Battle of Baltimore Navy inspired Francis Scott Key to compose the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry", which later became the lyrics for "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States of America. Future President James Buchanan served as Private in the defense of Baltimore. Until April 1814, Great Britain was at war with Napoleonic France, which limited British war aims in America. During this time the British primarily used a defensive strategy and repelled American invasions of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. However, the Americans gained naval control over Lake Erie in 1813, and seized parts of western Ontario.
Maryland in the American Civil War Baltimore newspaper editor Frank Key Howard (Francis Scott Key's grandson), Howard was himself arrested by order of Lincoln's Secretary of State Seward and held without trial. Howard described these events in his 1863 book "Fourteen Months in American Bastiles", where he noted that he was imprisoned in Fort McHenry, the same fort where the Star Spangled Banner had been waving "o'er the land of the free" in his grandfather's song. Two of the publishers selling his book were then arrested. In all nine newspapers were shut down in Maryland by the federal government, and a dozen newspaper owners and editors