The Glenn Beck Program - June 27, 2026


The War of 1812： From Ashes to Anthem ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 12


Episode Stats


Length

50 minutes

Words per minute

142.19

Word count

7,219

Sentence count

599

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

21

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 It's August, 1814.
00:00:04.180 The air in Washington is heavy with humidity and dread.
00:00:08.820 British troops are in Maryland, closing in a rapidly tightening noose around the young nation's capital.
00:00:15.380 The city, it's a sitting dock, half-built, barely defended.
00:00:19.880 Amid the growing frenzy of activity, one unassuming hero emerges.
00:00:24.940 Stephen Pleasanton, a senior clerk in the State Department.
00:00:29.660 He's just a guy with a desk job, racing against time to save America's indispensable, most
00:00:35.360 priceless possessions, the fragile papers that form the blueprints of our nation.
00:00:40.920 So Stephen Pleasanton springs into action.
00:00:44.380 He dashes out and buys bolts of sturdy linen.
00:00:48.400 Back at the office, he and his fellow clerks grab scissors and just start cutting.
00:00:52.480 They stitch the fabric into makeshift book bags.
00:00:55.840 Then they open the drawers in the cabinets, delicately lifting out the contents.
00:01:01.200 The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, treaties, letters in George Washington's
00:01:06.660 handwriting.
00:01:07.520 These are the original copies, the document DNA of America.
00:01:13.640 Pleasanton meticulously tucks them into bags.
00:01:16.960 There is no margin for error here.
00:01:19.140 There can be zero snags or tears.
00:01:22.020 Yet the clock is ticking.
00:01:23.780 Rumors of redcoats swarm the streets.
00:01:27.100 The bags are quickly loaded onto a makeshift convoy of wagons.
00:01:31.660 Pleasanton leads the charge, escorting them across the Potomac at dusk.
00:01:36.780 They rumble into a grist mill on the Virginia side of Chain Bridge, wheels grinding over rough roads.
00:01:43.820 They unload the bags, and they're about to stash them when Pleasanton learns there is a cannon foundry nearby.
00:01:50.200 He knows it could be a prime target for the British.
00:01:53.260 too risky. He rallies locals and secures more wagons from nearby farms. They reload the precious
00:02:00.140 cargo and push on. The wagons roll another 30 miles west through the darkness. Finally,
00:02:07.020 they spot their new destination. A deserted mansion near Leesburg, Virginia. Inside,
00:02:14.380 down in the basement, is an empty brick vault. As Pleasanton and others rush the documents
00:02:21.020 into the vault. Every noise turns their head. Every rustle in the woods could be
00:02:26.260 an enemy scout. The linen bags are stacked inside the brick chamber.
00:02:32.200 Pleasanton finally closes the heavy door and locks it. He exhales with relief. The
00:02:39.940 heart of America beats on, but now it's cloaked in linen and brick. You know,
00:02:47.020 Sometimes the fate of history hinges on those
00:02:50.020 who just recognize the moment and what is worth saving.
00:02:55.460 He steps back into the stuffy night air and pauses.
00:02:58.620 In the distance, an eerie glow lights the horizon.
00:03:02.640 It's the fire of burning buildings in the nation's capital.
00:03:07.760 Washington is ablaze.
00:03:11.660 This is the American story, The Beginnings,
00:03:15.520 Adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.
00:03:21.360 Episode 12, The War of 1812, From Ashes to Anthem.
00:03:29.420 In 1808, James Madison, that quiet intellectual who had been Thomas Jefferson's right-hand man as Secretary of State,
00:03:37.280 was easily elected as the nation's fourth president.
00:03:40.820 But right from the start, Madison inherited a massive headache.
00:03:45.360 Britain and France were locked in their latest war, and neither respected America's neutrality.
00:03:51.460 They intercepted U.S. ships, seizing cargo and disrupting trade like it was no big deal.
00:03:56.680 To push back, Madison tried a limited embargo, banning U.S. trade with Britain and France.
00:04:02.260 It was supposed to hurt their economies without crippling ours, but it didn't work.
00:04:07.240 Britain and France were America's biggest customers,
00:04:10.180 and choking off that trade meant choking the young nation's economy.
00:04:14.840 Britain had another motive for stopping U.S. ships.
00:04:17.820 Their enormous navy and war with Napoleon demanded more sailors.
00:04:22.800 American merchant ships, with their higher pay and better conditions,
00:04:26.280 had become a kind of floating job fare for British sailors.
00:04:30.380 In fact, about 30% of American sailors were actually British guys who had made the switch.
00:04:35.920 So Britain turned to impressment, forcibly grabbing men and shoving them into service.
00:04:42.960 They boarded U.S. ships, dragged off their own citizens, and also took 10,000 American citizens in the process.
00:04:50.660 France did some of this too, but nowhere near the scale of Great Britain.
00:04:56.200 To Americans, this wasn't just an insult, it was a ghost of the revolution.
00:05:01.680 Impressment had been one of the grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence.
00:05:06.280 Now, it was happening again.
00:05:08.680 And as if that weren't enough, Britain brushed aside U.S. protests,
00:05:12.900 ignored claims of neutrality, and quietly armed Native American tribes, 0.62
00:05:17.860 encouraging them to raid settlers along the western frontier.
00:05:22.380 By June 1812, Madison had had it. He was fed up.
00:05:26.980 He sent Congress a grim list of British offenses.
00:05:30.360 After weeks of debate, Congress did something they had never done before.
00:05:33.660 Congress declared war. But this was no slam-dunk unified moment. The House vote was 79-49,
00:05:43.520 the Senate 19-13. Barely 60% of Congress supported the decision, the slimmest margin for any declared
00:05:52.720 war in all of U.S. history. The loudest opponents were the Federalists, mostly from New England.
