11/15/2023 0 Comments Why was francis scott key forced to stay on a british warship during the battle of fort mchenry![]() ![]() ![]() Artist Percy Moran’s 1905 painting of Francis Scott Key and John S. The British meant to do to Baltimore what the ancient Romans had done to their mortal foe, Carthage: inflict total, catastrophic destruction, with the hated privateer ships hauled away as prize booty. In response, the British planned to take Baltimore and burn it to the ground-even private homes and businesses-which they had neglected to do in the District of Columbia, where only official structures were torched. Because they were both lighter and faster than King George III’s vaunted “walls of wood,” the American ships evaded the Royal Navy effortlessly, coming and going wherever they pleased. The rest of the nation’s eastern cities lay equally open to the invaders’ heel-Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Annapolis were high on the list-but Baltimore came before them all as the ship-building center the British angrily called “that nest of pirates.” It was there that American privateers launched the famed “Baltimore clip ships” that sailed boldly into Great Britain’s home waters to strike at her shipping. That night the British entered the eerily deserted capital of Washington, D.C., and set various public buildings on fire, including the President’s Mansion, the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress, the Treasury Building, and the Washington Navy Yard. At the Battle of Bladensburg, on August 24, the Redcoats mockingly dubbed their victory “the Bladensburg Races” because the Americans ran away so fast. By the late summer of 1814, the invading British Army had routed the entire American Army-both federal and state troops-on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. ![]()
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