was an enormous American flag that could be seen for several miles from the Fort. On October 27, 1813 a receipt was given to Pickersgill and her niece Eliza Young in the amount of $405.90 for the larger flag, and $168.54 for the smaller one (which was also used at Fort McHenry as a storm flag). The small flag may have been flying when the British initially attacked Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on September 13, because of the inclement weather that night with the driving rainstorm (which would have made the woolen bunting material soggy and too heavy to blow out in any breeze). However, it was Pickersgill's large flag that was flying over the fort at daybreak on September 14, 1814, after the British had ceased firing on the fort. A diary entry from a British sub-altern on board ship and recently returned from the North Point battlefield, George Glebe, described that sunny morning when the Americans at the distant fort "fired their ("wake-up") morning gun salute and raised a splendid ensign" over the battlements. While negotiating a prisoner exchange aboard a British ship, Francis Scott Key saw the flag, and this inspired him to pen the words to the poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry" that later became the National Anthem of the United States in 1931. After the 1814 battle, George Armistead took possession of the large flag, and after his death in 1818 his widow, Louisa Hughes Armistead, kept it. During her four decades of ownership, she allowed it to be displayed on a few occasions, and also removed pieces of it to be given as gifts, a common practice of the day. Following her death in 1861 the flag went to her daughter, Georgiana Armistead Appleton, and then later to her grandson, Eben Appleton. The flag was moved to various locations over a 40-year period until 1907 when Eben Appleton loaned it to the Smithsonian. In 1912 the loan became permanent, and the flag underwent a variety of restorations. Beginning in December 1998, the flag began an $18 million conservation treatment (not a restoration) and now this flag that was hand crafted by Pickersgill and her helpers in 1813 is one of the most important artifacts, and the centerpiece of the redesigned National Museum of American History. Later life By 1820 Pickersgill had become sufficiently successful in her business to purchase the