What So Proudly We Hail'd by Diane Levero

Baltimore, 1812. Candace left finishing school and did the unthinkable—went to work in a newspaper office, and learned the job from the grunt and grunge-work level up. Soon she was caught up in the arguments about the War of 1812, the riots, the British invasion, and she was in love with Zachary, a young man who she believed to be on the wrong side of every issue. All this is played against a social background filled with actual people of the period; the social snobbery of the rich and those aspiring to be like the rich, and the needs and work ethic of the working man.

Candace, a Democratic-Republican in favor of the war with England, works at the Register. Zachary, a Federalist actively against the war, has taken a leave of absence from his elder brother’s law firm in Annapolis to help the publisher of the Federal Republican. They develop a three-tiered relationship that is political, social and person-al. At once intelligent and loving, the pair falls in love even as they hotly debate whether the war should have been fought.

What So Proudly We Hail’d provides an accurate picture of the production of a newspaper. And, in the re-creation of The Baltimore Riots of 1812 the author closely follows the details provided in newspapers, court affidavits filed by some of the victims, and other contemporary records.

Like Candace and Zachary, today’s historians still debate the War of 1812. Under the terms of the peace treaty, neither side won much of anything. Most of the issues over which the country had gone to war faded of their own accord. But, the war did achieve one thing: Britain could no longer view the United States as a collection of break-away colonies. At last she must recognize the United States as a truly independent nation. With that reality established, Britain and the United States were free to become friendly nations, and eventually, strong allies.