James Madison, Part 4

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2004-2-4

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VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English.

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As we reported in the last program, British forces attacked
Washington in the summer of Eighteen-Fourteen. They burned the
Capitol building, the White House, and other public buildings before
withdrawing to their ships in the Chesapeake Bay.

British General Robert Ross and Admiral Sir George Cockburn led
the attack on Washington. They planned next to attack Baltimore. But
the people of Baltimore expected the attack, and began to prepare
for it. Fifty-thousand of them built defenses around the city.

The port of Baltimore was protected by Fort McHenry. The guns and
cannon of the fort could prevent British ships from reaching the
city.

VOICE TWO:

The British began with a land attack against Baltimore. General
Ross, Admiral Cockburn, and about four-thousand British soldiers
landed at North Point, a finger of land reaching into the Chesapeake
Bay.

From North Point, it was a march of about twenty-two kilometers
to Baltimore. The march began about seven in the morning. General
Ross and Admiral Cockburn stopped their men after an hour. The two
commanders and several of their officers rode to a nearby farmhouse
and forced the family living there to give them breakfast.

When the British officers had finished eating, the farmer asked
General Ross where the British were going. "To Baltimore," answered
Ross. The farmer told Ross that he might have some difficulty
getting there, because of the city's strong defenses. "I will eat
supper in Baltimore...or in hell," answered the British general.

VOICE ONE:

Ross and Cockburn moved far in front of the British forces. A
group of several hundred Americans opened fire on the British
officers. Ross was hit and died soon afterwards.

The Americans retreated, but slowed the progress of the British
soldiers. It was late the next day before the British force arrived
to face the army of Americans near Baltimore. The Americans were on
high ground and had about one-hundred cannon to fire down on the
British. The British commander ordered his men to rest for the
night. He sent a message to the British warships to attack the city
with guns and mortars. Such an attack, he felt, might cause the
Americans to fall back. But the British ships already had been
firing since early morning at Fort McHenry. The British guns were
more powerful than those of the fort. This let the ships fire from
so far away that the American guns could not hit them.

Shells and bombs from British
mortars fell like rain over Fort McHenry. But few Americans in the
fort were hurt or killed. Most of the rockets and shells exploded in
the air or missed. Many of them failed to explode.

VOICE TWO:

On a tall staff from the center of the fort flew a large American
flag. The flag could be seen by the soldiers defending the city and
by the British warships. The flag also was seen by a young American.
His name was Francis Scott Key.

Key was a lawyer who once had thought of giving his life to
religious work. He was a poet and writer. Key opposed war. But he
loved his country and joined the army in Washington to help defend
it.

When the British withdrew from Washington, they took with them an
American doctor, Wiliam Beanes. Key knew Beanes. And he asked
President Madison to request the British commander to release the
doctor. President Madison wrote such a request, and Key agreed to
carry it to Admiral Cockburn. Key also carried letters from wounded
British soldiers in American hospitals. In one of the letters, a
British soldier told of the excellent medical care he was being
given.

Cockburn agreed to free the doctor after he read the reports of
good medical care given his wounded men. But Cockburn would not
permit Key, the doctor, or a man who came with Key to return to land
until after the attack.

VOICE ONE:

Francis Scott Key watched as the shells and rockets began to fall
on Fort McHenry.

"I saw the flag of my country," Key said later,

"waving over a city -- the
strength and pride of my native state. I watched the enemy prepare
for his assault. I heard the sound of battle. The noise of the
conflict fell upon my listening ear. It told me that the `brave and
the free' had met the invaders."

All through the rainy day, the attack continued. Doctor Beanes,
watching with Key, had difficulty seeing the flag. He kept asking
Key if the "stars and stripes" still flew above the fort. Until
dark, Key could still see it. After then, he could only hope.

VOICE TWO:

Britain tried to land another force of men near the fort. But the
Americans heard the boats and fired at them. The landing failed.
Shells and rockets continued to rain down on Fort McHenry. At times,
the fort's cannon answered. And Key knew the Americans had not
surrendered.

The British land force east of Baltimore spent most of the night
trying to keep dry. Commanders could not decide if they should
attack or retreat. Finally, orders came from the admiral: "Withdraw
to your ships." A land attack against Baltimore's defenses would not
be attempted.

At first light of morning, British shells were still bursting in
the air over the fort. The flag had holes in it from the British
shells. But it still flew. The British shelling stopped at seven
o'clock. Key took an old letter from his pocket and wrote a poem
about what he had seen.

VOICE ONE:

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 rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof
through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

For more than one-hundred years, Americans sang this song and
remembered the attack at Fort McHenry. In Nineteen-Thirty-One,
Congress made the "Star-Spangled Banner" the national anthem of the
United States.

VOICE TWO:

The unsuccessful British attack on Baltimore was followed by news
that Britain also had suffered a defeat to the north.

British General Sir George Prevost led eleven-thousand soldiers
south from Montreal to New York. At Plattsburgh, on the western
shore of Lake Champlain, his army was opposed by less than
four-thousand Americans. General Prevost believed he should get
control of the lake before moving against the American defenders.

He requested the support of four British ships and about ten
gunboats. A group of American ships of about the same size also
entered the lake. In a fierce battle, the American naval force sank
the British ships. The large land army of Prevost decided not to
attack without naval support. The eleven-thousand British soldiers
turned around and marched back to Montreal.

VOICE ONE:

By the time these battles of Eighteen-Fourteen had been fought,
the two sides already had agreed to discuss peace. The peace talks
began in the summer at Ghent, in Belgium.

The British at first were in no hurry to sign a peace treaty.
They believed that their forces would be able to capture parts of
the United States.

Britain demanded as a condition for peace that the United States
give large areas of its northwest to the Indians. It also said
America must give Canada other areas along the border. And Britain
would not promise to stop seizing American seamen and putting them
in the British navy.

But British policy at the peace talks changed after the battles
of Baltimore and Plattsburgh. That will be our story next week.

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VOICE TWO:

You have been listening to the Special English program, THE
MAKING OF A NATION. Your narrators were Harry Monroe and Maurice
Joyce. Our program was written by Frank Beardsley. THE MAKING OF A
NATION can be heard Thursdays.