Time Surfing: Experience History.
Historical Backdrop
In the summer of 1814, the War of 1812 came home to America. British troops burned Washington on August 24, then turned toward Baltimore, the third-largest city in the United States and a nest of privateers the Royal Navy called “a den of pirates.” Our subject is Francis Scott Key, a 35-year-old Georgetown lawyer, a devout Episcopalian, a slaveholder, and a man who had opposed the war from the start. When the British seized Dr. William Beanes, an elderly physician, Key agreed to help get him back. With John Stuart Skinner, the young American agent for prisoner exchange, Key sailed down the Chesapeake under a white flag and boarded the British flagship. The British freed Beanes — but refused to let the three Americans go, because they had seen the fleet and heard its plans. So on the morning of September 13, 1814, Key found himself a prisoner of circumstance, held aboard a small American truce sloop behind the British battle line, forced to watch the Royal Navy try to obliterate Fort McHenry and open the road into Baltimore.
Date/time and location: Approximately 3:00 a.m., Tuesday, September 13, 1814 — aboard HMS Surprize, 38-gun frigate, anchored at the mouth of the Patapsco River, about fourteen miles below Baltimore
You have not slept. The frigate’s gundeck is a cave of hammocks and snoring men, and the air is thick enough to chew — tar, bilge, wet wool, old sweat, the sour ghost of rum. A lantern swings. Above your head, bare feet slap the planking as the watch changes. You hear the rasp of grindstones on cutlass edges and the squeal of tackle as boats are hoisted out. Somewhere aft, a boatswain’s mate curses in a low voice. Dr. Beanes coughs in the dark beside you, a wet, tearing sound, and you put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. You know what the noise means. The fleet is clearing for action.
Date/time and location: Approximately 5:30 a.m., September 13, 1814 — quarterdeck of HMS Surprize, mouth of the Patapsco
Gray light comes up under a low ceiling of cloud. You stand at the rail with your hat in your hand and count what you can see. Frigates. Brigs. Transports. And forward of them all, five squat, ugly vessels warping upriver on their kedges — bomb ships, each with a great black mortar sunk in its belly. A drummer beats to quarters somewhere astern and the sound rolls flat across the water. The deck under your boots is wet with dew and sand thrown down for grip. A midshipman no older than fourteen brushes past you without a word. The wind smells of rain coming.
Date/time and location: 6:30 a.m., September 13, 1814 — deck of HMS Surprize, about two and a half miles below Fort McHenry
The first mortar fires at half past six. You feel it before you hear it — a punch in the chest, then a deep flat whump that rolls away over the water and comes back off the shoreline. You track the shell up. It’s a black dot climbing into gray cloud, trailing a thin curl of smoke from its burning fuse, slowing at the top of the arc, and then it’s gone. Seconds pass. A long time. Then a white flash and a hard crack away up the river, and a dirty gray blossom of smoke over the fort. Beside you, Skinner takes out his watch and notes the time. You realize your hands are shaking, and you put them behind your back.
Date/time and location: Approximately 8:15 a.m., September 13, 1814 — a ship’s boat between HMS Surprize and the American truce sloop
They put you off the frigate. A lieutenant tells you politely that you will be returned to your own vessel and that a guard will remain aboard her. Beanes cannot manage the side ladder, so two seamen lower him in a bosun’s chair like a sack of meal, and he grips the ropes with white knuckles. The barge rides low. Spray comes over the bow and soaks your pantaloons cold. Eight oarsmen pull in silence, and the guns keep going behind you, a slow heartbeat every minute or so. One of the oarsmen looks at you and grins with brown teeth. You look away and watch the water.
Date/time and location: Approximately 10:00 a.m., September 13, 1814 — deck of the American flag-of-truce sloop, anchored astern of the British bombardment line
Your own little sloop feels like home and like a cage. Two Royal Marines stand at the mast with muskets, and a master’s mate has the deck. You may walk the vessel. You may not signal, and you may not leave. You get out the spyglass and brace your elbows on the rail and find the fort. It sits low and dark, a five-pointed brick star with a wet flag hanging heavy at the staff. Around it the water is torn white by falling shells. You swing back to watch the fleet. Beanes plucks your sleeve every few minutes. His eyes are too weak to see anything. Is it still there? he asks. Is it standing? You tell him yes, and yes.
Date/time and location: Approximately 1:30 p.m., September 13, 1814 — deck of the truce sloop, in rain
