ls fell on all sides, and, exploding, scattered deadly missiles in
all directions. One shell struck and dismounted one of the
twenty-four-pounders, killing and wounding several of its men. Admiral
Cochrane, who commanded the attacking fleet, saw this incident, and
ordered three of his bomb-vessels to move up nearer to the fort. This
gave the Americans the opportunity for which they had been longing,
and instantly every gun in the fort opened upon the three luckless
ketches. Half an hour of this fire sufficed to drive the three vessels
back to their original station.

Night fell, but brought no cessation of the bombardment. But the
enemy, while never slackening his fire, had determined to take
advantage of the darkness to send out a landing party to take two
small batteries on the banks of the Patapsco, and then assault Fort
McHenry from the rear. Twelve hundred and fifty men, with
scaling-ladders and fascines, left the fleet in barges, and moved up
the Patapsco towards Fort Covington and the City Battery. But their
plan, though well laid, was defeated by the vigilance and courage of
the garrisons of the two threatened positions,--sailors all, and many
of them men from Barney's flotilla, a training-school which seems to
have given to the region about Chesapeake Bay its most gallant
defenders. Just as the storming party turned the prows of the barges
towards the shore, they were discovered; and from McHenry, Covington,
and the City Battery burst a thunderous artillery-fire, that shook the
houses in Baltimore, and illumined the dark shores of the river with a
lurid glare. Bold as the British sailors were, they could advance no
farther under so terrible a fire. Two of the barges were shot to
pieces, leaving their crews struggling in the water. A ceaseless hail
of grape and canister spread death and wounds broadcast among the
enemy; and, after wavering a moment, they turned and fled to their
ships. Cochrane, seeing his plan for taking the American positions by
assault thus frustrated, redoubled the fury of his fire; hoping that,
when daybreak made visible the distant shore, nothing but a heap of
ruins should mark the spot where Fort McHenry stood the night before.

A night bombardment is at once a beautiful and a terrible spectacle.
The ceaseless flashing of the great guns, lighting up with a lurid
glare the dense clouds of smoke that hang over the scene of battle;
the roar of the artillery; the shriek of the shell as it le