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----- NOTE:

----- ----- A-Digested-Quote lies in the realm of myth

----- ----- ----- aims at the creative lie

----- ----- ----- (and is parallel to A-Totally-Fictionalized-Quote)

Blaine Taylor ----- (Military Heritage, April 2000, Digested Quote)

1 ----- The Congreve rockets couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from 50 yards away. But the British used them anyway when they faced the valiant Americans who were lined up to defend the U.S. Capital at the Battle of Bladensburg.

2 ----- And, what with the rockets and the confusion caused by the hasty retirement of the brave American riflemen under Pinkney's command, the courageous American soldiers under the command of Light Colonels Regan and Schutz were also seized by the surrounding panic. And with very few exceptions turned and raced for the rear.

3 ----- So the British ambled into the courageous American Capital City virtually unopposed.

4 ----- They then moved some rockets into the valorously decorous American House of Representatives, aimed them at the ceiling, and probably missed. 'Cause the House didn't catch fire.

5 ----- So they brought a lot of tables and chairs and desks, which had been abandoned by the brave Americans. And the British sprinkled a lot of rocket powder on the pile of wooden objects and aimed some Congreve rockets at the pile from a distance of about 20-40 feet.

6 ----- This time the rockets didn't miss, and the House burnt down.

7 ----- So the British repeated the procedure for the valiant American Senate, and the brave American Treasury, and also for the courageous American White House.

8 ----- Then the British headed for Baltimore to try to find some hardy and quick to fight for their country Americans. At the Battle of North Point the British fired some rockets at the brave courageous and valorous Americans from a distance of about two or three hundred yards.

9 ----- The loud shriek of the rockets was more than the valorous brave and courageous Americans of the 51st Militia could stand. So they hesitated only for a few moments before they broke. And, ignoring the pleas of their officers, they fled the field, each one yelling "It's every man for himself".

10 ----- That's when the British decided that the best way to find some really courageous and really brave and really valiant Americans was to go and attack one of the American Bastions of Liberty.

11 ----- So the British hopped on the sailing ship H.M.S. Erebus and they sailed it to Fort McHenry, which was one of the fortified American Bastions of Liberty.

12 ----- There, from a distance of about a mile, they fired some Congreve rockets at the courageous brave and valiant Americans inside Fort McHenry.

13 ----- And that's when Francis Scot Key, who was several miles away from the scene himself, became so moved by the courageously brave and valiant American resistance to "the rockets' red glare", and by the fact that the American flag "was still there" even after the viciously accurate Congreve rockets finished their bombardment, that he sat down and wrote some really silly lines on a piece of paper.

14 ----- But those lines have been sung and re-sung by generations of brave courageous and valiant Americans ever since, to tell the entire world, but mostly themselves, how bravely and courageously and valiantly they faced the hideously terroristic Congreve rockets used by the British against them in the War of 1812.

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