the most navorrrowly declared. here the united states go in the war of 1812 and divided the home front and urn prepared. a lot of our generals were holders. there was a hope that's taking canada would be easy even the former president, tomas jefferson says a mere matter of marching. that was totally wrong. the first battle of the world of 1812 were all american defeats. at the end of the year, yeah, there were american soldiers in canada. they were all prisoners. it was not long before the war of 1812 moved into 1813. behind me is the river that flow in the chesapeake bay. the british were able to use their large navy to block the east coast of the united states turned the chesapeake bay into a

british lake. it was important for a lot of reasons. one pennsylvania, maryland, delaware and virginia were the bread basket of the united states. you bottle up the chesapeake bay and a lot of the goods, the wheat that was exported that does not get to sea. in addition, uch the important sea ports and cities of indianapolis and baltimore and the new capitols, washington dc. alexander and virginia. the british with blocking the bay hope that we would pull our troops out of canada and using them closer to home and recognizing the war being unpopul unpopul unpopular amongst our people. the economy was not doing so well, that may help end this war of 1812.

for the british, the war of 1812 is a distraction. all this is but a side show. they want to bring the war of 1812 to a conclusion as quickly as they can. the world of 1812 here on the chesapeake bay sees the world navy against a number of small town and americans living over the bay. however, even a small resistance that town would be burned. to the north is the town called havre de grace. that was burned after the 1812. when the royal marines landed the militia ran away. on the eastern shore, two little towns, frederick town and georgetown, those towns were burned by the british. on eastern shore, the town of

saint michaels. there is a lot of battles and skirmishes and engagements up and down tchesapeake bay at thi time. in addition to the british and all that, there was a lot of fear and the greatest fear was the fear of a slave uprising. only recently are historians talking a bout the impact of slavery during the war of 1812, here in maryland, you had to divide up in states. it was divided to support or not to support the war amongst the americans and african-americans. a lot of them were supporting the war efforts. in southern maryland and eastern shore maryland, on those of

tobacco and plantation, you have enslaved african-americans. the british were offering any freedom to any african-americans coming over to their side. a year later in 1814, thousands of african-americans are now coming over to the british and the british are giving them their freedom. most of them were younger guys who could escape and they had the option of belonging to what they called the clone colonial these were trained as royal marines. some say 400 of them would become part of this cloolonial core. this will fear in maryland and northern virginia that this might prompt a massive slave uprising. it never happened but there was a fear that it could be happening. and this is the context, it is not surprising that someone like

francis scott key who opposed the war and takes a more active role in the war. he was a slave holder himself and a high power lawyer at a georgetown outside the district of columbia. he had respect for the british. he respected the british's law and culture and however, he was also angry at what the british were doing in the chesapeake region. like any marylanders between 18 and 45 years of age had to be long to the militia. i have a cannon here, a field gun. this is the type of artillery that francis scott key would have been familiar with. this is a field cannon as oppose to some of the red guns behind us here who are naval guns and a field gun like this is meant to be highly mobile.

francis scott key, a little bit of combat during the war of 1812 and to talk about that combat, i am going to walk around here to the other side of the battery. >> fire! [ cannon being fired ] action. [ cheers ] coming around just coming in the shades here, i want to talk about francis scott key's military career and the event that led up to fort mchenry and the use of this water battery. francis scott key was part of the unit militia, key's big combat experience comes on august the 24th, at the battle

of bladensbury. it is a small town outside of washington dc. in august of 1814, the british sent re-enforcements against the united states to really turn the heat up a little bit. at that time there were negotiators from the british and the americans meeting against belgian trying to find common grounds to end the war of 1812. on the united states side, we wanted to get out of the war with their honor and intact. the rtreasury was running out o money and the invasion of canada all appeared to be failure and it was unlikely that we were going to take over canada. we did not want to retreat from our demands about the british laying off our sailors and confiscating our merchant ship. the british were intimating that they wanted us to give up our illinois and indiana territor s

