the bombing of baltimore's ft. mchenry. the flying of the flag after the barrage inspired francis scott key to write the words that later became our national anthem. good morning, i am jennifer jones and the chair of the armed forces history division here at the american history museum division. >> i'm suzanne thomassen-krauss, text tile conservative of american history. >> we are going to take you on a small tour today. please come join us. one of the things people don't always recognize is that during the war of 1812 it was fought from 1812 until after 1814, early 1815. it was really about america re-established its independence against the british. >> in 1814 the city of washington was attacked and burned. it was mostly the federal buildings that were burned and also the newspapers. anything exporting the separation of the united states from britain. it said you could actually see the fires in washington from the city of baltimore. this is one of our really iconic pieces in the checks. it's a piece of the timber from the white house. you can see the charring on it. the troops left washington. there was a two-pronged attack on the city of baltimore. one was the land group coming up from washington, then there was the naval engagement coming up the chesapeake. what happened along the way is major ross who was commanding the land forces was killed. that actually kept the land forces from landing in baltimore, but the sea attack happened. >> one of the things we like to remind our visitors of is that british were still fighting in europe. they were fighting napoleon and they needed extra men. one of the things that was happening during the war of 1812 that excited the americans to rise up against the british were american naval seamen were being captured and pressed into british naval service. a lot of those naval seamen were out of the baltimore harbor area. it was a major port of industry and export. when the british did capture and burn washington, they really wanted to set an example for all of america. not only were they burning our capital and our national buildings, but they wanted to put a stop to all americans thinking they could push back against the british. that's one of the reasons why baltimore was the center of where this battle would happen after washington. >> one of the british advantages in the battle of baltimore was the congary rocket. they had a longer range than the cannons. the cannons at the fort only had a range of about a mile. it wasn't accurate but terrifying when they were landing over you. >> when we thought about doing this exhibition, one of the things we wanted people to understand was some of the bombardment. what was a bombardment? so we weren't even sure at the time when we did the exhibition that we had a rocket in our collection. we did a search through our records and found that we did have one, but it was without the pole, in fact. so we had to make sure that it looked like what it would have looked like at the time of the war, so we added the pole. so that is an added piece. but the rocket itself is actually from that period. it doesn't look very foreboding, but when you hear it. we've recently been able to hear someone actually launch a congary rocket as a reenactment. they are frightening. it was a psychological rocket that could go very far. you could see the trajectory. you could see the flare as it traveled across the sky. you can imagine being at the fortification where these things were coming in and you're not very well protected except behind a wall. >> this is one of the british bombshells, basically an empty vessel filled with black powder and a fuse that would explode. there is a story that one of these bombs actually landed in t the pattern magazine at ft. mchenry and fortunately it did not explode or we would have a different story to tell today. they estimate between 1,500 and 1800 shells landed on the fort. there is an account by a soldier who says they were like pigeons tied at the ankle just waiting to be shot. there was nothing they could do. the british ships were outside the range of their guns. they just had to wait until the shelling was over. >> here we have a piece of shrapnel we are allowing our visitors to touch so you can see the thickness of the metal that would have exploded when the piece would have hit into the ft.ification itself. >> francis scott key was being held by the british. he had gone to negotiate the release of dr. beans, a mayor of a local town. the british troops that come into the town when they are passing up towards baltimore from washington, as usually happens there were a few stragglers that stayed behind after the main troop left. they were a little bit rowdy and they got arrested. because beans promised neutrality to the british, they were offended that these soldiers were arrested and seized beans for violating the neutrality. the u.s. government hired francis scott key, a georgetown lawyer, to negotiate his release. he went out to meet the british troops to try arrange this release of dr. beans. while he was out there he saw the preparations being made for the attack on baltimore. because he saw the preparations, he wasn't allowed to leave. that's why he was on the ship all through the engagement just waiting to see what the outcome of the battle would be. >> on the morning of september 14th, francis scott key, the battle had ensued, he was waiting to see from the fog and the smoke, to see whether or not the fort survived the bombardment and who was in charge. remember, the land troops were coming. even though they were stalled and didn't have a commander, there was a two-pronged approach. did the fort fall to the british or was the american going to secure a victory? so by the dawn's early light, as francis scott key wrote, he was able to use a spyglass such as this to then peer over the water to see what flag would have been