Ehrlich on Washington column, May 17, 1998

EHRLICH ON WASHINGTON By Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. 1407 York Road, Suite 304 Lutherville, Maryland 21093 MEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland Washington, D.C. 20515 Week of May 17, 1998 315 Cannon House Office Building REMEMBERING THE HEROES OF NORTH POINT This weekend we will celebrate Memorial Day, the solemn day on which we pay homage to our nation’s war dead. Many of you know that Memorial Day was first observed in 1 868, when General John Logan ordered flowers placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers. This Memorial Day, however, my thoughts are of an earlier band of war heroes, and of efforts by some of their descendants to preserve an important part of our local heritage. As schoolchildren, we all learned about the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in September, 1814 — the dramatic nighttime battle which inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner. But few people know that the bombardment was part of a two-pronged invasion of Baltimore begun when British troops landed at North Point (the area now known as Dundalk). The British troops, battle-hardened combat veterans under the command of Major General Robert Ross, were part of the same force that sacked and burned Washington a few weeks before. Their plan was to march on Baltimore while the British fleet pummeled Fort McHenry. With professional troops involved in other engagements, the defense of Baltimore was left to an untested amateur militia force commanded by Brigadier General John Strieker. The majority of Strieker’s force was quartered in Patterson Park, leaving about 4,000 militiamen to confront General Ross’ forces at North Point. Though inexperienced and outgunned, the scrappy American force rose to the occasion. Two American sharpshooters ambushed and killed General Ross. Moreover, the militia confronted the British at a place called Godly Wood, repeatedly hitting the enemy’s lines with crippling volleys of cannon fire. ( When they ran out of cannon balls, they filled the cannons with such deadly nontraditional projectiles as