s Fort McHenry that was so large that the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a great distance.