territories. we are not going to let it happen. the british in a way turning up the heat realizing that by 1814, napoleon had been defeated in europe and were able to send some re-enforcements from europe to show up defense in canada and turn up the heat in the chesapeake bay. thousands of soldiers landed in southern maryland and late august, they marched over washington dc or washington dc as they call it at the time featuring they can capture our capitols that can bolster their bi decision at the table. francis scott key was there. a few thousand soldiers from baltimore city marching state of texas and hundresouth. the americans were able to put around 5,000 men on the field at

bladensburg. on the 24th of august, a confuse battle erupted. the americans turned into d diseray. some of the american positions were quickly over run. american militia units received some training but not professional training. francis scott key, some say he relays some miss orrders. who could blame them. so many people were running. one african-american named charles ball, "americans ran

like shape chase by balls." they did sustain some casualties. at the close of the day they were entirely in possession of the field. in a way, you can say that ends francis scott key's brief military experience. in a way, francis scott key's journey for mchenry begins at that point. the british sustained over 300 men killed and wounded in the battle. later that night, the british marched in washington dc where they take possession of the gun shot buildings. the white house would be burned by the british and house of representatives senate burned by the britished a and the treasur building burned by the british. the individual homes of the common folks would be spared. the british also spared the patton office since it was dedicated to science. standing where i am now if you

look over my shoulders, you can see a tree line in a distance and that direction is south. on the ninth of the 24th of august, residents from baltimore city and soldiers on duty could see a dim glow in the sky when those government buildings were being burned and no competing lights at that point and you can really see that. everyone knew that it was the capitol and taken boointo the british. the british did not stay in washington but more than the next day and they soon marched out on the 25th of august to rejoin their fleet. they got what they came for. interestingly enough, documents that you could almost considered sacred to your history, the declaration of independence and the constitution narrowly saved who got the documents out a day

or two. even the declaration may have been burned had it been left there. the british marched back to their ship and sailed away. a local resident, man named doctor william bean, he lives in a town called upper marlboro. it was not too far away from washington dc. as the british moving through his town, a few stragglers decided to raid his house. however, doctor william beans a feisty man in his 70s took a few of them prisoners. one of them managed to escape and reported this to british's high commands. only days as the british advance through morarlboro, doctor bean

put on a famous act pretended that he's pro-british and saying he's educated and given the illusion that his sentiment was with the british and not with the americans in spite of where he was living. however, this report seems to indicate that doctor beans was putting up a front and the british were angry. they saw him as misrepresenting himself or perhaps worse, breaking his word as a gentleman. and the british went and took his is prisoner and brought him down to the fleet. this news spread like wild fire. doctor william beans was a respected citizen and some say the leading citizen of upper marlboro. while it was considered normal for both sides to apprehend sailors and soldiers. taking civilians, it was not really part of what the war was about and seeing something out of the ordinary and so the federal government sends john

skinner, the prison of war exchange agent trying to negotiate the release of doctor william beans. beans had a friend, francis scott key. he receives words of doctor beans being apprehended by the british and he volunteers to go to help negotiate the release. i have a lot of respect for key, first, he follvolunteered to do and second, who knows how long this negotiation process would take. if the british took one civilian prison, who to say that key may not be the next prisoner. he left behind a wife and six children. key left behind a law practice that was not doing very well and in 1814, key was considering going into the ministry, perhaps, being a minister and he also considered perhaps being a news paper editor. even key deciding still what he's wanting to do for the rest

of his life. a lot of sole searching for key at the time and a lot of sole searching for our nation at this time. he meets some of the british wounded who were taken at the battle of bladensburg and nursed by other doctors and recovered, all american doctors nursed and wounded on both sides. with those letters, he was able to go back to negotiate with the british showing that hey, you know maybe this doctor, misrepresented himself but other american doctors certainly help your guys. in early september, key and skinner, if you look at the body of water behind me here, this is the upper part of the river where it blows in the baltimore city and really, on this body of water if you were standing here in early september of 1814, you would see a small ship, a pact ship burying keys skinner going

down the river to rendezvous with the british. fifty ships coming up the bay. the british negotiates with the british's high command. key and skinner were out in the cabin. there were a negotiation no doubt over some wifine meal and wine for dessert. they relented and let doctor beans go free. on one condition, they had to risk the bombardment of fort mchenry. as these negotiations taken place, the british figured that key and skinner had seen too much of their preparations in attack of baltimore. now, the stage is set for key to be an eye witness of bombardment

