The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-09-22
NORTH POINT AND FORT M'HENRY
IN THEIR STIRRING DAYS

marched out the Philadelphia road to
the North Point road and on to the
Old Trappe road where they spent the
night, after sending forward the cav
airy and the rifiemen for observation.
Meanwhile the British fleet entered
the mouth of the Patapsco and an
chored in Old Roads Bay. Before day.
break on the morning of September
IL they began to land their troops on
the low shores inside North Point.
By o'clock an army of 5000 men
was landed and beginning their adj
vance, while their frigates and bomb
ing vessels moved up the river and
took their position in large crescent
line about two and one-half miles off
shore from Fort McHenry and the
Lazaretto.
Planning joint attack against Bal
timore by land and water, the British
Army was deployed and started up
the North Point road. Shortly before
1 o'clock in the afternoon their ad-
vance came in contact with battalion
Of the Fifth Maryland Regiment, COM
manded by Major Richard H. Heath,
who had been ordered forward to rec
onnoitre. In the skirmish the British
commander, Gen. Sir. Robert Ross
was killed and Major Heath, seeing
that he had engaged superior force,
fell back upon the battle-line of his
brigade, which was posted in advance
of the North Point and the Old Trappe
road. The line of the Fifth Regiment
with its right resting on Bear Creek,
extended across the North Point road
with the Twenty-seventh and the
Thirty-ninth in battle formation on
its left. The Fifty-frst was posted
at right angles to the left of the
Thirty-ninth facing a marsh on Back
river, while the Sixth Regiment was
posted as a reserve in the rear.
The fight at his point was main
tanned for about an hour and a half,
when General Stricken, realizing that
he was facing the main body of the
British with a force about one-third
as strong, fell back to the slight ele-
walton that was occupied by the Sixth
Regiment. Later Stricken retreated
to the Junction of the North Point and
the Philadelphia roads and, when the
enemy advanced early the next morn
ing, he retired within the entrench-
ments of Rogers Bastion for the gen.
eral defense of the city. Here the
British were disconnected by the dis
play of strength of these large earth
works bristling with troops and can
non and stretching from the river
shore around the eastern section of
the city.
At daylight on the morning of Sep
TENDER Is the British fleet began its
bombardment of Fort McHenry, which
was fiercely continued throughout the
entire day and night until about Z
o'clock on the morning of September
IA. During the engagement the en-
envy fired more than 1900 bombs,
weighing over $50 pounds each and
innumerable round shot and rockets
into Fort McHenry, but neither their
army nor their navy was able to carry
single important position.
The British commanders held con-
ference during the night of Septem-
Der 10, and when it was reported that
several of their ships were leaking
from the strain of heavy firing, they
decided to make a surprise attack on
Fort McHenry from the rear. Short
ly after midnight a detachment of
1900 men from the fleet, equipped
with scaling ladders, attempted to
get up the main branch of the Pa
tapsco. Their boats had passed Crom-
wells (now Wagner's) Point and their
feet had momentarily stopped the
bombardment for fear of killing their
own men, when in the lull of the fight
ing a detachment of Capt. Francis
Hancock's company (Twenty-second
Regiment) which was patroling the