Americans Hold North Point: Baltimore Defended

British soldiers advancing on Baltimore through the narrow neck of land between the Patapsco River and Bear Creek ran into something unexpected on September 12, 1814: an American force that held its ground, killed a general, and bought the crucial hours that saved the city. The Battle of North Point was a smaller engagement than the more famous bombardment of Fort McHenry that followed, but without it, Baltimore might have fallen as Washington had fallen three weeks earlier. After burning the American capital on August 24, British forces under Major General Robert Ross and Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane turned their attention to Baltimore, the third-largest city in the United States and a nest of privateers who had been raiding British commerce. The plan called for a coordinated assault: Ross would lead 4,700 troops up the peninsula from the east while the Royal Navy bombarded Fort McHenry to open the harbor from the south. The Americans, led by Brigadier General John Stricker, positioned 3,200 militia along a defensive line near the Methodist Meeting House. They sent sharpshooters forward as a skirmish screen, and one of them, likely either Daniel Wells or Henry McComas, fired the shot that struck Ross from his horse. The general, a veteran of the Peninsular War and the man who had personally directed the burning of Washington, died within hours. His death demoralized the British column, which pressed the attack but with diminished aggression. Stricker’s militia eventually withdrew in orderly fashion after inflicting significant casualties, falling back to prepared fortifications at Hampstead Hill where 15,000 defenders waited behind earthworks and artillery. The British probed the defenses, concluded that a frontal assault would be suicidal, and waited for news from the naval bombardment. When Fort McHenry refused to fall after twenty-five hours of shelling, the British re-embarked and sailed away. Francis Scott Key, watching the bombardment from a truce ship, wrote the poem that became the national anthem. Baltimore’s survival was a turning point in the War of 1812.