Defenders Day is a longtime legal holiday on September 12, in the U.S. state of Maryland, in the City of Baltimore and surrounding Baltimore County. It commemorates the successful defense of the city of Baltimore on September 12-13-14, 1814 from an invading British force during the War of 1812, an event which led to the writing of a poem, which when set to music a few days later, became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner", which in 1931 was designated as the national anthem of the United States.
Origin In September 1814, following the burning of Washington three weeks earlier, a British military force of King's Army commanded by Major General Robert Ross, (1766-1814), landed at North Point (near present-day Fort Howard, Maryland) on the Patapsco Neck peninsula in southeastern Baltimore County and began an advance on the city from the southeast. They were met almost immediately by advance scouts and skirmishers ahead of a detachment from the Baltimore City Third Brigade of the Maryland state militia commanded by Brigadier General John Stricker, (1759-1825), commencing the Battle of North Point. Major General Samuel Smith, (1752-1839), of the Maryland Militia was in overall command of the city's defenses and had sent Stricker forward to probe and slow up the enemy, who just happened to be falling into a trap, facing a series of pre-planned defensive lines dug over the previous year, landing precisely where Smith had expected them to be. After the bloodying and stalwart defense of six regiments, the Americans slowly withdrew back towards town, with the resulting halt of the larger British force to lick their wounds and tend to casualties overnight. This also allowed Baltimore to further organize its eastern dug-in fortifications on Loudenschlager's, Potter's Hills (modern site of Patterson Park) and harbor defenses against a later bombardment and attempted naval barge invasion. It was during this conflict, the Battle of Baltimore, that Fort McHenry was shelled by the British Royal Navy's revolutionary newly constructed bomb and mortar ketches warships. Although the attacking fleet stayed out of the shorter range of McHenry's artillery, the Americans refused to surrender, and inspired Maryland lawyer and amateur poet from Frederick named Francis Scott Key, (1779-1843), after witnessing the two days' attack with two companions from an American truce ship anchored and guarded along the sidelines of the enemy fleet. Key composed a four stanza poem entitled "The Defence of Fort McHenry" to what later became "The Star-Spangled Banner", when set a few days later to a musical tune popular with an old English gentlemen's society from the 18th century. It gained increasing popularity over the next 117 years, accepted by American armed forces bands by the 1890s and eventually proclaimed the national anthem of the United States by act of Congress, signed by the President, Herbert Hoover in 1931.
History
Early years Commemorations of the day of the victory, centering on Stricker's stand east of the city, began in the years shortly after the War. During the mid-19th century, Marylanders picnicked on the battlefield grounds, and later celebrations involved the entire city of Baltimore, with parades and speeches.
Initially, the commemoration of Defenders Day was divided between the two sites; one focusing on the Battle of North Point and the other on "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the bombardment of Fort McHenry. The development of the holiday followed the evolution of the local state militia units. The first phase was the transition from the involuntary militia system that existed prior to the War of 1812 to the Voluntary militia system that emerged during the war period itself. The second phase was the development of the Voluntary Militia into the local parochial political-militia-business alliance that peaked with dominance of the Know Nothing (American Party) with its third party politics just prior to the American Civil War. The third was the transition from parochial patriotism to national patriotism during the Civil War. Finally in the fourth phase, after the Civil War, the local militia disappeared (later reorganized into state National Guard with divided state and Federal authority / command structure by the 1880s) and the local parochial patriotic military units traditions were largely forgotten or replaced with new national patriotic ideas and traditions.
In the first phase the local militia viewed the national government as allies. During the second the parochial political-militia-business alliance viewed the national government with increasing hostility, as expressed by the Maryland state anthem "Maryland, My Maryland", written after civil strife ("Pratt Street Riots") on Baltimore streets at the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861. During the second phase, the myth and lore of Defender's Day were used to support parochial Nativism (politics). In the third phase the parochial nationalism and nativism of the pre-Civil War militia disappeared since those groups had moved to South Carolina or later Virginia to enlist and join individually or the Maryland southerner regiments in the Confederate States Army. In the fourth phase, nativism returned with the former Confederate veterans and after a struggle between the militias, formed from the Union veterans and their rival militias formed from Confederate veterans, the post Civil War militias were replaced by the creation of the Maryland National Guard. The replacement of the state militias by the National Guard also produced a replacement of the politics and cultural traditions that supported the militias. Hence, the commemoration of the Battle of North Point declined in favor of the celebration of "The Star-Spangled Banner".
