As we planned our trip this year, I told my daughter that I wanted to go to Ft. McHenry. She was surprised that we had never been there since it is located on the Baltimore Harbor. I said we had seen it, when we sailed on the harbor, but we had never actually been to the fort. So we made plans to visit the historic site.
Here is a photo of my hubby and me, standing at the entrance to the fort.
Ft. McHenry is famous for a battle in the War of 1812. The battle inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," which became the US National Anthem. At the visitor center we watched a film about the battle and writing of the song. We listened to a ranger talk about the flag that flew over Ft. McHenry. I learned something that I didn't know before. That flag had fifteen stripes instead of the thirteen we know today. There were fifteen stars and fifteen stripes on the flag. They had added stripes when they added stars. Eventually, they came to realize that the flag would look rather bizarre if they continued to add stripes each time they added a star, so they settled on thirteen stripes for the original thirteen colonies. You can learn more about the fort by clicking here.
Here is a photo of the fifteen-stripe flag.
"O'er the ramparts we watched."
Do you have a historic site that you have visited or would like to visit? What has prompted your interest in this site?
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Merrillee Whren is the winner of the 2003 Golden Heart Award presented by Romance Writers of American. She is married to her own
personal hero, her husband of
thirty-five plus years, and has two grown daughters. Connect with
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