The heavy ships were unable to lie within effective range of the forts because of shoal water and a barrier of sunken hulks, and Fort McHenry was almost undamaged by the bombardment of the lighter craft.

All through the night a determined fire was returned by the American garrison of a thousand men, and, although the British fleet suffered little, Vice-Admiral Cochrane concluded that a sea attack was a hopeless enterprise.

He so notified the army, which thereupon retreated to the transports, and the fleet sailed down Chesapeake Bay, leaving Baltimore free and unscathed.
Among those who watched Fort McHenry by the glare of artillery fire through this anxious night was a young lawyer from Washington, Francis Scott Key, who had been detained by the British fleet down the bay while endeavoring to effect an exchange of prisoners.

He had a turn for verse-making.

Most of his poems were mediocre, but the sight of the Stars and Stripes still fluttering in the early morning breeze inspired him to write certain deathless stanzas which, when fitted to the old tune of _Anacreon in Heaven_, his country accepted as its national anthem.