00:05:58.600 They were cozy with Britain, their biggest commercial partner. War to them looked like 0.78
00:06:03.300 economic suicide. They sneered at the conflict as Mr. Madison's war, pinning it squarely on
00:06:09.580 the soft-spoken president. This Congress was packed, however, with fiery newcomers called
00:06:15.700 war hawks, young guns from the West pushing for action. Their leader was Henry Clay from Kentucky,
00:06:23.440 a charismatic orator who got elected Speaker of the House and stacked key committees with
00:06:28.520 all of his allies. These war hawks? They talked of national honor, of standing up to the British
00:06:34.540 arrogance, but they also dreamt of expansion. Canada to the north, Spanish Florida to the south,
00:06:41.280 a continent waiting, they believe, to be claimed by Americans.
00:06:47.380 Declaring war sounded bold, but America's military was still a joke compared to Britain's.
00:06:53.160 Both Jefferson and Madison had shrunk the forces during peacetime.
00:06:58.040 The U.S. had a tiny army and navy scattered and underfunded.
00:07:02.360 State militias, rusty from decades without real threats, were poorly trained and equipped.
00:07:08.320 The one silver lining here was that Britain was bogged down in a massive war with France,
00:07:14.400 so most of their elite troops were tied up in Europe.
00:07:17.320 The war in North America to British leaders, that was just an annoying sideshow.
00:07:23.160 On paper, the Americans even seemed to have an advantage.
00:07:27.660 Counting regulars and militias, they outnumbered British forces in Canada by a wide margin.
00:07:33.880 But numbers hid the truth.
00:07:36.600 British soldiers were professionals.
00:07:39.320 Canadian militias were much better drilled than their American counterparts.
00:07:43.480 Plus, Britain had allies, Native American warriors who knew the terrain and were being paid to fight.
00:07:50.800 Some U.S. leaders were way overconfident.
00:07:53.780 Madison's Secretary of War, William Eustace, boasted,
00:07:57.100 We can take the Canadas without soldiers.
00:07:59.740 We have only to send officers into the province, and the people will rally round our standard.
00:08:05.620 Henry Clay chimed in.
00:08:06.980 The militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.
00:08:14.060 Reality was harsh.
00:08:16.860 General William Hull, a Revolutionary War veteran, led the first push into Canada.
00:08:22.440 His campaign unraveled almost immediately.
00:08:25.000 He split his forces, making them easy pickings, ambushed by Indians.
00:08:28.920 His men panicked, and Hull yanked everybody back across the border.
00:08:33.660 Then the British counter-attacked.
00:08:36.380 At Fort Detroit, with his superior force of 2,500, Hull surrendered without firing a shot.
00:08:43.320 He said he was trying to spare his soldiers and nearby civilians from massacre.
00:08:48.000 The collapse didn't stop there.
00:08:49.640 Hull ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn near present-day Chicago.
00:08:53.420 As the column withdrew, it was attacked.
00:08:56.560 Many were killed, and the post was destroyed.
00:09:00.280 General Hull was eventually court-martialed, convicted of cowardice, and sentenced to death.
00:09:05.940 But President Madison, remembering Hull's service in the Revolution, intervened and commuted his sentence.
00:09:11.780 Two more American invasions of Canada followed before the end of 1812.
00:09:16.360 Both failed miserably.
00:09:18.160 A Vermont newspaper summed up the war so far with brutal clarity,
00:09:22.140 saying it had produced nothing but, quote,
00:09:24.620 disaster, defeat, disgrace, and ruin in death.
00:09:30.860 In 1813, America scrambled to regroup.
00:09:35.180 Troops were added, new ships were built.
00:09:38.160 In April, U.S. forces struck at the Canadian capital of York, which is present-day Toronto.
00:09:44.060 They captured the town, but as the British withdrew, they lit the fuse on the fort's powder magazine.
00:09:50.340 The explosion was catastrophic.
00:09:53.900 250 Americans were killed or wounded.
00:09:57.680 Over the next several days, furious U.S. troops burned public buildings, the Legislative Hall, the Governor's House,
00:10:04.280 acts that would prove consequential later in the war.
00:10:08.460 Surprisingly, the greatest bright spot for the U.S. came on the water.
00:10:14.100 In September of 1813, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry met the British fleet on Lake Erie.
00:10:21.360 At the height of the battle, Perry's flagship was wrecked,
00:10:24.180 but he rode to another ship under heavy fire, rallied, and smashed the British line.
00:10:28.940 The victory kept Lake Erie in American hands for the rest of the war,
00:10:33.460 blocking any British invasion of Ohio or Pennsylvania from Canada.
00:10:38.380 For a moment, morale soared.
00:10:40.900 But it was only a moment.
00:10:43.000 Because far to the south, the war took on a darker, more savage cast.
00:10:49.380 Britain relied on Indian allies to strike American settlements.
00:10:53.860 In August of 1813, Red Stick Creek warriors stormed Fort Mims in the Alabama Territory.
00:11:01.180 The attack was sudden and overwhelming.
00:11:04.980 500 men, women, and children were slaughtered, many of them scalped, and the fort was a charred ruin.
00:11:13.120 Into the chaos stepped a backwoods southerner named Andrew Jackson.
00:11:18.740 He volunteered his services to President Madison, who gave him a military command in the southeast.
00:11:24.780 Jackson's soldiers called him Old Hickory,
00:11:27.620 tough, unyielding, impossible to bend.
00:11:31.040 Discipline under him was fierce.
00:11:34.180 If you were a volunteer and you tried to bail,
00:11:36.460 Jackson planted himself right in front of you with a rifle
00:11:39.560 and warned that he would shoot any man who deserted.
00:11:43.860 He also believed in finishing what he started.
00:11:45.960 His personal maxim was simple and relentless.
