WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE ATTACKED.—A fleet entered Chesapeake Bay and landed an army which marched to Washington, burned the Capitol, the President's house, the Treasury Building, and other public buildings, [18] and with the aid of the fleet made a vain attack on Baltimore.
It was during the bombardment of a fort near Baltimore that Francis Scott
Key, temporarily a prisoner with the British, wrote The Star-spangled
Banner.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE CAPITOL AFTER THE FIRE.]
FIGHTING ALONG THE GULF COAST.—After the repulse at Baltimore the British army was carried to the island of Jamaica to join a great expedition fitting out for an attack on New Orleans. It was November before the fleet bearing the army set sail, and December when the troops landed on the southeast coast of Louisiana and started for the Mississippi. On the banks of that river, a few miles below New Orleans, they met our forces under General Andrew Jackson drawn up behind a line of rude intrenchments, attacked them on the 8th of January, 1815, and were badly beaten.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. From an old print.]
THE SEA FIGHTS.—The victories won by the army were indeed important, but those by the navy were more glorious still. In years before the war British captains laughed at our little navy and called our ships "fir- built things with a bit of striped bunting at their mastheads." These fir- built things now inflicted on the British navy a series of defeats such as it had never before suffered from any nation.
[Illustration: NAVAL CANNON OF 1812.]
Before the end of 1812 the frigate Constitution, "Old Ironsides" as she is still popularly called, [19] beat the Guerrière (gar-e-ar') so badly that she could not be brought to port; the little sloop Wasp almost shot to pieces the British sloop Frolic; [20] the frigate United States brought the Macedonian in triumph to Newport (R.I.); [21] and the Constitution made a wreck of the Java.
[Illustration: CUTLASS.]
In 1813 the Hornet, Commander James Lawrence, so riddled the British sloop Peacock that after surrendering she went down carrying with her nine of her own crew and three of the Hornet's. The brig Enterprise, William Burrows in command, fought the British brig Boxer, Captain Blythe, off Portland harbor, Maine. Both commanders were killed, but the Boxer was taken and carried into Portland, where Burrows and Blythe, wrapped in the flags they had so well defended, were buried in the Eastern Cemetery which overlooks the bay.