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The Battle of 

North Point

A Little-Known Battle from a Scarcely Remembered War

By Ross M. Kimmel

Most people can make a pretty good guess when the War of 1812 

started. Some know about the bombardment of Fort McHenry, 

which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner. 

And movie buffs no doubt recall mustachioed Yul Brunner as the pirate chieftain 

Jean Lafitte coming to the rescue of silver-haired, heavy-browed Charlton Heston as 

Andrew Jackson in The Buccaneer, an account of the Battle of New Orleans.

Not as well known, perhaps, is the pivotal role that Maryland and the Chesapeake 

Bay played in the war. And even less well known is the Battle of North Point, a 

fierce engagement on the outskirts of Baltimore that helped turn the Chesapeake 

campaign against the British.

But the Battle of North Point was a clash that pitted a disciplined, yet untested 

militia against battle-hardened British veterans. It saved Baltimore and helped boost 

the self-esteem of a young nation that had just seen its Capitol and many of its 

national buildings burned to the ground.

Don Troiani is a military history artist who painted the 5th Infantry at the Battle of North Point

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Major General Samuel Smith (left) was in overall 

command of the American defense of Baltimore. 

Brigadier General John Stricker commanded the 

American force at the Battle of North Point. 

Acclaimed American artist Rembrandt Peale painted 

both these portraits between 1817-1818.

And although military historians would count the battle a draw, it 

bloodied the nose of the Troops Who Whipped Napoleon, dealing 

a blow to their morale that they never regained. A day after their 

advance on Baltimore was stymied at North Point, the British tried 

unsuccessfully to bomb Fort McHenry into submission, inspiring 

Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner.

Remembering Our Forgotten History

The heroes of North Point were once celebrated in Maryland on 

Defender’s Day. Visiting dignitaries made a point of visiting the 

battlefield and presidents lauded their feats in speeches. But other 

battles and other heroes eventually pushed North Point, and the 

war itself, into the background of the national consciousness.

But with its bicentennial approaching, the story of the War of 

1812 is reemerging.

Two years ago, Maryland purchased the nine acres that represented the only undeveloped remnant of the September 14, 1814 North 

Point battlefield for preservation under Program Open Space.

In June, Congress established the Star-Spangled Banner National 

Historic Trail, marking the British campaign on the Chesapeake, 

including the Battle of North Point and the Battle of Baltimore that 

followed.

Maryland is planning a statewide commemoration of the war’s 

bicentennial in 2012.

Now at least we have a chance to remember, and learn from, an 

important era in our nation’s history; a point in time that helped 

shape us as a people, a state, and a country.

Eyes on British Canada

Rallying the nation with the cry “Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights,” 

President James Madison wrung a declaration of war out of 

Congress on June 18, 1812.

 The British were interfering with American merchant shipping 

and impressing American seamen into service on Her Majesty’s 

ships. Such depredations were affronts to American national 

sovereignty. In the war’s first great irony, the British had decided 

to stop seizing American merchantmen the day before Congress’s 

declaration, although impressments continued.

Influential Americans had ulterior motives for war: seizure of 

British Canada, neutralization of Indian tribes resisting American 

expansion into the Old Northwest, and the possibility of seizing at 

least some of Spanish Florida. There was a strong anti-war movement, especially in New England. But 1812 was an election year, 

and President Madison sensed sentiment was running in his favor.

Unfortunately, the country was woefully unprepared to take on 

one of the world’s superpowers.

Most of the fighting occurred on the Canadian-American border, around both sides of the Great Lakes, into Michigan. Neither 

side could sustain the upper hand, though the American navy 

established supremacy on the Great Lakes.

Every Man’s Turnip Patch

In 1813, the British sent a squadron of naval vessels into the 

Chesapeake Bay, hoping to draw American forces from the war in 

the north. But Madison refused to divert resources from the fighting on the Canadian border and Chesapeake residents were left to 

fend for themselves.

“It can’t be expected that I can defend every man’s turnip patch,” 

President Madison said dismissively.

The British raided at will up and down the Chesapeake. They 

burned towns, settlements and plantations that they deemed 

offered resistance, including the land that is now Point Lookout 

State Park. They helped themselves to supplies and offered 

freedom to enslaved men if they would fight their former mas-
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Maryland Historical Society (2)

The Battle of North Point by Thomas Ruckle

Maryland Historical Society

The Colonial Marines

When the British arrived in the Chesapeake Bay in February 1813, enslaved 

men and women made their way to His 

Majesty’s ships searching for freedom.

Most were sent to Bermuda or Nova 

Scotia. Some stayed to serve as guides 

on the shallow waterways of the Bay. 

Many men found employment as soldiers to the King.

Known as Colonial Marines, they 

were clothed and accoutered in the 

same manner as Royal Marines, and 

trained on Tangier Island where the 

British had established a base of 

operations.

Their first action was at Pungoteague 

on the Eastern Shore on May 28, 

1814. A company fought at the Battle 

of Bladensburg and three companies 

fought at North Point.

When the British moved south 

to Georgia in December 1814, 

the Colonial Marines joined them. 