00:11:50.840 Until all is done, nothing is done.
00:11:55.440 In early 1814, Jackson hunted the Red Stick Warriors responsible for the Fort Mims Massacre. 0.56
00:12:03.760 He cornered them in a section of the Talaposa River called Horseshoe Bend.
00:12:08.220 The fighting was close, chaotic, very bloody.
00:12:11.500 Among Jackson's troops was a young soldier named Sam Houston.
00:12:15.580 At Horseshoe Bend, he was nearly killed, pierced by an arrow in the thigh,
00:12:19.440 then struck by two musket balls in the arm and the shoulder.
00:12:22.940 Doctors expected him to die.
00:12:25.300 Instead, he went on to become the legendary governor of Texas.
00:12:29.300 But when the smoke cleared, more than 800 red-stick warriors were dead. 0.93
00:12:35.400 Their power in the region had finally been broken. 0.79
00:12:38.920 The British lost their most effective allies in the southeast,
00:12:41.980 and Jackson had crushed the resistance, exactly as his gritty motto promised.
00:12:48.400 Yet the War of 1812 was far from over.
00:12:52.000 Greater trials were in store, but in these early years, the pattern was already clear.
00:12:57.460 A young republic, overconfident, underprepared,
00:13:00.840 struggling for full independence from the world's strongest empire.
00:13:04.680 It played out over and over.
00:13:06.420 you know every year around the fourth of july we celebrate independence but here's the
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00:14:07.260 preparewithglenn.com. Back when James Madison was a congressman during George Washington's
00:14:19.020 presidency, Madison was introduced to a Quaker widow named Dolly. The introduction was made by
00:14:25.220 their mutual friend, Aaron Burr, who was then a senator. You might recall that Burr is the guy
00:14:30.760 who actually went on to shoot and kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
00:14:35.900 Dolly's life had been upended just a year earlier in 1793
00:14:39.560 when her first husband and their youngest son both died
00:14:43.320 in that brutal yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia.
00:14:47.660 Well, after a whirlwind courtship, Madison and Dolly tied the knot.
00:14:51.980 She was 26. He was 43.
00:14:55.660 Over the next 41 years, they were rarely apart,
00:14:58.880 Devoted partners in both life and politics.
00:15:02.380 James Madison was reserved.
00:15:04.560 He was a man who preferred papers to people.
00:15:07.420 Dolly was the opposite. 0.52
00:15:09.020 She was warm.
00:15:09.820 She was unreserved, magnetic.
00:15:11.360 She loved conversation, laughter, and above all, gathering people together.
00:15:16.780 Where Madison calculated, Dolly connected.
00:15:20.800 Well, as his career rose, she became the indispensable bridge between power and personality.
00:15:26.780 She hosted receptions and dinners that drew in the most influential figures of the young
00:15:31.400 republic.
00:15:32.740 Thomas Jefferson was the first president to spend his full term living in the White House,
00:15:36.900 but as a widower, there was no official first lady.
00:15:41.120 Sometimes his daughter stepped in as hostess for events, but often Jefferson leaned on
00:15:45.240 his buddy Madison, who was Secretary of State, and that meant Dolly frequently took the reins
00:15:50.280 as official hostess.
00:15:52.560 She shaped the first official Washington scene, charming the diplomats and the lawmakers alike, 1.00
00:15:58.680 and in doing so, she basically invented what we think of as the First Lady's role today.
00:16:04.680 By the end of her husband's presidency, combined with Jefferson's eight years in office, 0.93
00:16:08.800 Dolly had effectively served as First Lady for 16 years.
00:16:13.780 The public adored her as much as the power players did.
00:16:16.800 She became the toast of Washington, D.C. and remains the only First Lady ever granted an honorary seat on the floor of Congress. 0.86
00:16:25.800 But what could have been a charmed White House existence for the Madisons was upended by war.
00:16:32.400 When Britain finally crushed Napoleon in 1814, the world's greatest navy and battle-hardened army 0.52
00:16:44.500 were suddenly available to focus on America. They expanded their assault on multiple fronts
00:16:51.880 across the U.S. Part of their new strategy targeted Chesapeake Bay. British ships fanned
00:16:58.700 out across Maryland's eastern shore, attacking the small towns, burning some to the ground,
00:17:03.920 and raiding farms for livestock and crops. Despite this escalating grip on the region,
00:17:09.560 Madison's new Secretary of War, John Armstrong, insisted the real British threat was in Baltimore.
00:17:16.960 In a message to the D.C. militia's commander, he scoffed,
00:17:20.280 By God, they would not come here with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere.
00:17:24.840 but they certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No, no, Baltimore is the
00:17:33.380 place, sir. That is of so much more consequence. Because of that hubris, defenses around the
00:17:39.820 Capitol stayed pathetically weak. No serious preparations, no real urgency. And the reckoning
00:17:46.420 began August 24th, 1814 at Bladensburg, Maryland. That's less than 10 miles away from Washington,
00:17:53.180 D.C. American forces outnumbered the British two to one, holding the high ground with artillery
00:17:59.260 overlooking the bridge that the Brits needed to cross. Yet numbers and position meant little
00:18:05.420 against experience. British artillery thundered. Congreve rockets screamed through the air with a
00:18:13.420 terrifying high-pitched shriek. Unlike anything most American troops had ever heard,
00:18:20.620 Panic spread. Many dropped their muskets and bolted in terror. A lone British regiment forded
00:18:27.860 the Anacostia River north of the bridge, outflanking the Americans left side. More rockets
00:18:33.940 rained down and the U.S. force shattered, men fleeing in droves and leaving the path
00:18:38.960 wide open. One British officer smirked that they'd captured some prisoners, but not too many
00:18:45.260 because the Americans vanished too quickly.
