Historical Society of Baltimore County
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• BALTIMORE COUNTY • 1 \ T 1LS Agriculture Building • 9811 Van Buren Lane • Cockeysville, MD 21030 Editors: ISSN 0889-6186 JOHN W. McGRAIN and WILLIAM HOLLIFIELD VOL. 33 WINTER 1998 NO. 2 Where Are the British Sot cliers Killed in • . .73 •-•.-F the Battle of North Point Buried? ••• • by Kathy Lee Erlandson Liston That is a question that has haunted the Patapsco Neck for 185 years (pun intended), After ten years of research I think I have an answer. But first let us set the stage. On September 11, 1814, the British fleet was spotted off North Point, at the tip of the Patapsco Neck penin- sula. Major-General Samuel Smith, in command of the forces gathered to defend Baltimore, sent a recon- 77- . noitering party of 3,200 men, under Brigadier General METHODIST .11EETING-110IISE.-.---i John Stricker, down the Neck. This party was composed almost totally of militia and included members of the 3rd Brigade, cavalry, rifles, and six four-pounder The second Battle Ground Meeting House, north side of cannons. Their job was to delay the enemy, buying time Old North Point Road east of Bread and Cheese Creek. for the city to complete its defenses. The Americans Drawn by Benson Lossing in 1866. advanced as far as the Methodist Meeting House on North Point Road near Bread and Cheese Creek, and fighting abilities of "the colonies." With their success made camp for the night. Stricker posted an advance at the American capital, it is no wonder that the British party of riflemen near a blacksmith's shop at School- viewed Baltimore as an easy target. By mid-afternoon house Cove and sent the 1st Maryland Cavalry farther on September 12, their belief would be strongly shaken. down near Gorsuch's Farm, with videttes spread out While the British were disembarking, General towards North Point. Stricker, advised of their progress by his videttes, In the early morning of September 12, some 4,000 deployed his army half a mile south of the Meeting British troops under the command of Major-General House near Bouldin's farm. He positioned his main force Robert Ross landed at North Point. These troops, many at the head of Bear Creek across the Patapsco Neck to veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, disembarked with the Back River, and placed the 6th Regiment in reserve on belief that they would march up the Neck and seize the north side of Bread and Cheese Creek near Cook's Baltimore with little or no opposition. This belief was Tavern. Meanwhile, scouts returned with the news that based largely on their experience at Bladensburg just the British were advancing slowly and that General three weeks earlier. On August 24, when pressed by Ross, Rear-Admiral George Cockburn, and their staffs Ross's veterans, the American militia, after giving only were eating breakfast at the Gorsuch farm. When a token defense, had turned and run, leaving the British Stricker's officers heard that the British were enjoying free to burn undefended Washington. Derogatorily themselves at Gorsuch's, several of them volunteered tagged the "Bladensburg Races" by the British forces, to dislodge them. Accordingly, Stricker sent two the battle reinforced an already strong disdain for the companies of the 5th Regiment (Independent Blues and PAGE 6 BALTIMORE COUNTY HISTORY TRAILS WINTER 1998 Plat of the Weatherby lands subdivided in 1847 prior to an auction. The almost straight access road is today Norris Lane. Redrawn from a plat filed in the case of State of Maryland v. Weatherby (Maryland Archives). Mechanical Volunteers), Aisquith's Rifles, some cavalry, 3 o'clock, engaged the main American force. The Battle and a four-pounder gun-200 men total under Major of North Point began with an artillery barrage from Heath—forward with orders to "annoy [the British] both sides, and the fighting continued hot and heavy advance." for over an hour. Despite a moment of panic when the In the early afternoon, General Ross and his party 51st Regiment and part of the 39th Regiment retreated left the Gorsuch house and started once again up North after delivering only one random fusillade, the Point Road. Admiral Cockburn cautioned they were too remainder of the Americans held their ground. The far ahead of their main force, but it was too late. The incessant fire continued until after 4 o'clock in the Americans opened fire and Ross was mortally wounded. afternoon when Stricker, pressed by the superior British Ross was laid in a wagon and carried toward the landing forces, retreated with his troops across Bread and point but only made it a mile down the road. Placed on Cheese Creek to the reserve position and thence to the ground under a large tree, he died commending his Worthington's