took post on the left of our entrenchments, and a half mile in advance of them. In this affair the citizen soldiers of Baltimore, with the exception of the fifty-first regiment, have maintained the reputation they so deservedly acquired at Bladensburg, and their brave and skillful leader has confirmed the confidence which we all had so justly placed in him.” "About the time Gen. Stricker had taken the ground just mentioned, he was joined by Gen. Winder, who had been stationed on the west side of the city, but was now ordered to march with Gen. Douglass's brigade of Virginia militia and United States dragoons, under Capt. Baird, and take post on the left of Gen. Stricker. During these movements, the brigades of Generals Stansbury and Foreman, the seamen and marines under Commodore Rogers, the Pennsylvania volunteers under Colonels Cobean and Findley, the Baltimore artillery under Capt. Stiles, manned the trenches and the batteries-all prepared to receive the enemy. We remained in this situation during the night." "On Tuesday the enemy appeared in front of our entrenchments, at the distance of two miles on the Philadelphia road, from whence he had a full view of our position. He manœuvred during the morning towards our left, as if with the intention of making a circuitous march and coming down on the Harford or York road. Generals Winder and Stricker were ordered to adapt their movements to those of the enemy, so as to baffle his supposed intention. They executed this order with great skill and judgment, by taking an advantageous position, stretching from our left across the country, when the enemy was likely to approach the quarter he seemed to threaten. This movement induced the enemy to concentrate his forces in our front, pushing his advance to within a mile of us, driving in our videttes, and showing an intention of attacking us that evening. I immediately drew Generals Winder and Stricker nearer to the left of my entrenchments and to the right of the enemy, with the intention of their falling on his right or rear, should he attack me; or, if he declined it, of attacking him in the morning. To this movement and to the strength of my defences, which the enemy had the fairest opportunity of observing, I am induced to attribute his retreat, which was commenced at half-past one o'clock on Wednesday morning. In this he was so favored by the extreme darkness and a continued rain, that we did not discover it until day-light. I consented to Gen. Winder pursuing with the Virginia brigade and the United States dragoons; at the same time Maj. Randall was dispatched with his light corps in pursuit of the enemy's right, whilst the whole of the militia cavalry was put in motion for the same object. All the troops were, however, so worn out with continued watching, and with being under arms during three days and nights, exposed the greater part of the time to very inclement weather, that it was found impracticable to do any thing more than to pick up a few stragglers. The enemy commenced his embarkation that evening, and completed it the next day at one o'clock.” "On Tuesday morning, about sunrise," says Col. Armistead, who commanded in Fort McHenry, "the enemy commenced the attack from his five bomb vessels, at the distance of about two miles, when, finding that the shells reached us, he anchored, and kept up an incessant and well-directed bombardment. We immediately opened our batteries, and kept up a brisk fire from our guns and mortars ; but, unfortunately, all our shot and shells fell considerably short of him. This was to me a most distressing circumstance, as it left us exposed to a constant and tremendous shower of shells, without the most remote possibility of doing him the slightest injury. It affords me the highest gratification to state that, though we were left thus exposed and thus inactive, not a man shrunk from the conflict. About two o'clock, P. M., one of the twenty-four-pounders of the southwest bastion, under the immediate command of Capt. Nicholson, was dismounted by a shell, the explosion from which killed his second lieutenant, and wounded several of his men; the bustle necessarily produced in removing the wounded and replacing the gun, probably induced the enemy to suspect we were in a state of confusion, as he brought in three of his bomb-ships to what I believed to be a good striking distance. I immediately ordered a fire to be opened, which was obeyed with alacrity through the whole garrison, and in half an hour these intruders again sheltered themselves by withdrawing beyond our reach. We gave three cheers, and again ceased firing. The enemy continued throwing shells, with one or two slight intermissions, till one o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, when it was discovered he had availed himself of the darkness of the night, and had thrown a considerable force above to our right; they had approached very near to Fort Covington, when they began to throw rockets; intended, I presume, to give them an opportunity of examining the shores. As I have since understood, they had detached twelve hundred and fifty picked men, with scaling ladders, for the purpose of storming this fort. We once more had an opportunity of opening our batteries, and kept up a continued blaze for near two hours, which had the effect again to drive them off. "In justice to Lieutenant Newcomb, of the United States Navy, who commanded at Fort Covington with a detachment of sailors, and Lieutenant Webster, of the flotilla, who commanded the six-gun battery near that fort, I ought to state that, during this time, they kept up an aniinated, and, I believe, a very destructive fire, to which, I am persuaded, we are much indebted in repulsing the enemy. The only means we had of directing our guns was by the blaze of their rockets, and the flashes of their