The Late War

[Rockstar]

Many of us are gearing up around the Tide Water area for this 2012 Opsail and 1812 festivities. I live on an island in the Chesapeake Bay where the Brits staged the invasion of Baltimore from. Fort Chessamessex used to be on the south end of the island along with HMS Albion nearby. But since beach errosion has claimed much of the island it's no longer there.


Been busy setting up some displays at our museum. Neat to come across old news paper clippings and other tid bits of history.


“The American Navy must be annihilated – her arsenals and dock-yards must be consumed; and the turbulent inhabitants of Baltimore must be tamed with the weapons which shook the wooden turrents of Copenhagen [in 1807]… All the panting about maritime rights, with which the Americans have recently nauseated the ears of every cabinet minister in Europe, must be silenced by the strong and manly voice of reason- the utima ration regum, paradoxial as it may seem, is here the only remedy – and America must be BEATEN INTO SUBMISSION! The law of nations have been always the law of the strongest – England is, therefore the DICTATOR of the maritime laws of the civilized world, and long may she retain her superiority! “ London Evening Star, September 1813.”

[1480]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Many of us are gearing up around the Tide Water area for this 2012 Opsail and 1812 festivities. I live on an island in the Chesapeake Bay where the Brits staged the invasion of Baltimore from. Fort Chessamessex used to be on the south end of the island along with HMS Albion nearby. But since beach errosion has claimed much of the island it's no longer there.


Been busy setting up some displays at our museum. Neat to come across old news paper clippings and other tid bits of history.


“The American Navy must be annihilated – her arsenals and dock-yards must be consumed; and the turbulent inhabitants of Baltimore must be tamed with the weapons which shook the wooden turrents of Copenhagen [in 1807]… All the panting about maritime rights, with which the Americans have recently nauseated the ears of every cabinet minister in Europe, must be silenced by the strong and manly voice of reason- the utima ration regum, paradoxial as it may seem, is here the only remedy – and America must be BEATEN INTO SUBMISSION! The law of nations have been always the law of the strongest – England is, therefore the DICTATOR of the maritime laws of the civilized world, and long may she retain her superiority! “ London Evening Star, September 1813.”

That is great.

[Jimbuna]

Surely you were capable of taking a joke back then

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Surely you were capable of taking a joke back then

It must have been the manly voice that scared them.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

It must have been the manly voice that scared them.

'Manly'....I thought they mostly wore wigs in those days

[Rockstar]

I was rumaging around our files the other day and ran across an original print of the Baltimore Patriot & Evening Advertiser by Munroe & French No. 29 South Cavert Street Baltimore, MD. Dated Wednesday evening May 4th 1814; Number 105 (I scanned a section below)

Front page news was ho hum reporting, plays at the local theatre, runaway slaves, opium sales, rooms for rent and other goods and services. Then on page two an article titled 'The Enemy' .

It's wierd when you see the paper from front to back yourself, nothing like today hype and sensation. It's all business as usual, then buried with everything else an article, oh ya by the way the British are building a fort in our backyard.

Even more amazing I thought is the top article under 'The Enemy' was of British sailors and marines stealing some sheep took precedence over the story of a fort being built and George Cockburn's 74 gun flagship HMS Albion now in the area giving support.




Next up Francis Scott Keys poem. There is a portion of it which alludes to his ill will towards the Corps of Colonial Marines later known as 'Merikens'.

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The slaves referred to in the anthem were the Colonial Marines. These men escaped slavery and took up arms in alliance with the British during the War of 1812. In August of 1814 they were the ones who burned Baltimore and Washington including the White House. Which might give reason why they got a special mention in the poem.