Within the War of 1812 galleries of the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore is artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s famous panorama on canvas painting entitled The Bombardment of Fort McHenry, Sept. 13-14, 1814. It remains the quintessential War of 1812 image of the “perilous fight,” complete with the bombs bursting in air and the Star-Spangled Banner.
The Commission
On March 15, 1816, the Baltimore City Council passed a resolution to have an artist execute two superb paintings: The Battle of North Point and The Bombardment of Fort McHenry, each to measure fifteen feet long by ten feet in height. The artist the committee desired was Colonel John Trumbull of Connecticut, who visited the battlegrounds and Fort McHenry. The City Council failed to commission Trumbull, likely due to the high commission he placed on his works.
In Baltimore, the Council discovered a promising eighteen-year-old artist whose local artistic talents were well known. Alfred Jacob Miller, the oldest of nine children, was born on January 2, 1810, to grocer George Washington Miller and Harriet Jacobs Miller. During the bombardment of Fort McHenry, George Miller served as a private in Captain John Berry’s Washington Artillerist, 1st Maryland Regiment of Artillery. His experiences and observations later provided his son with details of the battle.
The Painting
With an agreeable commission, eighteen-year-old Alfred began his studies and sketches in the spring of 1827. The Baltimore Gazette noted:
“Among the decorations of the Saloon at Mr. Lyford’s Inn [is] a large painting representing the bombardment of Fort McHenry. It is the production of a young gentleman of Baltimore… His painting is marked by a beautiful richness of colouring, and a graphic faithfulness in the delineation of the shores of the bay, the British fleet, the smoke of the cannon, and the bombs bursting in air over the Fort.”
Miller’s Western Journey
In September 1837, Alfred accompanied Scottish adventurer Captain William Drummond Stewart to the plains and Rocky Mountains of the American West. During this venture, Miller produced his famous watercolors and oils of Native Americans, trappers, and landscapes he is known for today. Many of his works were exhibited in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York between 1858-1874, with a series of 200 watercolors illustrating his western tour commissioned by wealthy Baltimore merchant William T. Walters.
Details of the Painting
The Star-Spangled Banner (Center)
The primary focal point is the star-spangled banner, whose flagstaff rises above the brick-earthen ramparts amidst the smoke, rain, lightning and bombardment. Due to the stormy weather, the flag flying is the 17 x 25 foot storm flag. The garrison flag would not be raised until 9 a.m. September 14th, two hours after the attack ended.
Battery Babcock (Right Center)
In the center foreground is the Six Gun Battery, a semi-circular 180-foot earthen redoubt. During the bombardment it was commanded by Sailing Master John Adams Webster of the U.S. Chesapeake Flotilla.
British Bombardment Squadron (Distance)
Clearly visible beyond Fort McHenry on the Patapsco River is the British squadron of twenty vessels, among which were HM bomb ships Volcano, Devastation, Etna, Meteor, and Terror.
The American Truce Vessel (Far Right)
On the distant horizon may be seen the small two-masted sloop President, one of Captain John Ferguson’s mail-passenger packets. From this position, it is clear that attorney Francis Scott Key and Colonel John S. Skinner had a clear view of the bombs and rockets, providing proof that the flag was still there.
Legacy
Today, no study and account of the Battle for Baltimore and bombardment of Fort McHenry is complete without viewing Alfred Jacob Miller’s pre-eminent painting of the naval bombardment. A replica of the painting is on view in the Visitor Center at Fort McHenry, the site of the epic bombardment. The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore was one of the first institutions to dedicate an entire gallery to Miller’s works when in 1935 a large collection of 100 watercolor sketches were discovered in the old Rembrandt Peale Museum in Baltimore.
