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War of 1812 Letter

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September 14, 1814

Dearest Father,

“On September 12, Baltimore was in view of the 50 British warships. To defend the city, some 14,000 militiamen joined 1,000 regulars” (Chartrand, 2012) Seeing the 50 British warships off of our harbor at first was cause for great alarm, which as the days came to pass we were in fact under great attack. We had 25 hours of bombing here at Fort McHenry there was no stopping the whole time. The British kept just outside of our guns reach however we still fought valiantly. Their plan to stay outside of our guns was also to their dismay as they too were not able to penetrate our walls or destroy our fort. The constant assault was deafening and I can barely hear much from all the noise that transpired. Many say that the sounds of gun fire were heard 45 miles away from our fort. We however, are still standing as the British could not stand against our other militiamen and guns from our Fort Covington, nor at the North Point where the British tried a landing attack as well. It has been told that a lawyer, Francis Scott Key, who was on a Royal Navy vessel, outside of our fort, has been inspired to write a poem about our struggle. I have been told that his delight in seeing our flag still standing in the morning after the all night bombardment is what brought about the poem. The British retreated knowing that we are a force much stronger than they thought. Our military forces are now inspired to fight with more resolve than ever before. We have shown that we are mighty, strong and have a resolve to push on towards victory. Our fort commander has taken mind to get an even bigger flag to fly upon our fort to remind all that we are truly one nation, the United States of America, willing to fight off any force that tries to attack our lands. All who have heard of our success have been inspired to prevail against our great enemy, Great Britain. With our great success has instilled in our troops to press on for victory over the British. We know that we will prevail and win this war.

Yours always,

Charmagne

Works Cited

Chartrand, R. (2012). Fort McHenry: September 12-14, 1814. Retrieved from http://www.thehistoryreader.com/modern-history/fort-mchenry-september-12-14-1814/

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