[2] Lord recounts the conflict between Great Britain and the United States in the summer of 1814, when the British mounted a coordinated attack on Baltimore, Maryland, and its environs by land and sea.

[4] On the American side, he characterizes the complacency and dissension by the Federal government even as the looming presence of the British fleet in the Chesapeake Bay threatened the young nation's capital.

[6] Time magazine cited the book's vivid account of the violent nighttime arrest of William Beanes, the hostage for whom Francis Scott Key was sent by President Madison to negotiate with his British captors:[7] “a party of British horsemen rode up to Beanes’ front door, crashed into the house, and pulled the doctor out of bed".

[10] In selecting the book for re-printing, the Johns Hopkins university press said, "Lord wrote with great force and feeling of the subsequent defense of Fort McHenry, the circumstances of Francis Scott Key's writing of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' and the rebirth of a young country.

"[11] Another reviewer summarized the book by saying, "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.