of mchenry and the british attack in baltimore. a time of our nation where there were numerous battlefield defeats in canada. a thiamin wheime where the war been well. a lot of people thought baltimore was another one of a long string defeat and we sho d should -- lets go up to the water battery and look out over that water battery and i will show you exactly where the british ships were when they were spied on september 11th, 1814. we are up here at the main gun deck and the main weapon of fort mchenry defense system. these were the guns that's going to fend off the british ship during fort mchenry's finist

hour. on september 11, if we look at these embracer here and looking down the river, the modern bridge and the francis scott key bridge, just beyond it is where you would see an armada, something like a forest of masks and white sales all on the horizons and 50 british ships right here where the river flows in the chesapeake bay. among that is one small package ship burying francis scott key and john skinner and doctor william beans. the attack on baltimore is going to begin. looking down the river, if you look to the left, you will see a small land mask, that's north point and on the early morning hours of the 12th of september, about 5,000 british soldiers dropped off at north point and their goals is to march over land to take the city by land. so really it starts off like

they took washington a land of salt, they ran into americans land guard of about 2600 militia men. this is called the battle of north point. it is a pretty good battle and it is about two hours. the british lose about 210 men and the americans lose about 200 and they pulled back. the americans give as good as they got. they killed the major general robert ross and they withdrew to defenses closer to the city. on the out skirt of the city of baltimore, americans dodged about a mile wort entrenchment. you would have seen some of the richest gentlemen of the city digging in entrenchments and women bringing jugs of water down to refresh everybody and some enslaved. it was an effort to get those

defend in time. so in the british closing in on the out skirt of the city, they could see there were 15,000 american defenders waiting for them. those defenders were dug oiinto the artillery cannon that i am standing next to them. they realized it is suicidal. they chose plan be and that's to take the city by sea. on the early morning hours of the 13th of september the british bombarded fort mchenry. you can see a large black tanker cargo ship, that's about where the british bombarded coming on. guns like this, like you would see on the navy ship at the time. this is the type of cannon ball that it would shoot.

this is an 18 pounds solid shot. this cannon would fire this cannon ball weighing about 18 pounds and hurdle it over a mile. it travels a little over 900 miles an hour but it does not blow up, solid shot. whether it slams into a wooden hall of a ship or the brick wall or cut a person in half, those cannon ball could smash into things. in addition to that, they have brick ovens behind the guns where they can heat up the cannon ball glowing hot and ran down with a pack of gun powder and some mud and stepping in the red hot cannon ball and pack it down and boom if that cannon ball is shot could embed itself on the ship and could set the ship on fire. about really 7:00 or 8:00, the

british and the guns here at the fort are trading shots for shots. the british had cannons similar to this. you see where the tugboats are, beyond the utugboats, further away, one man says it sounded like thunder when the cannon was fired. i can see number of shots striking them in many sinstance. the british were getting the worse of it. by 10:30, the british realized that the defense were very strong and sent a message that it is unlikely to support the land forces. that did not stop the british from trying. they changed their tactics, they backed up beyond the range of fort guns and began a long range bombardment.

i will share a little story about major george armistead. lets come back here to the back of the cannon and i will show you. you see these wedges, they are called coins. this is how you elevate it and press the cannon. these wedges were to be taken out of the guns so the barrel were hiked up as high as they could go and for twice the amount of gun powder to be rammed in the barrels and trying to eke out some more range of the shot that these guns were fired. this dangerous practice is don with, basically the british were too far away and the guns did not flip over, they could see the cannon ball flashing down. armistead did something that was

also important to our story today, he ordered a year prior of a huge american flag measuring 30 feet high and 42 feet long. big flags were popular in tr 19 century and for t mchenry is no exception. these flags were made in the city of baltimore by young pick erksgill. those flags were delivered here, the larger of the two flags were called the stars spangle banner. when the battle began, the big flag was on the pole. it was over cast and started to