Mill on the outskirts of Baltimore. The wife and family to his country. The general's body was British, exhausted from a day of unexpected fighting, removed to the H.M.S. Tonnant and Colonel Arthur broke off the attack and bivouacked for the night along Brooke of the 44th Foot assumed command of the Bread and Cheese Creek. American losses were 24 British army. killed, 139 wounded, 50 taken prisoner, and two The British pressed forward and finally, just before cannons lost.2 The British suffered 46 killed and 295 WINTER 1998 BALTIMORE COUNTY HISTORY TRAILS PAGE 7 wounded.3 The British numbers included General Ross fought, stating that he had caused to be buried and two other men killed in the initial skirmish. such of the British dead as were found lying on Which brings us back to the question: Where are the surface and reinterred those that were not the British soldiers buried? To answer where it is sufficiently covered amounting in all to forty-two. important to look at who buried them. Despite popular [A]nd that two of the American dead found on the belief, it was not the British themselves. field of Battle he caused to be decently interred, The night following the battle it poured rain. The the number brought to Town by the Friends of the British, expecting to occupy Baltimore, had left their deceased not known (stated however in committee baggage on the ships and thus passed a very to be 17) . .7 uncomfortable night without tents. After a long, hot Joseph Townsend, a Quaker, was a prominent dry march followed by an unexpected battle, it is not goods merchant with a shop on Baltimore Street. Born surprising that they gave little thought to burying their in Chester County, Pennsylvania, he taught school at fallen comrades. It is probable that a few of the corpses the Gunpowder Meeting before moving to Baltimore to were roughly covered with leaves and shallow topsoil teach in 1783. He soon turned to trade, but remained hastily scraped together by friends, but the majority true to his Quaker beliefs as a staunch and active lay as they fe11.4 The following morning the British army abolitionist. He was one of the founders and first resumed its march to Baltimore. However, when secretary of the Baltimore Abolitionist Society. In 1794, confronted with 12,000 men ensconced on Hampstead he founded the Baltimore Equitable Society, a fire Hill, the British chose to retreat to their ships at North insurance company that survives today (readers will Point early on September 14 without further engaging be familiar with the sign of two clenched hands over the Americans. On the way back they passed over the the date 1794, still seen on many local buildings insured scene of the earlier action. A young British lieutenant, by the firm). More germane to our tale, that same year George Robert Gleig, would later describe the scene, he donated to the city land for the first official paupers' cemetery, or potter's field, in Baltimore. Townsend was . we saw the dead lying as they lay on the evening very outspoken on the then common practice of burying of the action, still unburied. Many had, however, deceased indigents and unidentified corpses wherever undergone the process of stripping, though by they were found, without heed to the fact that such whom it was impossible for us to guess; and all burials might prove inconvenient at a later date and were beginning to emit an odour the reverse of need to be moved. He was so concerned with what he acceptable to delicate organs; but we could not considered improper burial practices that he raised the pause to give them sepulture; and both the sight money amongst his colleagues and friends to buy a and smell were too familiar to affect us very parcel of land for the city.' This potter's field is under deeply.' the current Johns Hopkins Hospital oncology center, parking lot, and garage.9 By British military tradition, only high ranking It is evident, then, that Joseph Townsend was not officers or other special individuals were returned to an arbitrary choice by the Committee to bury the British British soil for burial. The remains of General Ross were dead. His beliefs were very well known and he could be reportedly preserved in a cask of spirits and eventually relied on to do the job properly. So we have the when— transferred to the H.M.S. Royal Oak for transport to sometime between September 14 and 19—and the who— England. Instead, the ship put in at the first British Joseph Townsend—now for the where. soil it encountered, Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Ross The area that saw the heaviest fighting and greatest was buried on September 29, 1814.6 loss of life was the main North Point road near the On September 14, the Commitee of Vigilance and present Battle Acre monument.