John Stricker

He commanded the Third Brigade (also known as the "City Brigade" or the "Baltimore Brigade") of the Maryland state militia in the Battle of North Point on Monday, September 12, 1814, (later known as "Defenders' Day, a state, county and city holiday) which formed a part of the larger Battle of Baltimore, along with the subsequent British naval bombardment of Fort McHenry on September 13-14th, and was a turning point in the later months of the War of 1812 and to the peace negotiators across the Atlantic Ocean for the Treaty of Ghent, in the city of Ghent then in the Austrian Netherlands, (now of future Belgium), which finally arrived at a peace treaty on Christmas Eve of December 1814, of which news finally reached America in February 1815.

Stricker, as Brigadier General and commander of the Third Brigade (also known as the "City Brigade" or the "Baltimore Brigade") of the Maryland state militia, was ordered by Maj. Gen. Samuel Smith (commander of the Maryland and Baltimore militia and some U.S. Army regular units) to delay the British advance up the "Patapsco Neck" peninsula, in order to buy enough time to complete the building of defensive fortifications around the eastern side Baltimore on Loudenschlager's Hill and adjacent Potter's Hill (also later known as "Hampstead Hill", today's western slope of Patterson Park).

[2] The Fifth Regiment of the Maryland state militia, of mostly Baltimore City troops, commanded by Lt. Col. Joseph Sterrett, having already been bloodied a month earlier at the infamous Battle of Bladensburg, on the northeast outskirts of Washington, D.C. in Bladensburg of Prince George's County, was now assigned the task of holding the right flank of the American armed forces, and withstood two hours of Congreve rocket fire and artillery before eventually being ordered to fall back to the newly constructed line of trenches to the east outside Baltimore on Hampstead Hill.

The British Army, many of whom were veterans of the recently concluded Napoleonic Wars, were surprised by the strong resistance of these Maryland Militiamen, unlike their earlier experience at Bladensburg and, having taken around 300 casualties, they withdrew and stayed on the eastern flank of the battlefield near an old Methodist meeting house to tend to their wounded and recoup after the previous morning's sniper shooting of their commanding General Robert Ross, by American sharpshooters/snipers.

Command was assumed by Col. Arthur Brooke of the 44th Regiment of Foot, as the American militia withdrew later that afternoon in good order back up the "Patapsco Neck" peninsula to the eastern outskirts of the city and the heavily-prepared Hampstead Hill fortifications.

Grave at Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, (later site of Westminster Presbyterian Church built over a portion of the burial ground), North Greene and West Fayette Streets.