The Dawn's Early Light

by Walter Lord

Published 1 April 1994
Walter Lord-author of such best-sellers as A Night to Remember and A Day of Infamy-brings to life the remarkable events of what we now call The War of 1812-including the burning of Washington and the attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry that inspired the Francis Scott Key to write what would become our national anthem. Lord gives readers a dramatic account of how a new sense of national identity emerged from the smoky haze of what Francis Scott Key so lyrically called "the dawn's early light."