00:18:48.920 A newspaper article later described the hasty American retreat
00:18:52.020 as the Bladensburg Races.
00:18:54.920 President Madison himself was there at Bladensburg
00:18:58.000 watching the humiliating rout unfold.
00:19:01.580 In his official report to the Secretary of War,
00:19:04.340 General William Winder wrote one of the most understated assessments
00:19:08.000 of a defeat ever recorded.
00:19:10.940 The contest was not as obstinately maintained as could have been desired.
00:19:15.260 As soon as the defeat became apparent, President Madison dispatched his servant, James Smith, back to the White House with urgent orders. 1.00
00:19:24.800 Tell the First Lady to flee. A British march on the Capitol was imminent.
00:19:31.000 Word of the retreating soldiers hit Washington, D.C. like a shockwave, turning concern into outright chaos.
00:19:38.500 Citizens and officials grabbed what they could carry and poured across the Potomac toward Virginia.
00:19:43.960 90% of the residents evacuated, leaving a virtual ghost town.
00:19:49.020 Now, inside the president's house, Dolly Madison remained composed.
00:19:54.700 She issued orders to save the valuables and state papers,
00:19:58.480 and in the nail-biting final minutes before fleeing,
00:20:01.500 she focused on Gilbert Stewart's iconic 1797 portrait of George Washington.
00:20:07.980 She ordered the heavy frame broken, canvas cut free, rolled, and carried out.
00:20:13.940 It was later hidden in a farmer's barn outside of the city.
00:20:18.520 Well, an exhausted Madison staggered back to the White House around 4 p.m.,
00:20:22.120 finding Dolly already gone.
00:20:24.340 Shaken by the Bladensburg debacle, he waved off food,
00:20:27.500 downing just a glass of wine before fleeing to evade capture himself.
00:20:31.620 The Capitol lay completely exposed.
00:20:35.140 Paul Jennings, Madison's enslaved White House worker, later reported,
00:20:38.680 A rival, taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House and stole lots of silver
00:20:45.800 and whatever they could lay their hands on. Looting had begun before the British even arrived.
00:20:53.420 Well after dark, the British army marched in.
00:20:59.300 And as they crested Capitol Hill, they traded the docks with stray U.S. soldiers,
00:21:04.040 but it was far too little too late. They reached the Capitol building,
00:21:07.780 The first phase of which had only been completed three years earlier, the Capitol didn't have yet the iconic rotunda, just two large wings of the building connected by a covered wooden walkway in the central section where the rotunda would eventually rise.
00:21:22.980 Margaret Bayard Smith, founder of the local newspaper, described the horror that ensued.
00:21:28.680 Fifty men, sailors and Marines, were marched by an officer silently through the avenue.
00:21:34.880 When arrived at the building, each man was stationed at a window.
00:21:38.880 The windows were broken, and this wildfire was thrown in,
00:21:42.720 so that an instantaneous conflagration took place,
00:21:45.940 and the whole building was wrapped in flames and smoke.
00:21:50.440 This initial effort did not achieve the desired destruction.
00:21:54.480 Since ceilings in the capital were covered in sheet iron,
00:21:57.080 the building proved a challenge to burn down.
00:22:00.620 Frustrated, the British piled furniture and curtains inside the House and Senate chambers,
00:22:05.280 doused them with gunpowder, and fired rockets into the heaps.
00:22:09.020 Finally, the flames roared.
00:22:11.600 A plume of embers rose so high it ignited a nearby building.
00:22:15.700 The Union Jack was then raised over the ruins.
00:22:19.220 At 11 p.m., General Robert Ross and Admiral George Cockburn rode down Pennsylvania Avenue with 150 men.
00:22:26.420 The White House stood there, empty.
00:22:30.420 They rifled through what was left of the Madison's food and possessions,
00:22:34.420 and then they stacked the furniture, bedding and curtains,
00:22:37.420 and they ordered 50 soldiers to encircle the mansion
00:22:40.420 and throw oil-soaked rags on poles through the windows like flaming javelins.
00:22:46.420 The roaring furnace collapsed the White House interior into a smoldering shell.
00:22:51.420 Today, scorched marks from the fire are still visible on the exterior of the White House
00:22:56.960 in two small sections that have been left unpainted as reminders of the national tragedy.
00:23:03.840 The British next burned the treasury, war, executive office buildings.
00:23:08.220 The Library of Congress and its 3,000 books all went up in flames.
00:23:12.560 It was revenge for the American destruction of public buildings in York, Canada just the
00:23:16.920 year before.
00:23:18.680 In the aftermath of the destruction, D.C. residents inscribed their anger on the walls
00:23:23.160 of the Capitol.
00:23:23.880 One message read, quote, the Capitol and the Union was lost by cowardice.
00:23:29.400 Another said, quote, George Washington founded this city after a seven-years war with England.
00:23:34.880 James Madison lost it after a two-years war.
00:23:39.040 Senator Robert Henry Goldsboro of Maryland wrote this to his wife.
00:23:43.700 The city of Washington, once very beautiful to my eye, is now an odious, miserable object.
00:23:51.600 It is the dreadful monument of an unfortunate and illy-timed war, 0.89
00:23:55.700 and the unerring evidence of a weak, incompetent, and disgraced administration.
00:24:02.900 It was the lowest point of the war.
00:24:06.360 The capital was now in ruins, the army disgraced, and the nation stood stunned.
00:24:11.740 Ten days after the burning of D.C., Madison accepted the resignation of War Secretary John Armstrong.
00:24:18.180 Three and a half weeks on, Congress slowly crept back to survey the wreckage.
00:24:24.040 They set up a temporary Capitol in the unscathed Patent and Post Office building.
00:24:29.500 Debates raged about relocating the Capitol, maybe to Philadelphia or New York,
00:24:33.880 but in late October they voted to stay put in Washington, D.C.
