Located in the Baltimore Harbor, Fort McHenry was one of the last lines of defense for Baltimore: if the fort was captured, then Baltimore would be as well. These cities were financial and political strongholds, and, without them, Britain could claim victory for the entire war.įrancis Scott Key: Maryland lawyer and writer of the "The Star-Spangled Banner" With Washington, D.C., burned just a month prior, the capture of Baltimore would mean that the just formed United States would lose two major coastal cities. On a merchant ship in the harbor was British Prisoner Exchange Agent Colonel John Stuart Skinner and Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key. On September 5, Stuart and Key had sailed into the harbor to meet with Admiral George Cockburn to discuss the release of Dr. Beanes was a doctor, and a colleague of Key, who had refused to give food and drink to British soldiers who had happened upon his house in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Stuart and Key successfully negotiated Beanes’s freedom.
However, since they were by the British fleet in the harbor, and privy to the British’s positions and plans to attack Baltimore, the three men were unable to return to shore.
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