rain. as we found out they got away and the order started to pass the cease-fire. armistead ordered the flag to be changed. the flag is taken down and the smaller 17 by 25 foot flag is hoisted in his place. those flags, well, the smaller the two flags is probably going to hang about half an hour. this is where we come to the high point of a bombardment, there had to be a feeling of helplessness among defenders. with these, the british can throw these 200 pounds bombs into the fort. by the way, i want to show you at this water battle was the main line of defense, this was the largest pipe canyon that were here. we were down with the 18 pounds before. this battle was original to the

war of 1812. you can see the casting of 1809. these guns were cast over in europe, they were used in the french navy and prior of the war of 1812, some of these guns were in the french consulate warehouse in the city of baltimore. not long before the battle they were brought here and installed at fort mchenry. a cannon will fire a 36-pound iron ball, a little over a mile. no wonder the british never wanted to get very close. the cannon ball here, you can see a difference between the 18 pounder shot that the fort fired and the 36 pounder shot. if i were in the navy, i would not want to get close to that. to win the battle, they have to connect a long range

bombardment. if you think this is big, wait until i show you the british bomb that bursts in air. one more thing about before we go in the fort is how strong these defenses were and why the british chose a long bombardment instead of taking fort straight on. if you look behind me here, that was not there at the time, you will see a cement factory. the americans strasburg up a chain and imagine telephone poles chained together laying long ways. that's blocking the channel. booipd th behind that, the americans had a big gun boat. behind that, the american sunk ships. so for the british to win the battles and get their vessels in the port of baltimore to destroy the city, they would knock out the thick iron change and saw through it and fight off the american gun boats and raise the sunken ship and knock out the

cannons of fort mchenry and there were many of them. it was tough to do. the british decide on a long range of bombardment hoping they could knock out the guns of the fort and maybe scare the americans off. this is why they chose to rely on the five special bomb ships that could fire a 200 pound shell two miles. and everyone knew while one kne cannon of this time. the anchor half way to the bridge, they can throw those shells in the pofort and help i along. if you watch on the 4th of july like somebody shooting these little bottle rockets, well, a british rocket looks like that but it is as big as we are. you know it is pretty large. they look like fiery fingers in the fight sky or during the day it looks like little jet plane going across the sky. [ whistling ] you know as they become boom and exploded in the fort. they were not that accurate but

if you never seen one before and if you are a defender here and it is your first battle, you know, it was the shock of 1814. lets take a look at that shell. this is an original british shell that was thrown in the fort 200 kbreyears ago of the n of the british battle. this is a witness so basically if you look at it and it weighs 200 pounds and then it is so heavy and so a 1313-pound of hi explosive powder. the crane would come down and it will have hooks and you can see where there were like little rings that you can hook into here and there is one broken off here and winch it up like a

wrecking ball and lower it down, boom, they would shoot it off in that millisecond as it flew out the barrel. the fuse would go in here and ignite the fuse. the fuse is burning down and burning down, and if you time it right when it is rooftop high. the fuse is burnt to the inside where it hits the gun powder and boom, the whole thing cracks apart. egg shells and the fragment reigning down and knocking over the cannon. that's how it supposed to work. >> if the fuse pops out and if it was raining of the battle, it does not go off at all. fec even if it is a dud, if it lands on you, it will crush you like a

bug. you can feel the ground shakes when the bomb exploded. one direct hit, hit the wall of this billing auilding. this is of course, ammunition magazine of 300 gun powder barrel. it did not go off and it probably did not do much than knocking a few bricks out. it panicked everyone. oh man, it went over and exploded, it would have been anatomic bomb going off and could have changed the whole outcome in the battle and one lucky shot. guys were running in and spreading them out and one lucky shot would take everybody out. there were some direct hits and i think these direct hits really

show the types of defenders who were here. there is one direct hit that landed on a point or bass gym of the fort. there is a guy name was levy cla k cken. he's a prominent businessman. he came out his stomach and buried himself two feet in the ground, killed him instantly. it shows you the power of one shell. clacken, he had a full blown military funeral. his name is in a special monument in downtown, baltimore. for a long time people still remember that guy. not too much further away and here in fort mchenry and behind the fort where infantry soldiers, one of those soldiers a private who was in there. his born was frederick hall.