00:24:37.320 In a rare practical move for Congress, they determined it would be cheaper to restore the Capitol and White House than to build entirely new ones.
00:24:46.500 Six months after the fire, Madison approved a $500,000 loan to rebuild.
00:24:52.880 In the meantime, James and Dolly Madison moved to a house known as the Octagon, second in size only to the White House.
00:24:59.940 The Octagon's owner granted the government a six-month lease for $800.
00:25:05.100 Madison set up his office in a circular study on the second floor.
00:25:09.060 From there, in a scarred city still reeking of smoke,
00:25:12.840 the quiet president and the indomitable first lady
00:25:15.480 began the work of holding together a shaken nation.
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00:26:24.920 Mary Pickersgill.
00:26:26.860 Appropriately enough, shared a birthplace and a birthday with America, Philadelphia, 1776.
00:26:34.940 She was widowed at age 29, leaving her with a young daughter to support.
00:26:39.940 No safety nets back then.
00:26:41.420 Mary had to work hard. 0.91
00:26:42.860 She was a flag maker.
00:26:44.920 It was a trade she learned from her mother, so she moved to Baltimore, one of America's
00:26:48.800 biggest port cities where ships were in constant need of flags and banners.
00:26:52.460 In 1807, Mary rented a modest house on Pratt Street, right there in the heart of it all.
00:27:02.360 She dove into her flag-making business, and in a little over a decade,
00:27:06.580 she scrapped together enough cash to buy that house outright.
00:27:10.720 For a woman in that era, that was almost unheard of.
00:27:17.800 The summer of 1813 brought Mary the biggest commission of her life,
00:27:21.680 Major George Armistead, the no-nonsense commander of Baltimore's Fort McHenry, needed two new American flags.
00:27:30.340 He wanted one so large the British would have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.
00:27:35.980 Well, Mary got to work on this massive new flag, 30 feet by 42 feet, plus a smaller storm flag 17 by 25 feet. 0.73
00:27:45.400 She had help from her mother, her 13-year-old daughter, two nieces, and an indentured black servant. 0.60
00:27:50.740 For the large flag the red and white stripes were two feet wide. The stars 0.88
00:27:56.060 were 24 inches point to point. Now at the time the U.S. added a star and a stripe
00:28:01.380 for every new state that had been added to the Union. So Mary's flag had 15 0.71
00:28:06.500 stars and 15 stripes. To work they had to spread this giant flag out on the
00:28:12.180 expansive floor of a nearby brewery. They finished the project in seven weeks
00:28:20.280 having no clue that they had just stitched together what would become the most famous flag in their nation's history.
00:28:26.580 The glow of the burning of Washington, D.C. could be seen from Baltimore, and residents knew, we're next.
00:28:35.060 Baltimore was the third largest city in the nation.
00:28:38.120 Its port was a hub of privateers who specialized in raiding British ships.
00:28:43.080 It was only a matter of time before the British paid them a visit.
00:28:47.320 Well, under army supervision, Baltimore was divided into four zones, each zone working on
00:28:52.600 the city's defenses on alternating days. Every citizen had to pitch in, regardless of age,
00:28:57.960 sex, or race. In just three weeks, they threw up over a mile and a half of entrenchments.
00:29:04.200 Baltimore would not be going down without a fight.
00:29:09.800 On September 12, 1814, the British landed 5,000 troops and eight cannons at North Point,
00:29:15.960 that's about 10 miles southeast of Fort McHenry. The U.S. countered with 3,200 troops, most of them
00:29:22.360 Baltimore natives. Early in the battle, two young sharpshooters from the 5th Maryland militia shot
00:29:28.280 and killed the British commander as he rode near the front of his line. Now, amid the chaos, heavy
00:29:33.640 casualties piled up. The Americans were ultimately forced to retreat, but they delayed the British
00:29:39.000 push forward into Baltimore buying precious time. At 6.30 a.m. on September 13th the British fleet
00:29:49.320 of 55 ships opened fired on Fort McHenry with mortar shells. These bombs weighed about 200
00:29:56.120 pounds each. They were hollow shells stuffed with 10 to 15 pounds of gunpowder with wooden fuses
00:30:03.640 screwed in. When the shells were fired from ships, the explosion of powder in the cannon
00:30:09.320 lit the fuse, which was time for a 27-second flight. When the fuse burned down to the powder
00:30:15.880 inside the shell, the gunpowder was set off and the bomb exploded in the air, raining down jagged
00:30:21.960 shrapnels on the target. Well, inside Fort McHenry, 1,200 troops worked out in the open.
00:30:27.800 There were no bunkers for cover. The men fired back at the British, nailing some of the frigates
00:30:33.000 and smaller ships, but the British mostly stayed out of range, so by 11 a.m. Major Armistead
00:30:38.680 dialed it back to conserve ammunition. Suddenly, a British bomb struck the fort's powder magazine.
00:30:46.680 It glanced off the arched roof and caved in part of the ceiling of a room that held
00:30:51.000 200 barrels of gunpowder. Had the bomb punched through the barrels, Fort McHenry and all of
00:30:57.080 its soldiers would have vanished in a single catastrophic explosion. But Major Armistead
00:31:02.520 quickly ordered the powder barrels moved and spread out along the fort's outer walls.
00:31:07.800 Through his spyglass, Admiral Cochrane saw the activity and mistook it for panic. He ordered
00:31:13.880 his ships closer. Then they dropped anchors at the bow and the stern just to steady themselves.
00:31:20.040 As they closed in with a mile and a half, Armistead gave the order. All of Fort McHenry's guns opened
00:31:27.160 fired. For an hour, U.S. cannons hammered the British fleet. Rigging shattered, hulls splintered,
00:31:38.040 Admiral Cochran finally pulled his ships back out of range, but the British fleet was wounded.
