The Rockets Red Glare
by Allen W. McDonnell

Having arrived with another negotiator under a flag of Truce
Mr. Key succeeded in getting the prisoner released, but fearing that the three men knew their plan of attack for the next day the British kept all three under arrest aboard the ship until after the Battle of Ft. McHenry. Sailing close to the fort the British used the super weapon of the 1800's, the Congreve rocket with Shrapnel bomb attached.

The British were fortunate that these two men, Lt. Henry Shrapnel and inventor William Congreve were born in England and loyal to the crown. Lt. Shrapnel invented his artillery shell in 1784. It was adopted by the British in 1803. A shrapnel shell is designed to explode while still in the air over the enemy's head's raining down sharp pieces of metal on them. These shells were especially effective in a day and age when antiseptics were unknown and even minor wounds often lead to infection and death. It wasn't until WW I a century after the War of 1812 that military forces routinely equipped their soldiers with helmets to protect them from shrapnel raining down upon them.

The shell adopted by the British in 1803 was designed to be fired from a cannon but as luck would have it another inventive Englishman, William Congreve heard about the shell and adopted it for his project. At about the time the shrapnel shell was adopted by the British artillery Corp the British army in India was fighting a war against the natives. During that conflict the Indian army used simple Rockets to bombard the British and set their army to panicking. William Congreve was intrigued by the reports of these Indian Rocket attacks and set out to equip his own countrymen with weapons to match them in battle. The Congreve rocket was the result. A Congreve rocket looks to the modern eye like a common bottle rocket used for 4th of July fireworks grown up. These Congreve rockets were built on 6 foot long poles and were fired from a light weight tripod, allowing them to be carried quickly to the front area of a battle field and fired at the enemy, or to be carried on a ship. Given that the common soldier of the 1600's was equipped with a black powder musket with a range of 75 to 100 yards a rocket that could fly 600 yards and explode over the enemy's heads was a deadly threat. Congreve rockets used Black gunpowder as both the fuel to fly and the explosive to send Shrapnel downwards. During the seige of Ft. McHenry the rockets flying from the decks of the British ships lit up the sky with their red exhaust and exploded about 100 feet over the heads of the American's holding the Fort. The bright explosions of these shrapnel bombs would throw a bright yellow glow across the fort when the exploded lighting up the Fort and showing the British that they were hitting the target.

This is why Francis Scott Key wrote his famous poem
which became the National Anthem of the United States thusly;

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,
Over the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the Rockets 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,
Over the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

The 50 foot long flag with 15 stars and 15 stripes that inspired Francis Scott Key has been preserved in Washington D.C. and to this day draws thousands of tourists every year. The 15 stars and stripes flag is the only US flag that had more than 13 stripes for the 13 colony'' that signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Smithsonian Web Site
for Preservation of the Star-Spangled banner
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This American Flag can be made by anyone in your family, even the two year old!   This simple yet beautiful symbol of the United States can be proudly displayed on your front lawn or as a festive table decoration.   As you make the flag you can tell your child the story of how the flag came to be, why there are 13 stripes, and why there are 50 stars.

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"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homeschooling"
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Marsha Ransom, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homeschooling, is the mother of four children, two of whom have always been homeschooled. She serves as a homeschool resource for her local library and writes articles for Home Education Magazine, The Link: A Homeschool Newspaper, Women's International Net, and Homeschool Dad Magazine. In this interview on the Zone, Marsha discusses how she came to write this book, developing your program, homeschooling on a budget, what is happening with her homeschooled children, her future plans and a FREE excerpt which tells you how to set up a homeschool cooperative.

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