Last visited: 4/2023
We stayed at Wyndham National Harbor (about 50 mins from location)
Despite living so close to Baltimore, I had never visited Fort McHenry. What makes this so cool? It is the location where the Star Spangled Banner poem was written by Francis Scott Key as he was being held captive on a British ship. The enormity of this battle is hard to comprehend, but it was said by the British that they would only consider defeat when the American flag had been lowered over the garrison. As we all know, the fighting continued through the night, with that flag pole and flag being the target of every British bomb explosion, but it just didn't seem to fall. The next morning, after twenty-five hours of bombardment Key saw that the flag was still flying. The flag pole was at an odd angle, but the flag was still flying. Having gone ashore, Key hurried to the fort. There he saw the bodies of dead patriots surrounding the flag pole and holding it up. No number of dead is given, but these bodies were holding up a ninety foot flagpole with a 40 foot by 32 foot flag at the top. The number of dead had to be enormous. As one man fell, another went to take his place knowing full well what that he would be placing himself at ground zero for bombardment, but also what letting the flag pole fall meant to our country. To really piss the British off as they retreated, those inside the garrison lowered the "smaller" storm flag (around 17 feet) down and replaced it with the garrison flag (30x42 feet) just to rub salt into the wound.

For as high a volume of visitors (and school children!) that come to see Fort McHenry, the grounds and visitors center are well maintained and very clean. The souvenir shop has a lot of stuff for small kids to take home at reasonable prices.


At 10 am every morning, you can participate in the flag raising ceremony. Ft McHenry was the first site to receive a presidential proclamation that it fly a flag over it 24/7. This is the large garrison flag at 30x42 feet, and is the size of the one that was flown over the fort during the British retreat

Once unfurled, several kindergartners on a field trip started to recite the Pledge once the flag was raised. Leave it to the children to show the best in us.


Visiting in the spring allows you to experience the cherry blossoms. This tree, however, is not of the same variety as the ones gifted to us by the Japanese and which surround the reflecting pool in DC

The visitors center and small exhibitions inside the fort have nice displays ranging from daily life to life after the war. Fort McHenry was one of the first places to conduct reconstructive surgery as seen in the models of broken jaws below

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