00:31:44.120 However, far from done, all night their bombs and rockets peppered Fort McHenry.
00:31:50.200 Across the harbor, the citizens of Baltimore watched from the rooftops and windows,
00:31:54.520 feeling the ground tremble with every explosion. Among the sleepless observers was a prominent
00:32:00.840 lawyer named Francis Scott Key, but he had a much different vantage point because he was on a ship
00:32:07.840 that was under guard of the very British fleet reigning destruction on Fort McHenry.
00:32:16.100 Francis Scott Key was a family man and a slave owner. He and his wife had 11 children. He was a
00:32:22.260 respected attorney, he had defended two men accused of treason in a shadowy conspiracy
00:32:26.900 tied to Aaron Burr. Several days before the British bombardment began, Key was on a small
00:32:32.580 American ship sailing towards the British fleet under a flag of truce. After the burning of
00:32:38.280 Washington, D.C., the British arrested a Maryland physician. His name was William Beans. They
00:32:44.960 accused him of helping round up some British soldiers as they left Washington. Francis Scott
00:32:51.100 Key knew Dr. Beans, so Key went to President Madison. He received permission to intervene
00:32:56.060 and traveled to Baltimore to meet up with John Skinner, who was the U.S. prisoner exchange agent.
00:33:02.880 Together, they sailed out to Admiral Cochran's flagship. They negotiated Dr. Beans' release,
00:33:08.960 and then they were told they couldn't leave. They had heard too much while on board the flagship.
00:33:15.000 The British had been discussing the impending bombardment around the Americans, so they
00:33:19.080 They wouldn't let Key, Skinner, or Dr. Beans return to shore until the attack was officially
00:33:25.060 complete.
00:33:26.320 The Americans were allowed to return to their own ship, but they were guarded by a group
00:33:30.480 of British Marines.
00:33:32.240 There they waited, helpless, two miles from the fort.
00:33:37.460 They watched from the deck of the truce ship as the 25-hour bombardment dragged on through
00:33:43.200 the night.
00:33:45.200 1,500 shells and cannonballs pummeled Fort McHenry.
00:33:50.200 When the firing finally stopped in the early hours of September 15th, Key and Skinner scanned
00:33:55.520 the fort with a spyglass.
00:33:58.040 What was over it?
00:33:59.440 Had the fort fallen?
00:34:00.880 Had Baltimore surrendered?
00:34:03.180 Then in the first light of the morning, they saw it.
00:34:07.280 The enormous 30 by 40 foot flag.
00:34:10.320 Mary Pickersgill's flag, unfurling above the ramparts.
00:34:16.200 It was unmistakably the American flag, identifiable from this great distance, just as Major Armistead
00:34:23.060 had wanted.
00:34:24.060 Key, as a lawyer, always was prepared with paper.
00:34:28.700 He pulled some out and he began to write.
00:34:30.920 He labored over the verses while they were still under British guard, shaping the experience
00:34:35.280 into poetry.
00:34:37.040 The following evening, after the British finally released them, he reached Baltimore and took
00:34:41.900 to a room in the Indian Queen Tavern.
00:34:45.240 There he finished the poem.
00:34:47.360 Skinner and Dr. Beans read it and urged him to print it.
00:34:51.760 Later that day, 1,000 copies rolled off the press under the title, The Defense of Fort
00:34:56.580 McHenry.
00:34:58.100 Set to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven, by afternoon the handbills were in the streets
00:35:03.480 and the hands of soldiers at Fort McHenry.
00:35:05.820 within six weeks, newspapers all across every state had reprinted it. Key's song would eventually
00:35:11.760 become known as the Star-Spangled Banner. The song grew in popularity over the next century,
00:35:28.760 but it didn't become our official national anthem until an act of Congress in 1931.
00:35:35.820 Today, the same flag that Francis Scott Key saw by the dawn's early light is preserved
00:35:42.160 on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, completely restored
00:35:48.820 and repaired by Ralph Lauren.
00:35:56.480 Unbeknownst to those in Baltimore, at almost the same moment, far to the north, another
00:36:01.240 Another drama was unfolding on Lake Champlain in Upper New York.
00:36:08.320 There U.S. Captain Thomas McDonough faced a superior British fleet.
00:36:13.040 During the brutal, brutal engagement, the 30-year-old commander was knocked unconscious twice.
00:36:20.120 The first time by falling rigging and later by the flying decapitated head of one of his
00:36:25.180 gun captains after a British cannonball struck the ship.
00:36:32.260 McDonough fought on and won.
00:36:35.060 The victory, like Fort McHenry's stand,
00:36:37.460 electrified the nation.
00:36:39.720 But America wasn't out of the woods yet.
00:36:41.900 Britain sent so many warships to U.S. shores
00:36:45.300 that they achieved an almost total blockade
00:36:48.060 of American ports.
00:36:49.640 The British Navy captured 1,400 American merchant vessels.
00:36:53.540 U.S. exports collapsed by 95%.
00:36:56.480 The country was being strangled.
00:36:59.140 America was not going to be able to hold out much longer.
00:37:04.360 President Madison replaced his Secretary of War with James Monroe,
00:37:08.960 who immediately called up the militia to strengthen the defenses of Washington and Baltimore.
00:37:13.500 He then ordered Andrew Jackson to march his troops south towards New Orleans,
00:37:19.280 where another British blow seemed inevitable.
00:37:23.540 I think about Providence often these days, the idea that we're stewards of our families, our communities, our own safety.
00:37:30.620 The founders understood this. It's woven into the fabric of who we are as Americans.
00:37:35.500 And I want to share something with you. It's called BURNA, B-Y-R-N-A, and it's changed how I think about personal protection. 0.68
00:37:41.780 Here's the thing. Most people assume self-defense is complicated, that you need training, licensing, you know, government approval.
