Rising eighteen feet in front of you is the first public monument erected in the United States to commemorate a military battle. The Battle Monument was designed by Maximilien Godefroy, a French architect who had emigrated to Baltimore, and dedicated on September 12, 1815, exactly one year after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry and the Battle of Baltimore. The monument takes the form of a Roman fasces — a bundle of rods symbolizing the strength of unity — rising eighteen feet from a base inscribed with the names of those who died defending the city.
At the top stands a personification of Baltimore, carved from Carrara marble, holding a laurel crown. The monument was so central to Baltimore's identity that it appears on the city seal — which is also the source of the phrase Charm City, derived from the word charmed that appears on that seal. City Hall Plaza, which surrounds you, was originally called Monument Square and was the civic heart of nineteenth-century Baltimore, ringed with banks, courthouses, and hotels.
The Battle of Baltimore in September 1814 was one of the decisive moments of the War of 1812: the British had just burned Washington, and Baltimore was their next target. The city's successful defense, combined with the American victory at Plattsburgh, convinced the British to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent that ended the war.