If the importance of General Ross's exploit was overrated by the Americans, who naturally felt chagrined that so small an invading force should have destroyed their capital and momentarily dispersed their Government, it was enormously exaggerated by the English journals. By confounding the capital of the country with its metropolis, they led their readers to believe that the chief city of the United States had been laid in ashes; whereas Washington was but a straggling place of eight thousand inhabitants, which had been made the seat of the Federal Government but a dozen years before. Taking it for granted that what would have befallen England or France with London or Paris in the possession of a foreign enemy, had actually befallen the United States, the London Times proceeded to say: "The ill-organized association is on the eve of dissolution, and the world is speedily to be delivered of the mischievous example of the existence of a government founded on democratic rebellion." In another issue, October 9th, 1814, it said: "Next to the annihilation of the late military despotism in Europe, the subversion of that system of fraud and malignity which constitutes the whole policy of the Jeffersonian school, was an event to be devoutly wished by every man in either hemisphere who regards rational liberty or the honorable intercourse of nations. It was an event to which we should have bent, and yet must bend, all our energies. The American Government must be displaced, or it will sooner or later plant its poisoned dagger in the heart of the parent state." In a speech in Parliament, Sir Gilbert Heathcote naively said, "it appeared to him that we feared the rising power of America, and wished to curtail it." Which, as the Scottish captain in the story said, was "a verra just remark."
In the night of August 30th, Sir Peter Parker, commander of the frigate Menelaus, who had been blockading Baltimore with that and another vessel, landed on the Eastern Shore, with two hundred and thirty men, intending to surprise and capture a small body of Maryland volunteers at Moorfields. But the Maryland men were ready for them, and after a sharp fight of about an hour the British retreated, leaving sixteen of their men killed or wounded on the field, and bearing away seventeen others, among whom was Sir Peter, who died almost as soon as he reached his ship. Three of the Americans were wounded.
Rightly conjecturing that Baltimore would be the next place at which the enemy would strike, the people of that city had made haste to provide for its defence. The fortifications were extended, and manned by about five thousand men. On the 11th of September, forty British war-vessels appeared at the mouth of the Patapsco, and that night eight thousand men, under General Ross, were landed at North Point, a dozen miles below the city. No resistance was offered till they had marched four miles up the little peninsula, when they were met by General John Strivker with three thousand two hundred men, including an artillery company with six small guns, and a detachment of cavalry.
The cavalry and a hundred and fifty riflemen were thrown forward to feel the enemy. General Ross, who had declared that he "did n't care if it rained militia," and had expressed his intention of making winter quarters in Baltimore, put himself at the head of his advance guard, and promptly attacked. But as he rode along the crest of a little knoll, he was shot in the side by an American rifleman, and before his aides could bear him back to the boats, he expired.
Notwithstanding the loss of their leader, the British forces rushed steadily forward, drove the American skirmishers back upon the main line, and brought on a general engagement. The battle lasted two or three hours with varying fortune, till a heavy attack on the American left turned it, when the whole body retreated to an intrenched position near the city.
The British followed the next day, but found their enemy strongly placed and reenforced, whereupon they took advantage of a dark night and retraced their steps. They had lost two hundred and ninety men, killed or wounded, and had inflicted upon the Americans a loss of two hundred and thirteen, including fifty prisoners. This action is known as the battle of North Point, but has sometimes been called the battle of Long-log Lane.
While Ross's men were approaching Baltimore by land, sixteen vessels of the British fleet moved up the bay, and opened fire upon its immediate defences. The shallowness of the water prevented them from getting near enough to bombard the town itself; but for twenty-four hours they poured an almost uninterrupted shower of rockets and shells into Fort McHenry, Fort Covington, and the connecting intrenchments. Most of the firing was at long range; whenever any of the vessels came within reach of the batteries, they were subjected to a fire that quickly drove them back, and in some cases sank them. Fort McHenry, garrisoned by six hundred men under Major George Armistead, bore the brunt of the attack.
At the dead of night the enemy attempted to land a strong force above the forts, for an attack in the rear; but it was discovered and subjected to a concentrated fire of red-hot shot, which speedily drove it off with serious loss. This practically put an end to the attempt to take Baltimore, and a few hours later the fleet withdrew. The loss of the Americans by the bombardment was four killed and twenty-four wounded. The loss in the fleet is unknown.
This bombardment of Fort McHenry gave us one of our national songs. Francis S. Key had gone out to the British fleet in a row-boat, under a flag of truce, to ask for the release on parole of a friend who had been made prisoner. Admiral Cockburn, who had just completed his plans for the attack, detained him, and in his little boat, moored to the side of the flag-ship, he sat and watched the bombardment. When the second morning broke, and he saw that the flag of the fort—which Cockburn had boasted would "yield in a few hours"—was still flying, he took an old letter out of his pocket, and on the back of it wrote the first draft of "The Star-Spangled Banner." The flag is now in the possession of the Massachusetts Historical Society.