raised over the fort. at that time he saw the star-spangled banner or the garrison flag being raised in victory, that they actually survived the bombardment. so at that time he felt so moved to pen the beginnings of the words of a poem that he had a drinking tune in his mind that would allow him to make the rhymes. as a lawyer, he was a very eloquent writer, but he was also known as a poet. he wrote those words to the song and it became our national anthem not until 1931, but was being sung much earlier throughout the 19th century. >> we are now standing in front of the specially designed chamber to house the star-spangled banner. the decision was made to always keep the flag available for any american citizen to see when they visited the museum. so we had to create a special chamber. you'll notice that it's very dark in here. that's because we keep the flag at about one foot candle. that allows us to keep it on permanent exhibition without doing substantial damage to the flag from the light. when we did an extensive research project, we found light was doing the most damage to the flag. that was our focus creating a new exhibition space. we have the chamber tightly controlled at a low humidity and oxygen level to extend the life of the flag. there is a hoist on the flag. it's unusual for this area of the flag to survive. this is the part that was attached to the flagpole. the flagpole at ft. mchenry was about 90 feet high. there is still a subterranean part still buried at the fort. the fly end of the flag is damaged because of the amount of wind damage that gets done to that area. that last inch gets bent back and forth. that's what you hear snapping in the wind, equivalent to the crack with a bullwhip. a lot of damage happens there. it starts splitting up along the seams. there is one area in the flag, however, probably isn't related to use. if you look in the blue area, you'll see a slit that goes down into a white stripe. scott sheets, a historian at ft. mchenry found a single line note in a journalist diary that said, "shell passed through flag at ft. mchenry." it's dated september 12, 1814. we think this is when the british were actually trying to get the range of their guns. that is probably the battle damage we see in the flag other than of course all the damage from the exploded ordinance. we see a lot of care given to the flag over the years. there's 165 areas mended. we can tell they were done by different people because of the different skill levels. there's 37 patches in the flag. four were not from the flag but other areas may have been patched with remnants from the flag. we also see holes that have been cut in the flag as mementos were presented to people who had done service to the united states. the first piece we know that was removed from the flag was actually given to the widow of one of the soldiers that fought during the battle of baltimore. when her husband died four years after the battle, she was given a piece to bury with her husband. the practice continued until the 1880s. we estimate over time we lost about 20% of the flag. we've also gotten about 14 of those fragments back into the collections. >> one of the things that people don't know about the star-spangled banner, it was originally a 15-star, 15-stripe flag. each star represented a new state and they would add a stripe, as well. the practice continued up until about 1820, wasn't it? 1819? >> 1818, i think. >> 1818? and so people were like, what do you mean 15 stripes and 15 stars? in fact, there are only 14 stars left on this flag. one of the stars was cut away. we don't know where that one is. we believe it was souvenired. my supposition, not based on historical fact but as suzanne said there was a story about a piece being cut away for one of the defenders and put into his grave with him. so i believe that the star probably was cut away for maybe a major or an officer, one of the defenders, and it was actually given to the family and it was laid to rest with the defender in his grave. we have been able to secure some of the souvenirs through donations, as well as we did buy a piece at auction. we are always interested in knowing about who has pieces of the star-spangled banner. >> we began the conservation project in 1998 when we took the flag down from where it was hanging in flag hall. the wall behind us is the location of the wall where the flag was hanging all those years. we moved it into a specially designed conservation area, where people worked mostly on their stomachs until 2007, attaching the flag to a new support so it could be put back on exhibition. it's too fragile to hang the way it used to in flag hall. that's why this new chamber was built. but once we moved it into the chamber, we knew we would have to continue maintaining the flag and examining the flag. recently, we entered the chamber. jennifer and i spent two days looking at every square inch of the flag to see how it was aging, to see if there had been any changes since we put it in the chamber in 2008. we are happy to report it hasn't been. >> the flag's been very happy in the low-oxygen chamber with temperature control and low humidity in place. part of the design where the flag lays is a large table. when you see it on exhibition, the flag is actually at a ten degree angle. when we looked at the flag we had to crank the flag into a low position so that the table would become flat. there are no mechanical pieces in there. it is something you have to hand crank down. we had never done it before. when we got into the chamber, we had to suit up into our tyvek suits. that's one of the things we require so that we don't bring in outside dirt and debris into the chamber. we don't want to introduce outside and foreign materials into the flag itself. so that there are no pests and things like that or little bugs to eat things on us. because we keep the chamber in a low