After occupying Alexandria for five days, the British withdrew down the Potomac River in early September 1814, and Americans established two gun batteries on opposite shores about six miles apart to annoy or destroy the British ships. Troops at the White House gun battery in Virginia delayed the British squadron for several days, giving Americans time to erect a battery at Indian Head, Maryland, across the river from here. Its commander was Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, a celebrated war hero from the Battle of Lake Erie. Outmatched by the British at Indian Head, the exchange of fire there lasted only about an hour, and Perry reported that the battery there was of too small a caliber to make much impression on the enemy as they descended the Potomac. During the War of 1812, from 1812 to 1815, the young United States fought Great Britain to protect its rights and economic independence while facing superior enemy forces on the homefront and the high seas. The strategically important Chesapeake Bay region felt the brunt of the war, choked by shipping blockades and ravaged by enemy raids. Though there was no clear victor at the end of the war, the United States protected its democracy and emerged with heightened stature on the world stage. In the Chesapeake, the war also included the bombardment of Fort McHenry, where after a 25-hour bombardment soldiers raised a large American flag early on September 14, 1814; that flag, signaling British retreat, inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words that became America's national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.