History of the United States Navy the ship!". Despite their earlier successes, by 1814 many of the Navy's best ships were blockaded in port and unable to prevent British incursions on land via the sea. During the summer of 1814, the British fought the Chesapeake Campaign, which was climaxed by amphibious assaults against Washington and Baltimore. The capital fell to the British almost without a fight, and several ships were burned at the Washington Navy Yard, including the 44-gun frigate USS "Columbia". At Baltimore, the bombardment by Fort McHenry inspired Francis Scott Key to write "The Star-Spangled Banner", and the hulks blocking the channel prevented the
Campaign in south-west France (1814) Campaign in south-west France (1814) The campaign in south-west France in late 1813 and early 1814 was the final campaign of the Peninsular War. An allied army of British, Portuguese and Spanish soldiers under the command of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington fought a string of battles against French forces under the command of Marshal Jean de Dieu Soult, from the Iberian Peninsula across the Pyrenees and into south-west France ending with the capture of Toulouse and the besieging of Bayonne. The campaign ended when—on receiving word of the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France, and the