oxygen state, it's hard to work in there. we did bring the oxygen level up a bit so we could work in there for longer periods of time. that was also new. we just, because we hadn't worked in the space for long periods of time, we didn't have to do that kind of thing before. this was testing all of our systems. not only was it testing the table to see how long it would take for us to manually crank it into a flat position which took about an hour and a half and a lot of sweat, but it also, we also have a gantry. by that, it's like a moving walkway that slides out. we have to push out over the flag. then there are a crank system which suzanne and i were on top of the gantry and had to crank it forward in small increments. so it's a lot of work to do the examination. we spent two days in there and we were happy to report that all of the flag looked to be in wonderful condition. it seemed to be very happy in its chamber. it has relaxed from all the stitches that were taken out of it over the period of the conservation project. suzanne, how many stitches did you have to take out? >> we estimate, amelia fowler when she first preserved the flag for the smithsonian in 1914 put about 1.47 million stitches in it. each had to be clipped one at a time and removed from the flag. we had a structural engineer discuss how many stitches were necessary. he thought maybe one in 1,000 were necessary. today there's a lot less stitching on the flag, which lets you appreciate what's left on the flag in much greater detail. there's been 200 years of caring for this flag since it was first made in 1813. all of that shows on the surface of the flag. >> it was a truly unique experience while we were conserving the flag because it was on public view the whole time. is ve visitors were invited to come watch us work. it was a gratifying experience. almost everybody who came to the experience did want to see us working on the flag. there were a lot of heart-warming moments on the way. one day a family of three generations came in. the older gentleman looked to be about a world war ii generation age. as we were working, we all looked up and he saluted us. those are the kinds of things when your back is aching and your knees are aching and you think you can't remove one more stitch you know you can do it because of the appreciation of the american public for the work you do. we are standing in front of a projection table that actually shows the full size image of the flag. this was designed so people could really examine the flag up close and see the changes that have happened to the flag and also the conservation work that was done on the flag to preserve it. you'll notice there's some black disks on the surface. those are hot spots. so if you put your hand on them, you'll call up extra information. there's 150 different areas of extra information about the flag, talking about the conservation process, the history of the flag, the changes that happened to the flag over time. because this image moves on the table, we orient people with a little square that shows you where you are actually looking at on the flag. it's one of the ways of allowing people to see the flag in more detail than we can allow because of the low light conditions in the chamber. >> we're standing in front of a section of the exhibit that talks about making the flag. at the time, a lot of the flag makers were women. mary pickerskill was a second generation flag maker. her mother was rebecca young. rebecca young made flags for george washington. what you see also is a display of the typical tools at the time that would have been used for making the flag. we include a little disk of pins. pins we are extremely expensive item at the time. actually would have been a very precious gift if a beau was giving it to his girlfriend. we also have a graphic behind me that shows the size of the star-spangled banner when it was made and the size of the footprint of mary pickerskill's house. it was a small house. the flag was bigger than the house. all those wonderful paintings of women sitting with 40-foot flags in their laps making the flag didn't happen that way. the flag actually had to be taken over to clagget's brewery and they were able to lay the flag flat. it was probably made in three sections then pieced together. mary worked on the flag. the commission was given to her. her daughter caroline purdy worked on the flag. she had two nieces helping and an indentured servant working in the house who was in service to learn how to sew and we believe she was also working on the flag. we don't know if rebecca young was working on the flag, but we assume she was probably providing guidance to her daughter on this very important commission. the flag was made in 1813 in baltimore. at the time, baltimore was already under a blockade. it was very hard to get materials. when you look at the flag, you can see the number of seams that are in each of the stripes. you can see the number of piecings that were done to the stars to create enough fabric to be able to create this enormous size flag. >> when mary pickersgill received this commission she was paid $405 for this flag. that is a massive amount of money for anyone in 1813. so the amount of money also helped her purchase much of the wool that needed to come to be made for this flag. most of the wool came from britain, i believe. so you have to think about, okay, we're using british wool for an american flag, yet we are blockaded by the british and we are at war with britain. >> there is an aside of mary pickersgill. she was a much younger woman when she made the flag, but the photo image we have behind us is a sketch hanging in the pickersgill home in baltimore. she wasn't just a flag maker and confident businesswoman, we was a philanthropist. she set up a home for women. economists have estimated that mary pickersgill house probably cost $1,500. she was