Existing comment:
The Battle Key did not see...
North Point, September 12, 1814
Before bombarding Fort McHenry, the British fought a bloody engagement with American militia six miles from Baltimore known as the "Battle of North Point." From a truce ship four miles away, Francis Scott Key heard the distant gunfire and saw the British casualties returning to the fleet.
This battle and Key's anger at the British invasion is commemorated in the third stanza of "The Star-Spangled Banner." -- " ... their blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution. No refuge could save, the hireling and slave from the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave..." Although a portion is preserved, most of the battlefield became a housing development in the 1950s. |