guns. The bombardment continued on the part of the enemy until seven o'clock on Wednesday morning, when it ceased; and about nine their ships got under weigh and stood down the river. During the bombardment, which lasted twenty-five hours, from the best calculation I can make, from fifteen to eighteen hundred shells were thrown by the enemy. A few of these fell short. A large portion burst over us, throwing their fragments among us, and threatening destruction. Many passed over, and about four hundred fell within the works.” In just such awfully sublime and terrific blazes of death, and nowhere else, when victory, amid mingled shouts of triumph, has perched upon the national banner, the dormant inspiration of a people, ensconced somewhere tarrying for the circumstances of its birth, often breaks forth in song! Some accurate thinker has said, "Let me write a nation's songs, and I care not who makes its laws." Long had slept the American bard. The thunders of the French war cloud of '98 awoke him to glory in the person of Joseph Hopkinson. For sixteen years he slept again, and then awoke by the "rocket's red glare," in the person of Francis S. Key, a prisoner on board a British transport, in American waters, in 1814! "A gentleman had left Baltimore with a flag of truce," says a cotemporaneous writer, "for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet a friend of his, who had been captured at Marlborough. He went as far as the mouth of the Patuxent, and was not permit ted to return, lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be disclosed. He was therefore brought up the bay to the mouth of the Patapsco, where the flag-vessel was kept under the guns of a frigate, and he was compelled to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which the Admiral had boasted he would carry in a few hours, and that the city must fall. He watched the flag at the fort through the whole day, with an anxiety that can be more easily conceived than described, until the night prevented him from seeing it. In the night he watched the bomb shells, and at early dawn his eye was again greeted by the proudly waving flag of his country." On board the transport, through the whole day, and the perilous night succeeding, the genius of inspiration stood by Mr. Key, guiding his thoughts and his pencil; while to the air "Anacreon in Heaven,” he penciled a poem; and when the haughty foe no longer reposed in dread silence on freedom's shore, he was released from the transport and repaired to the house of Judge Nicholson, in the city, and there gave form to his immortal "STAR-SPANGLED BANNER." Such patriotic emotions as now visited the bosom of Mr. Key were too restless to be confined there; too exhilirating to find utterance in ordinary language, and too sublime to find birth except in the most chaste expression and glowing imagery. From the transport he had gazed with admiration on the silent heavens as displaying the glory of God; and from instantaneous impulse, acting upon a mind well stored with abundant materials, treasured up for some occasion that might bring them into use, he framed the Star-Spangled Banner, the pride and glory of every American heart. The fire which burns through his poem was not elaborated spark by spark from mechanical friction; but it was in the open air, under the cope of heaven, that our second national Franklin caught his lightnings from the cloud of thought as it passed over him, and communicated them, too, by a touch, with electrical swiftness, amid the inspiration of the thunder of the bursting bomb, and the lightning of the glaring rocket. On the authority of Mr. John S. Skinner, of Baltimore, Capt. A. H. Kilty, of the United States Navy, pens an able communication to the writer on this subject, from which the following extracts are made: "The British, while on their retreat from Washington," says Capt. Kilty, "had seized upon several gentlemen of Prince George's, among whom were Gov. Bowie and a Mr. Beans, and it was to obtain their release that Mr. Key, under a flag of truce, and accompanied by Mr. John S. Skinner, of Baltimore, visited the fleet. The attack on Baltimore was then in contemplation; and lest intelligence of the fact should transpire through Mr. Key or his companion, it was considered expedient to detain them with the fleet; and it was not therefore until after the repulse of the British that they were liberated. On landing in or near Baltimore, they proceeded at once to the residence of Judge Nicholson, Mr. Key's brother-in-law, who had shared in the defence of Fort McHenry, and there it was that the 'StarSpangled Banner' was prepared for the press. Its appearance in the public papers was hailed with a degree of enthusiasm which knew no abatement until the outbreak of the rebellion now devastating the land; but the song, nevertheless, will live in the hearts of the loyal as long as we are a nation. "The house of Judge Nicholson was in Market street, near the corner of Eutaw, and next to the one occupied for many subsequent years by Mr. Solomon Etting." But, returning to the British transport, that loathsome prisonhouse for a freeman, we behold the genius of inspiration ministering to the towering soul of the immortal Key; and, gazing at the picture illumined by the glare of the rocket piercing the skies, and the fatal bomb breaking the solitudes of night, we are fanned to a blaze of enthusiasm that burns in classic thought. "Thou hast seen Mount Athos; While storms and tempests thunder at its brow And such is our own American Key, who is next seen to dip his pencil in the light of heaven, and wresting the air from old England as our Conscript Fathers wrested Yankee Doodle, he traced immortal characters before us, nationalized the air, and engraved a nation's song as in eternal brass to shine forever, singing as he wrote |