he was born in enslaved. he escapes off the plantation and he changes his name because you don't want to get caught and joins the american army and his regiment is sent for fort mchenry as isolated rare-enforc. a shemp like this one exploded near him and a piece of it teared into his right leg. he lingered on for a few uniques a uniques -- weeks, obviously, he died. >> no one found out about that guy. yet, he's dying for a stars spangle banner, too. it shows the diversities of the defender, who came together to defend the flag, the famous and not so famous. however, most of the shells are over shooting or under shooting

the floors. >> we don't care if most of the shells don't hit the target, you know, if a few of them do. the lucky ones were not lucky enough. after hours, they're kiend of wasting in their ammunition. the fort cannons wait and then they open up again. one of the ships hit five times in the battle, the rocket ship had to be towed out of. around midnight, the british tried a sneak attack of a diversion so to speak. if you cannot win by going on a blits, maybe try -- especially if the defense has the clock.

i am going to show you and we are going to go up the ram park or the wall, showing you where the british trying to make that end run play and how it was defeated and we'll talk about what francis scott key saw. we'll go up to the ram park and we'll watch. >> yes. ram park is a fancy word for wall. we are standing on top of the ram park. lets put ourselves in the mind set of what was it like to be at this point and these diamond-like point that's called sabastien. here it is the night of the 13th early morning of the 14th of

september. it feels like a deck on the back of the house. it would have been planked and cannons are mounted up here and defenders are here and pouring down rain. the british tried a diversion. they're signing a squad or gun boats to get in behind the fort. they'll try to bring in about a thousand or 1200 guys maybe landing behind the fort. it is a diversion and maybe they get lucky and could get in the city and creates some mayhem and do something. the idea is they're going to bring their boats down this way so you see that orange ship right there over that river and setting off at mid night, they hugged that bank over there, a squader barges. half of them make it.

if you look that way, you can see interstate 95. you can see the factory to the left and that's a cove right there and the british sails those gun boats in that cove. that cove was guarded by three little forts. there was a little battle back there. i always wondered like what it would be like right there and you see the sky and it is like boom, boom, and boom. you can see the screams of the marine as the cannon ball splints through. the americans are well defended of the embankment so not a lot of damage being done. some americans though panic. one guy screaming out, all is loss and all the forces surrender surrendered. the bombardment continues and it

gradually tapers off. it is really around 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, it is really quiet. if you look in that direction over there, you can see the modern high-rise building of the city of baltimore. old baltimore is behind all that. you know, you would have had the trees so you can see the fort from the town and some people were on the rooftops and on the roof of the holiday street theater look to see the smoke rising from the fort and by dawn, they could see the british ships and the fort and they knew the battle wallace oves over. the question they had was who won and the question that francis key had was who won. who's flag is going to be seen on that pole? remember, you could not see the flag too well. it was a smaller flag and had been raining all night. at 9:00 in the morning,

armistead, the commander of this fort gave the order to change the flag. it was horticultualted down. if you look at the flag here, this was the size of the blue flag, it is hoisted in its place playing in your face to the british. around that same time, the british realized that they're not going to win the battle any time soon. the barge attack failed and the channel was too well guarded that did not want to take on that. they did not want to waste their ammunition in the bombardment. the only thing left to do was to break off and seail away. they created a grand diversion and scared the baltimore. they did not get what they came for. as the british ship selling away was when the huge flag went off. even one british eye witness

named robert barrett standing on the -- the americans hoisted a superb and more importantly francis scott key, if you look down the river right now and you see the bridge, look under the bridge and you will see like a cargo ship. it is white on the top and that's where about francis scott key's ship was. he's streaming through a spy glass and he could see the red, white and blue speck. it was a huge flag, it was five miles away, it looks pretty small. the point is, he saw the flag and it was still there. key realized that it was an important morale victory have won. it is the romantic period and he

was okay for guys to write poetries and songs. he writes his poem describing his feelings of everything leading up to this moment. he will expresses anger at the british and the british withdrawing saying their foul footsteps and blood had washed out their footstep pollutions. key will expresses anxiety and not see the flag because they'll pose a question oh say can you see and that stars spangle flag over the land of the free and the home of the braves. he will answer that question in the second verse where we'll say oh shore then we see through the mist mid midst. a 'tis the stars spangle banner.