paid 1/3 of the cost of her house for making one flag. >> george armistead was commander of the post. when george armistead came to the fort he wanted a very large flag to show it was an army posting. you see a punch bowl set that has a dedication from the grateful citizens of baltimore. >> his daughter georgiana inherited the flag. s she was one of the guardians of this flag. without the family understanding and valuing this flag so much, even though they souvenired it, they would cut pieces off, they cared for it greatly. so without the family having valued it so dearly, it may not exist today. >> the next image we have here is the first photograph we actually have of the flag. in 187 oz, admiral prebel was writing a history on the book of the united states flag. in the earlier version he said no one knew where the star-spangled banner was. georgiana said i do because i have it. he took this photo. his original intent was to be able to stitch it from canvas and fly it from a flagpole the way it flew from ft. mchenry. you see how seriously damaged the flag was even in the 1870s. appleton was a man who doed k e donated the flag to the smithsonian. evan was a bit of a recluse and had people pestering him to borrow the flag for all kinds of occasions. at one point citizens from baltimore were supposed to have come up from new york to visit him and ask for the flag. he said no. they adjourned. they adjourned to the nearest pub to discuss what to do next. apparently about 2:30 in the morning they had made their decision and the decision was to go back to the house and demand the flag. he didn't take kindly to that. that was one of the things that prompted him to find a new home for the flag. he began talking to the secretary and undersecretary of the smithsonian through one of his friends. that's when the decision was made to send the flag to the smithsonian in 1908. in 1912, after all the plans were being made to conserve the flag for the first time using mrs. fowler's method, he decided he should make it a gift to the nation. >> we talked earlier about how the appleton, the armistead family, the appleton family and prebel would souvenir parts of the flag. this is one of those pieces. we count this as three fragments because there is a fragment of red, white and blue. they have been stitched together, but we want people to be able to get a little bit closer to the actual object, and this is one way we can offer them to look at the fragility of the material and to see the loose weave of the flag. >> what you see in the case here is canvas duffel. it was probably a typical duffel bag. it belonged to georgiana armistead appleton. it would have been put into a foot locker. >> as we move down the exhibition, we show a history of the exhibition of the flag from different time periods. you saw the first-ever photograph of the flag from 1873 when george prebel hung it. that was in boston. then you see the first photograph of the smithsonian receiving it in 1907 and hanging it on the outside of the arts and industry building or the smithsonian castle. >> you see the image in 1995 that the flag was made to look whole and restored. there was a whole bottom section that was reconstructed. when the flag was moved into the new exhibition space there was a deliberate decision by the curators not to do that again. what we wanted was that the flag become as metaphor for the country. it's tattered, it's torn but it still survives and the message is survival of the country and the flag, and we are not trying to make it look pretty. we are trying to make it look like it's endured its history and it still can celebrate its history. >> as we move down the exhibition, we try and bring the flag together with our national anthem. most people don't realize this was the actual flag that flew over ft. mchenry and inspired francis scott key to write the words that later became our national anthem. we talk about francis scott key. we have a copy of the manuscript. we talk about how key's anthem or his song became popular in the 19th century as a song of -- became very popular during the civil war and again during the early 1900s, but was not made our national anthem until 1931. you can see a lot of graphics about how the national anthem is something everyone is familiar with. all americans are familiar with it. most people in the world are familiar with america's flag as a symbol, as well as our national anthem. at the end, we talk about the legacy of the star-spangled banner, and how not only is the flag a national treasure, but our song is very important to us as americans. how it has become one of the most significant symbols in american history. what people don't always understand is that the flag that they salute today came, what its origins were and why when we salute that flag and we sing our national anthem, those two have come together in history during the war of 1812. so hopefully when you come to visit the smithsonian or come to see this exhibition, you get a broader understanding of our national history, and the flag that inspired our national anthem. you can watch this or other american artifacts program visiting our website c-span.org/history. next on american history tv, the smithsonian's national museum of american history commemorates flag day and the 200th anniversary of the spar-spangled banner with speeches and a variety of performances. the program ends with simultaneous singing of the national anthem. this event is about an hour and a half. how is everybody doing today, pretty good? i want to welcome you all to your national museum of american history and to anthem for american. my name is xavier. we are celebrating our national and international flag day sing-along for the 200 anniversary of our star-spangled banner. that's right. 200 years ago this year francis scott key wrote

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