00:37:47.160 but Burna is legal in all 50 states.
00:37:49.880 No permit, no background check,
00:37:51.540 because your right to protect your family
00:37:53.260 shouldn't require anyone's permission.
00:37:55.620 The range on this is 60 feet.
00:37:57.140 That's not pepper spray distance, that's real distance.
00:37:59.700 It gives you time to think, to move, to get your family safe.
00:38:03.220 It's simple enough that anyone can use it, anyone.
00:38:05.980 And it's built in Fort Wayne, Indiana, right here in America,
00:38:08.980 in American hands, American craftsmanship.
00:38:11.360 And that matters to me, and I think it matters to you.
00:38:13.760 I'm not here to scare you.
00:38:14.740 I'm here to tell you being prepared isn't paranoia.
00:38:17.160 It's love.
00:38:18.020 It's what we do for the people that you'd do anything for.
00:38:20.600 So go to Burna, B-Y-R-N-A dot com slash Glenn.
00:38:25.120 For more of the history that inspired this podcast series, be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings, by David Barton and Tim Barton.
00:38:34.360 Available now at wallbuilders.com.
00:38:37.180 Andrew Jackson hated the British.
00:38:48.200 It was a very personal hatred that reached back to 1781
00:38:51.480 when the Revolutionary War still smoldered across the southern colonies.
00:38:57.280 Jackson had been 13 years old,
00:38:59.260 and he was riding through Carolina backcountry as a courier for the patriot cause.
00:39:04.620 He was scrawny, fiery, stubborn, already displaying the gritty traits that would later earn him the nickname of Old Hickory.
00:39:13.400 Jackson joined his 16-year-old brother Robert in fighting with the local militia in their latest guerrilla attack on the British.
00:39:20.460 It was a raid on an enemy outpost at Hanging Rock that inflicted 200 British casualties.
00:39:26.500 A rare win for the scrappy frontier patriots, but Jackson and Robert wasn't a win for them.
00:39:32.900 and they were captured.
00:39:34.600 They were hungry, sick, and herded into a makeshift prison camp.
00:39:39.780 One day, a British officer ordered Jackson to clean his boots.
00:39:43.400 Neil Jackson refused.
00:39:44.400 He was a prisoner of war, not a servant.
00:39:49.120 The officer swung his saber, slashing Jackson across the face and cutting his left hand
00:39:54.840 to the bone.
00:39:56.740 The scars and the memory never left him.
00:40:00.560 Smallpox hit the prison camp, and both brothers caught it.
00:40:03.560 Their mother pulled strings for a prisoner exchange to free their sons,
00:40:07.020 but Robert died of smallpox a few days after the release.
00:40:11.100 The older brother had been killed in a battle two years earlier.
00:40:14.820 When Jackson recovered from smallpox,
00:40:17.640 his mother left for Charleston to help care for the sick and wounded troops,
00:40:21.360 but she contracted cholera and died.
00:40:24.800 Jackson's immediate family was now entirely gone.
00:40:28.500 as his father had died just a few weeks before he was born.
00:40:32.920 By war's end, 14-year-old Andrew was an orphan,
00:40:37.040 alone in the world, and seething with rage.
00:40:41.160 Years later, with the heat of that teenage trauma still burning in his chest,
00:40:45.740 Jackson would tell his wife Rachel,
00:40:47.420 I owe to Britain a debt of retaliatory vengeance.
00:40:51.260 Should our forces meet, I trust I shall pay the debt.
00:40:58.500 In December 1814, in the Belgian city of Ghent, American negotiators led by John Quincy Adams, 0.97
00:41:05.720 son of the second president and the war hawk Henry Clay, were holed up with their British
00:41:10.780 counterparts trying to end the messy War of 1812. As the days dragged on, Adams scribbled in his
00:41:18.780 diary about how Clay kept him up all night, boozing, gambling with the enemy. Finally,
00:41:24.240 both sides threw in the towel. The U.S. had no real military edge, and the British 0.82
00:41:29.400 were just tired of the hassle. On Christmas Eve, they signed the Treaty of Ghent,
00:41:35.260 officially calling it quits. Nothing much changed. Any conquered land was returned,
00:41:40.360 and borders snapped back to pre-war lines between the U.S. and Canada.
00:41:44.160 Oh, and the British promised to stop stirring up Indian tribes against the American settlers.
00:41:49.500 The treaty also contained a provision that was long overdue, yet still a bit ahead of its time.
00:41:54.860 There was an anti-slavery clause in which both nations agreed to work together toward abolishing the African slave trade.
00:42:02.940 It read,
00:42:04.360 Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice,
00:42:10.700 And whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition,
00:42:20.380 it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.
00:42:32.060 After Britain's embarrassing flop at Baltimore, they pivoted south, eyeing New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
00:42:40.120 They knew if they could control that, they would have a highway into America's heartland.
00:42:45.140 Andrew Jackson was already racing ahead, forces in tow, that old vengeance debt fueling his urgency.
00:42:56.280 He declared martial law in New Orleans and rallied every able-bodied man to fortify the outskirts.
00:43:03.120 Jackson scraped together an unlikely patchwork army of 4,500 men,
00:43:07.940 including army regulars, frontier militiamen, free black fighters,
00:43:12.500 wealthy Creole aristocrats, and Choctaw warriors.
00:43:16.120 And then there were the pirates.
00:43:20.480 Jean Le Fitt, the suave smuggler, king of Barataria Bay, had been courted by the British.
00:43:28.220 Instead, he sent word to Jackson.
00:43:31.140 He'd fight for the Americans, and his cannons and gunners would come with him if his captured men were pardoned.
00:43:38.400 Jackson, who valued results over respectability, agreed.
00:43:42.260 Wading offshore in the swamps south of the city were 8,000 British troops, many of them veterans of wars against Napoleon,
00:43:50.100 commanded by Lieutenant General Edward Pakenham.