The North Point celebrations focused on local parochial politics. These celebrations centered on the "Old Defenders" (the veterans of the Battle of North Point). The celebrations emphasized how the "Defenders" had stood against the British invader after the federal government had failed and Washington was burned. The Fort McHenry celebrations focused on the image of the federal fortifications providing the bastion that saved the nation.
While the "Old Defenders" survived, the commemorations of Defenders Day revolved around them and the early local Baltimore veterans organizations formed which soon led and participated in national 1812 War societies. Following the War of 1812, many of the "Old Defenders" had become civic leaders in Baltimore. The traditional program while the "Old Defenders" survived was for "Defenders' Day" programs that started with a rally and speeches at Baltimore's Battle Monument, the landmark memorial in the former colonial era courthouse square along North Calvert Street, between East Lexington and East Fayette Streets. Following the speeches, the militia units marched from the Battle Monument either out on Eastern Avenue then south on old North Point Road into the county to the battlefield at North Point or took a steamship excursion from "The Basin" (today's Inner Harbor) of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River downriver and up Bear Creek. At North Point, the militia units participated in a sham battle, and then march to the former Loudenschlager's Hill (now Hampstead Hill, in what is now Patterson Park in the Highlandtown-Canton communities of East Baltimore). Hampstead Hill was the location of the final redoubts that stopped the British advance on the city. The march and the sham battle were intended to replicate the events of the Battle of North Point and the troop movements to and from there. One of the unfortunate results of this schedule for the commemoration of "Defenders' Day" was that more militia died from heat stroke and exhaustion, from the march to and from the old battlefield, and the occasional musket ball fired during the sham battle at the battlefield, than died during the actual battle. The commemoration in 1822 proved to be exceptionally lethal. An unusually hot September and dress parade heavy wool uniforms produced a significant loss due to heat stroke, resulting in a one-year break in the program.
The occasional musket balls fired during the sham battle produced additional fatalities. In the years following one notable fatality, a new tradition appeared in Baltimore's daily newspapers that lasted until the Civil War; just prior to "Defenders' Day" perennial advertisements appeared in the Baltimore newspapers stating: "now available - blank ammunition.".
Prior to the Civil War, the "Defenders' Day" speeches held that the Battle of Baltimore to be the most noble battle in U.S. military history. The Battle of Baltimore was entirely defensive and was fought by the citizens themselves. Notable examples are the speeches given by One of the "Old Defender's" Nathaniel Williams on September 12, 1857. A monument, a play, and ballads to the two soldiers credited with killing Major General Robert Ross, Pvts. Daniel Wells, such as "The Boy Martyrs of Sept. 12, 1814: A Local Historical Drama", were typical of this period. Today, numerous monuments to the War of 1812 remain throughout "The Monumental City" (the designation of Baltimore as "The Monumental City" was made by sixth President John Quincy Adams in 1827, during a toast at a civic banquet).
In 1854, a committee gathered on the fortieth anniversary with the notion of erecting a monument to Wells and McComas. On September 10, 1858, after securing and investing the funds for the project, the bodies of the teen militiamen were exhumed and placed in the old Maryland Institute (then located above Centre Market - or "Marsh Market" on East Baltimore Street at the west bank of the Jones Falls in Market Place). Thousands of people visited the coffins during the three days leading up to September 12, the anniversary of the Battle of North Point, when the official cornerstone for the memorial was laid. On that day, the bodies of Wells and McComas were paraded to Ashland Square, (near the intersection of North Gay, Monument, and Aisquith Streets in East Baltimore), the site of interment, and placed below the obelisk's foundation in ceremonial fashion.
The Wells and McComas Monument is currently used as the emblem on the embroidered shoulder patches on the uniforms of sheriff deputies for the surrounding rural (now suburban) Baltimore County Sheriff's Office.
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