From Booklist
The campaign around Washington and Baltimore in 1814 is one of the few aspects of the War of 1812 that is at all known by the general public, thanks to the defense of Baltimore's Fort McHenry inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the national anthem. Whitehorne probes extensively into the background of the campaign: the politics of Maryland that helped and hindered organization and training of the militia, and the economics of the Chesapeake Bay area that the British were trying to disrupt. In the end, the British embarrassed the Americans by taking Washington, were in turn embarrassed by the failures of several raids and the assault on Fort McHenry, and nowhere came close to achieving their probable intention--reversing the course of the war. Whitehorne's writing, research, and balancing of analysis and narrative are all sound, making his account useful to scholar and general reader alike. Roland Green
