Evening star., 1945-12-30

he late summer of 1914. When his
fellow citizens asked him to take"
they used the right word.
He literally had to take it; he had
no right to command. Boldly, risk
ing arrest and court-martial, Sam
Smith seized control from the Reg
llar Army general, his lawful su-
perior officer, who had lost at
Bladensburg. He took upon him.
self not only the full responsibility
foN the defense of Baltimore, but
also the responsibility for the de-
fense of the United States against
an already victorious army.
History Has Erred.
History, for numerous invalid rea-
sons, has consistently diminished
the seriousness of the attack on Bal
timore and also the seriousness OF
the consequences If it had succeeded.
The attack has been presented by
historians as a minor affair-little
more than skirmish on land and a
weak, half-hearted ship lombard
ment. The truth is that it was a
powerful, co-ordinated offensive. The
truth is that the feet attacking Fort
McHenry was composed of three
fourths of the British Navy's most
powerful fortress-battering artillery,
and that it pounded the defenses
steadily for Is hours.
The generally accepted version Of
history is that the feet attack failed
because floating booms and barriers
of sunken vessels kept the British
ships beyond effective range. The
truth is that the mortar ships-de-
signed for just such work as this
were we'll within medium range. The
truth is that not a single British
warship, in the face of the American
fire, ventured within a mile of the
sunken ,hulks.
The Battle of Cody Wood.
The generally accepted version Of
history is that the land battle which
preceded the naval attack was an
affair of no importance-that the
American militia behaved a little
better than usual but, as usual.
were routed. The truth is that the
almost unknown battle of Cody
Wood was an action shrewdly
planned and bravely fought. It was
a holding action conceived by Sam
Smith to discourage the invading
army before it reached his main de-
fenses.
1t was not. for that time, a small
battle. The American brigade that
fought it was a little larger than
the first wave of American troops
that stormed Omaha Beach in the
invasion of Normandy. 1t was out
numbered almost two to one by
British regulars. 1t faced rockets
and shrapnel, and in 1914 they were
the strange and terrible weapons
as strange and terrible as the poison
gas at Ypres, the tanks at Cambria,
the fame-throwers, the divebomb-
ers, the bazooka.
The militia, outnumbered, were
not routed; they were not even pur-
sued. The shock of their determined
stand achieved exactly the result
Sam Smith had expected and want
ed. 1t shook the confidence Of the
invaders. The British army paid
seven per cent of its strength in
dead and wounded as the price OF
a farm it didn't want.
Helped Shape the Nation.
The defense of Baltimore has been
regarded as an event of no histor-
ical Importance. The truth is that
it helped to shape the Nation.
The unforeseen, unpredictable, re-
pulse at Baltimore, together with
the almost simultaneous repulse at
Plattsburg, broke the back of Brit
ish aggressive policy. Almost over
night, the disastrous terms demand
ed of the United States we're so
changed and softened that they be-
came almost unacceptable. Peace
came, with honor and with no small
profit, just 81 days after news of
those defeats reached London.
History has given old Sam Smith
no credit, either for his victory or
its effect upon the outcome of the
war But it was his victory because
it was the result of his own plan
ming and his own judgment.
Shrewd Reasoning.
| He had no time to fortify the
whole city; he could build defenses
in one small sector only. He had
neither men nor guns to defend the
entire perimeter. He had to decide,
in advance, where the enemy would
strike.
His reasoning was not that of q
soldier. 1t was strange mixture
of shrewd trader-instinct, business
logic and applied psychology. He
believed he knew how British mill
tary minds worked; he believed he
knew where the attack would come
He gambled the fate of Baltimore
(and perhaps that of the country
on the correctness of his judgment
When the blow came, it came at
the exact spot where he had ex-
pected it and where he was pre-
pared to meet it.
If he had been wrong, he would
have been damned for an incom-
petent fool. He might well have
been tried for a whole series of high
crimes, from mutiny to treason
Having been right, he should be
equally entitled to the credit.
The national-history books find
room for long chapters about An
drew Jackson and how he won a
great battle after the war was over,
But they never heard of Sam Smith,
They never found out that the flas
quite probably wouldn't have been
there for Francis Scott Key to write
verses about if an old fellow named
Smith had not read the enemy's
plan of battle-and read 1t correctly
three weeks before it was made.
| (Copywright, 1945)