The Biggest (and Best) Flag That Ever Flew

Young Caroline Pickersgill lived with her mother and grandmother in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. Pickersgill, a widow, supported herself and her daughter by making flags for the ships that sailed into the city. Some soldiers from Fort McHenry came to her to order the biggest and best flag in the world, and Caroline helped to make it.When the British sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to destroy Baltimore during the War of 1812, the defenders at the fort beat them back. After the British sailed away the next day, the flag gallantly streaming over the fort was the one Caroline and her mother had sewn. And by the dawn's early light, Francis Scott Key saw it waving o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.