00:43:53.660 They were battle-hardened professionals. 0.91
00:43:55.740 They fully expected to crush the American rabble that they referred to as the Dirty Shirts. 0.86
00:44:01.700 The clash kicked off on December 23rd. 0.53
00:44:04.200 Jackson struck first, launching a gutsy nighttime raid on the British camp nine miles south of New Orleans.
00:44:13.300 The fighting was fierce and confused.
00:44:16.440 The British absorbed the blow, but it did not break.
00:44:19.860 Jackson withdrew and fell back to a 10-foot-wide canal near a large plantation off the Mississippi River.
00:44:26.520 There, using enslaved labor, his men widened the canal into a defensive trench
00:44:32.100 and piled the excavated earth into a 7-foot-high rampart reinforced with timber.
00:44:38.460 The line stretched nearly a mile from the river's edge to almost an impassable swamp.
00:44:45.040 When the work was done, Jackson rallied his motley crew.
00:44:48.160 Here we shall plant our stakes and not abandon them 1.00
00:44:53.120 until we drive these redcoat rascals into the river or the swamp. 1.00
00:44:58.420 A probing skirmish by the British on December 28th fizzled indecisively. 0.99
00:45:03.600 But on New Year's Day, British artillery roared for hours,
00:45:08.200 trying to smash the American line.
00:45:10.660 But the rampart held together.
00:45:13.000 January 8th, 1815, at dawn, the final British assault began.
00:45:18.160 a concrete rocket screams overhead that was the signal redcoats cheered surge
00:45:25.840 forward the British guns roar but Jackson's 24 artillery pieces some man
00:45:31.840 by Lafitte's salty pirates answer with a fury
00:45:38.100 Pakenham banks on burning fog for cover but it lifts with the Sun exposing his
00:45:44.080 lines in bright red uniforms. American cannons rip holes into the British ranks, flinging
00:45:50.960 men and deer skyward. As the British push on, musket fire shreds them further. Frontiersmen,
00:45:57.520 who had spent their lives hunting deer in dense forests, now take aim at the masked ranks in
00:46:03.440 open ground. Their rifle fire is devastatingly precise. General Pakenham rides forward to rally
00:46:12.560 his men, and he's struck down by grape shot. Within 30 minutes, the attack collapses. The
00:46:19.720 British fall back in chaos, leaving over 2,000 wounded or killed. The American lose 71 men,
00:46:26.460 13 killed, 39 wounded, and 19 missing or captured. One Kentucky soldier stared across the carnage
00:46:34.040 and later wrote, when the smoke had cleared away and we could obtain a fair view of the field,
00:46:39.900 It looked at the first glance like a sea of blood.
00:46:42.980 It was not blood itself which gave this appearance,
00:46:45.640 but the red coats in which the British soldiers were dressed.
00:46:48.760 The field was entirely covered with prostrate bodies.
00:46:53.260 Almost a month passed before the battle result even reached Washington, D.C.
00:46:58.580 It was February 4th that messengers finally arrived
00:47:01.340 with word that Jackson had annihilated the British at New Orleans.
00:47:05.920 Ten days later came another urgent dispatch,
00:47:08.660 the Treaty of Ghent had been signed. Because Americans learned of the battle first,
00:47:14.780 many assumed the victory had forced Britain to make peace. In reality, the war had already ended,
00:47:21.020 but perception mattered more than chronology. The nation had been battered and humiliated by
00:47:27.140 so many earlier defeats. They chose to remember the war as ending in triumph.
00:47:33.440 The Senate rushed to ratify the treaty, and Congress asked President Madison to proclaim
00:47:37.740 a national day of prayer. In his address, Madison said,
00:47:42.660 No people ought to feel greater obligations to celebrate the goodness of the great disposer of
00:47:48.900 events and of the destiny of nations than the people of the United States. And to the same
00:47:54.160 divine author of every good and perfect gift, we are indebted for all those privileges and
00:48:00.040 advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.
00:48:07.740 The War of 1812, it didn't produce territorial gains or formal surrender.
00:48:15.520 The British simply agreed to stop fighting.
00:48:18.020 But it had produced something more subtle.
00:48:21.200 Respect.
00:48:22.600 Britain and Europe learned the United States could not be casually bullied anymore.
00:48:27.900 War would no longer be their first solution.
00:48:30.500 That's why Americans soon began calling the War of 1812 the Second War for Independence.
00:48:36.520 and towering over that memory stood old hickory.
00:48:41.880 The Battle of New Orleans transformed Andrew Jackson into a national hero.
00:48:48.100 The scarred boy who had once defied a British officer's command
00:48:51.820 had finally, in his own mind at least, paid his debt of retaliatory vengeance.
00:48:58.260 Jackson's fame would mutate into a consequential presidency
00:49:02.480 that brought permanent changes to the office.
00:49:05.560 U.S. politics, and an untold tragedy for Native Americans that would echo on through generations.
00:49:15.520 Coming up on The American Story, The Beginnings.
00:49:20.120 7 o'clock in the morning, May 30th, 1806.
00:49:24.740 Jackson and Dickinson face each other.
00:49:28.280 24 feet apart, pistols loaded.
00:49:31.180 jackson playing it cool or maybe strategic lets dickinson fire first the shot cracks the air
00:49:39.940 slamming into jackson's chest lodging near his heart blood begins to soak his shirt running
00:49:46.120 down into his boot but jackson steadies himself levels his pistol click the hammer catches
00:49:54.500 halfway. Re-cocks, aims again, and fires. Dickinson is struck in the abdomen and crumples to the
00:50:03.960 ground. By sundown, he's dead. Jackson walks away. That bullet remained buried in his chest
00:50:13.540 for the rest of his life.
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