Operating from Cumberland Island, the 

ranks swelled to six companies, their 

wives and children. After the war, the 

Colonial Marines served in Bermuda 

until 1817. They eventually settled in 

Trinidad where they were given land as 

free men.

ters. Many enslaved men jumped at the 

chance.

In the summer of 1814, after the defeat 

of Napoleon in Europe, the British sent 

an army of 4,000 men to augment the 

naval forces in the Chesapeake. Landing at 

Benedict, on or near DNR lands at Indian 

Creek, the British force marched past the 

site of today’s Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary, 

brushed aside a hastily formed force of 

Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, 

marched into a nearly deserted District 

of Columbia, and burned the Capitol, the 

White House and other public buildings. 

Re-embarking at Benedict, the British next 

set their sights on Baltimore.

A Nest of Pirates

The British described Baltimore as “a nest 

of pirates,” a disparaging nickname the 

city earned by outfitting many privateers 

that preyed on British merchant vessels 

during the war. The British wanted revenge. But Baltimore was better prepared 

than Washington. They were led by Gen. 

Samuel Smith, a veteran officer of the War 

of Independence, who had been anticipating an attack for more than a year.

In the early hours of September 12, 

1814, British forces landed at the tip of 

North Point and proceeded confidently 

up the peninsula. Most of the British were 

battle-tested veterans of the wars against 

Napoleon, but fighting far from home. The 

Marylanders who faced them had special 

incentive – they were defending hearth 

and kin.

The British commander, Major General 

Robert Ross, planned to be in position 

that evening to assault the defenses of 

Baltimore which stretched along hills to 

the east of the city. Unknown to the British, 

the Baltimore City Brigade under General 

John Stricker waited at the intersection of 

North Point and Trappe Roads, predetermined to be the best spot to counter and 

delay an attack on the town.

Just south of the American line, in a 

surprise encounter, skirmishers inflicted 

a mortal wound to Ross. Forcing the 

skirmishers back, the British met the 

American main line at the edge of an 

open field astride North Point Road. The 

new British commander, Colonel Arthur 

Brooke unleashed his artillery and rockets 

to soften up the American line. This fire 

was returned by the American artillery. 

After almost two hours of counter battery 

activity, the British advanced, pushing the 

Americans back, but not overwhelming 

them. Stricker held his ground as long 

as possible then retreated across Bread 

and Cheese Creek to a reserve position. 

The exhausted British troops stopped on 

the field of battle to rest and bind their 

wounds. 
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That night, Stricker’s brigade retired to another pre-planned 

position within the American defenses of the city.

Brooke and his army finally made it to the Baltimore defenses, 

18 hours later than they had planned. Bruised and battered from 

the previous day, their momentum dented, the British searched 

for a way through or around the earthworks. By evening, knowing 

that the Royal Navy could not provide assistance, Brooke decided 

not to waste manpower on a fruitless assault. 

Brooke marched his army back to North Point, burning 

Todd’s Inheritance, a historic structure at North Point State Park. 

Today, this site is leased to a private, non-profit foundation that 

is working to restore it as a museum. At North Point, Brooke’s 

army rendezvoused with the navy to sail to the West Indies, from 

which the British would try again to defeat the Americans at New 

Orleans.

Rockets’ Red Glare

As the British navy sailed away from Fort McHenry, Francis Scott 

Key, a Carroll County native who observed the bombardment from 

a truce ship recording the “rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting 

in air,” was moved at “the dawn’s early light” to see the small 

storm flag over Fort McHenry come down and the huge garrison 

flag go up as the British sailed away. 

Baltimore citizens and soldiers were jubilant. Key’s poem was 

set in print, then put to music. The Star-Spangled Banner became 

immensely popular all over the United States. Congress declared 

it the national anthem in 1931. Baltimoreans, though, understood 

that the repulse of the land phase of the British invasion was strategically the more important event. September 12, the date of the 

Battle of North Point, was set aside as “Defenders’ Day.” The last 

of the “Old Defenders,” the soldiers and sailors who had defended 

the city, died in 1896.

The British and the Americans faced each other for one last epic 

battle, at New Orleans on January 8, 1815; there the British army 

assaulted an entrenched foe and were nearly destroyed.

In the war’s other great irony, the Battle of New Orleans was 

fought after British and American peace commissioners agreed to 

a war-ending treaty in Ghent, Belgium, on Christmas Eve 1814. 

Word of that had not reached this side of the world.

The Treaty of Ghent ended the war without addressing the 

issues that caused it. The British already had decided to stop 

harassing American shipping, and with Napoleon defeated (albeit 

temporarily), they had no incentive to impress American seamen. 

A joint-commission was established to mediate border disputes 

between Canada and the United States. The British agreed to stop 

inciting the Indians to attack American settlers. The U.S. never 

again considered conquering Canada.

The decisive victory at New Orleans and the successful defense of 

Baltimore helped shape the nascent sense of American nationalism, 

although that would not fully mature until after the Civil War. n

Ross Kimmell is Parks Historian with the Maryland Department of 

Natural Resources.

Map courtesy of Steve Stanley of Gettysburg, PA