Fort McHenry

• 1. Introduction

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  Fort McHenry sits on Locust Point, a peninsula that juts into the opening of Baltimore Harbor, and for 25 hours on the 13th and the 14th of September 1814, it was the only thing standing between the British Royal Navy and the city behind it. The British had already burned Washington. Baltimore was next. What made this place hold when the capital had not? And what happened in the dawn light of September 14th that would give the United States its national anthem?

• 2. Built to Defend

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  Jean Foncin, a Frenchman, designed the fort in 1798. Construction ran from 1798 to 1800, replacing an older installation called Fort Whetstone that had guarded Baltimore since 1776. The new structure took a pentagonal shape, each of its five points forming a bastion capable of delivering a crossfire of cannon and small arms at any infantry approaching from land. A dry moat, a deep and broad trench, encircled the whole structure, offering defenders a sheltered fighting position at the outer perimeter.

  The fort was named after James McHenry, born in 1753 and died in 1816, a Scots-Irish immigrant who had served as a surgeon-soldier, a delegate to the Continental Congress from Maryland, and a signer of the United States Constitution. He later served as Secretary of War from 1796 to 1800 under both George Washington and John Adams. Naming the fort after him tied the installation directly to the founding generation it was built to protect.

• 3. The Bombardment

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  Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane commanded the British warships that opened fire at 6:00 a.m. on the 13th of September 1814. For 25 hours they kept up a continuous bombardment. The American defenders operated 18-, 24-, and 32-pounder cannons. The British guns reached out to 2 miles; their rockets had a range of 1.75 miles. Neither side was accurate at those distances.

  The British ships could not advance closer. A chain of 22 sunken ships blocked the harbor channel, and the American cannons covered the approaches. Forced to fire at maximum range, the British achieved very little. Only one British vessel, a bomb vessel, took a direct hit from the fort's return fire, wounding one sailor.

  Major George Armistead commanded the American garrison. Four Americans died during the bombardment, including one woman who was cut in half by a bomb while carrying supplies to the troops. Twenty-four were wounded, among them Private William Williams, noted by name in the accounts as the one Black soldier wounded that day. At one harrowing moment, a bomb crashed through the roof of the fort's powder magazine; either the rain extinguished the fuse or the bomb was a dud. By morning on September 14th, the British had exhausted their ammunition and withdrew.

• 4. The Flag and the Poem

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  Francis Scott Key was a Washington lawyer who had sailed to Baltimore not as a soldier but as a negotiator, seeking the release of Dr. William Beans, a civilian prisoner of war. The British allowed Key to conduct his mission but detained him aboard a truce ship during the bombardment so he could not carry intelligence ashore. He watched the battle from the water.

  Mary Pickersgill had sewn an oversized garrison flag for $405.90 in anticipation of the British attack. That flag flew over the fort through the bombardment under a storm flag and was raised as the garrison flag in the early morning of September 14th. When Key saw it still flying in the dawn, he began composing the poem he titled "Defence of Fort M'Henry", set to the melody of "To Anacreon in Heaven". The poem was later renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner" and became the national anthem of the United States. It has since been translated into various languages, primarily for immigrants who later acquired American citizenship.

• 5. Prison, Habeas Corpus, and the Civil War

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  Decades after the bombardment, Fort McHenry played a very different role in American history. During the Civil War, the fort became a military prison holding Confederate soldiers and a striking number of Maryland's own political leaders who had criticized President Abraham Lincoln. Among those imprisoned were the newly elected Baltimore Mayor George William Brown, the city council, the police commissioner George P. Kane, members of the Maryland General Assembly, and several newspaper editors and owners.

  Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key himself, was among these political detainees. On the 25th of May 1861, John Merryman was arrested in Baltimore County and brought to the fort. Merryman had destroyed bridges in Maryland to slow the movement of Union troops. He petitioned Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney for a writ of habeas corpus. Taney granted it, ordering Merryman brought to his courtroom and sending U.S. Marshals to the fort. General George Cadwalader, commanding Union troops at the fort, refused to comply, citing orders from President Lincoln, who had suspended habeas corpus. The resulting case, Ex parte Merryman, was never resolved. The Executive Branch continued to refuse to comply with Taney's ruling.

• 6. From Hospital to Monument

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  During World War I, the land surrounding the fort was transformed into an enormous U.S. Army hospital. Around a hundred additional buildings went up to treat troops returning from Europe. None of those temporary structures survive today. The original fort itself was preserved and restored to roughly its appearance during the War of 1812.

  In World War II the installation became a Coast Guard training base, while the historic sections stayed open to the public. Congress made the fort a national park in 1925, and on the 11th of August 1939 it was redesignated a "National Monument and Historic Shrine," the only place in the United States to carry that dual designation. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on the 15th of October 1966.

  A national tradition grew up around the fort: whenever the United States adopts a new flag design, it flies first over Fort McHenry. The first official 49-star and 50-star American flags were both flown there and remain on the premises.

• 7. Living History and Recent Events

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  Every September the city of Baltimore holds Defenders Day, commemorating the Battle of Baltimore, and the fort hosts the biggest celebration of the year, with programs, events, and fireworks across a full weekend. In 2013, Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine was honored with its own quarter under the America the Beautiful Quarters Program.

  In September 2014, the fort celebrated the bicentennial of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner with an event called the Star-Spangled Spectacular, featuring a parade of tall ships, a large fireworks show, and a performance by the Navy's Blue Angels. In 2005, the living history volunteer unit called the Fort McHenry Guard received the George B. Hartzog award as the best volunteer unit serving the National Park Service. Former Baltimore Mayor and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley was made the unit's honorary colonel in 2003.

  The original garrison flag that flew over the fort that September morning in 1814 has deteriorated to a fragile condition. After restoration work at the National Museum of American History, it is now displayed there in a specially designed exhibit where it rests at a slight angle in dim light. On the 26th of August 2020, Vice President Mike Pence delivered his acceptance speech for a second term's nomination at the fort, after the COVID-19 pandemic prevented a normal Republican National Convention. And on the 21st of November 2025, construction workers unearthed what appeared to be unexploded ordnance on the grounds; it was safely disposed of, and the fort reopened the following day.