he sees it the morning after the battle. key puts into word what everyone felt in their hard. a private douglas described that september morning of that morning. so there was that mutual feeling that an important morale victory had been won. what did it all mean? well, when word got out to the piece negotiators and against belgian that the americans held here in baltimore that cancelled out our defeat and having lost our capitol two and a half weeks beforehand. and in a sense where we had a terrible defeat but now we had a great victory to balance it out. a few months later, february, february 16th, 1815, the war of 1812 officially ends. the treaty is signed on

christmas eve 1814 and it takes awhile to get here and it is signed off on the 16th and the war officially ends. in a way the war ends as a tie. we never took over canada so the canadians and the british can legitimately say they won the war of 1812 but not entirely. they hope they could gain illinois or indiana territories. we could legitimately say that we held our own. the united states really in a way gained what it hoped to gain a sense of honor, respect from other nations and we certainly did not win the british hands down but we certainly fought them to a tie and that was respectfulab respectab respectable. it was a war that disunited us but in the last few minutes universi united everyone in a possession of victory. that confidence of the great symbol that we got of the national anthem and the american flag came from the war of 1812 and came from events that

happened right here at fort mchenry. the way he see the flag today was born on these ram parks, september 1814, through the words of francis scott key. every american should visit fort mchenry and you will feel different when you sing the stars spangled banner. you can watch this and other artifacts programs by visiting our website on cspan.org/americanhistory. this month, american history tv is in primetime to introduce you in programs that you could see during the weekends on c-span 3. our events including lectures of

classrooms and american artif t artifacts and real america revealing the 20th century through a archival films and the civil war where you hear about people who shaped the shicivil and reconstruction. all this month in primetime and every weekend on american history tv on c-span 3. thursday marks the 100th anniversary of the national park service and we'll be live at the robert e. lee memorial for the event on the centennial and a look at the current projects that the park service is working on. that's at 7:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3 on american history tv. the 1600 acres battlefield is about 45 miles northwest of the

u.s. capital of the monocacy battlefie battlefield. c-span met joyce beasley of the cultural resources program manager of the national park to learn how remanence of the 200 years old slave quarter were discovered in 2003 and ex baika ka -- excabated during 2010. what we know today as the best farm forms the southern 274 acres of what was originally 748 plantation. that was known as larry tosh. it was established by a family of french -- family was called

the vincent deer family. they came to maryland. and also with the french revolution. it was acquired by 1993. it is a fairly recent acquisition and beginning in about 1998 or 1999 is when we started doing a substantial amount of historical architet architectur architectural research here at the farm. we knew the origin and their relocation here to maryland. what we did not know was very much more than that about the vincent deer family, we had little information of the enslaved population and certainly one of the key research questions regarding to

these researches were where were these 90 enslaved students were living. >> i had a graduate student working with me focusing on the vincent deer and of their contact here to maryland. she managed to uncover a pretty obscure account that was written by a polish ex-patriot who was traveling around the 18 century. he kept sort of a travel memoir of all of his travels. he happens to be traveling on the georgetown road which we know today as maryland route 355, although that is time it was quite a bit further to the west, so much closer than where it was today. he was traveling to georgetown on june of 1798 and he happens to pass by this plantation and gave an account of it. one of the things he talks about is one stone house with upper

stories painted white which is a building that still astands on the farm and he referred to a row of wooden houses which we took as a reference to slave quarters. one of the things we uncovered and referenced in the polish traveler's account that there were several court cases brought from the family alleging their mistreatment of the slaves. that was something surprising to us. i don't know of have many instances in which that actually happens where charges were brought against people of mistreating their slaves in maryland and elsewhere presumably, there were laws on the books of governing the treatments of enslaved people but they were not enforced. one of the things we found was between 1796 and about 1806, there were at least eight instances in which the vincent

deer family and members of their households were accused of mistreating their dlaslaves in different ways. it sounded like this wooden house were out of the primary building cluster which was a pattern that was not seen in the area. it is much common in the deep south or the caribbean. it happens to be out in the agriculture field that was 40 plus acres. it was an area that had not been investigated ar investigat investigated archically. we were coming to the ends of the multi fear of archeologically. >> we did the 40 plus acres agricultural field. what we did end up uncovering was