USA > Maryland > Chronicles of colonial Maryland, with illustrations > Part 21
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1 Hollander, Political Institutions.
CHAPTER XIII
Force and Value of the Maryland Line in the American Revolution
THE part which the Maryland Line played in the drama of the American Revolution was one of distinctive importance. Its history indeed, stands out in bold relief and shows "a match- less splendor and unsurpassable bravery", a military bearing and a degree of heroism and valor, both of its officers and men, which promptly won for it the high and merited distinction of being regarded as the "very flower" of the American Army.
While Maryland had not yet renounced her allegiance to England, and was indeed, still fondly indulging the hope" of reconciliation with the mother country, she was firmly re- solved to actively resist the threatened encroachment upon her rights and liberties, and to that end took decided steps to place her provincial militia upon a more efficient footing, as well also to the manufacture and purchase of arms and am- munition. As early as the 14th of June, 1775, the day before Washington was made commander-in-chief of the army, and just three days before the disastrous engagement at Bunker Hill, Congress ordered two companies to be raised in Mary- land to serve as light infantry and to join the camp at Bos- ton. Western Maryland responded promptly to this requisi- tion and the two companies were raised principally in that sec- tion of the State. The first company was commanded by Cap- tain Michael Cresap, with Thomas Warren, Joseph Cresap and Richard Davis lieutenants, and the second company by Cap- tain Thomas Price with Otho Holland Williams, and John Ross Key, lieutenants. Both companies, each 130 strong, were made up of chosen men and expert riflemen, but Cresap's
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company was composed of sturdy mountaineers, who, with him, had become schooled in Indian warfare and accustomed to the severest hardships. The place of rendezvous was Frederick City, Md., from whence they started on the 18th of July, being the first troops to arrive from the South. Cre- sap's company reached Cambridge on the 9th of August, thus making the then difficult journey of 550 miles in twenty two days. By the 13th, Price's company had arrived, as well also Captain Morgan's company, recruited from the neigh- borhood of Shepherdstown, Virginia, and which left Fred- erick at the same time. They all started that day for Boston, where they became a part of the Continental Army. These troops had a brilliant career and rendered a most efficient ser- vice. After serving before Boston, they were incorporated into a rifle regiment, consisting of two other Maryland and four Virginia companies, and formed a part of the garrison of Fort Washington, under command of colonel Moses Raw- lings and Major Otho Holland Williams at the time of the memorable attack upon it by Sir William Howe.1
1 In a letter dated August Ist, 1775, the writer in speaking of Captain Cresap's Company, says: "I have had the happiness of seeing Captain Michael Cresap marching at the head of a formidable company of upwards of 130 men from the mountains and backwoods, painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles, dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins, and though some of them had travelled nearly eight hundred miles from the banks of the Ohio, they seemed to walk light and easy, and not with less spirit than the first hour of their march * * Yesterday the Company was supplied with powder from the magazine which wanted airing, and was not in good order for rifles ; in the evening, however, they were drawn out to show their dexterity at shooting. A clapboard, with a mark the size of a dollar, was put up; they began to fire off hand, and the bystanders were surprised, few shots being made that were not close to or in the paper. When they had shot for a time this way, some lay on their backs, some on their breasts or sides, others ran 20 or 30 steps, and firing, appeared to be equally certain of the mark. With this performance the Com- pany was more than satisfied, when a young man took up the board in his hand, not by the end but by the side, and holding it up his brother walked a distance and very coolly shot into the white; laying down his rifle, he took up the board, and holding it as it was held
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While the Maryland declaration, in which it was declared, "That the King of Great Britain had violated his compact with this people, and they owe no allegiance to him", was not issued until the sixth of July, 1776, early in January of that year Maryland began more formidable preparations for war than had hitherto been made. The Maryland convention or- dered 1444 men to be raised, equipped and prepared for ser- vice. These were to be arranged in one battalion, composed of nine companies, and into seven independent companies of reg- ular troops, two of artillery and one of marines, to serve dur- ing the war. The battalion was placed under command of Colonel William Smallwood, and with him were appointed Fran- cis Ware, lieutenant-colonel; Thomas Price, first major ; Mor- decai Gist, second major, and Jacob Brice, adjutant.
On the 3rd of June, Congress requested that a Flying Camp of 10,000 men be raised to serve until the first of Decem- ber, of which, Maryland's quota was 3,400, and on the 27th of June, Congress sent in a further requisition for two additional companies of rifle men for Colonel Rawling's rifle regiment, and four campanies of Germans, to form, with a like number from Pennsylvania, a German regiment for the united colonies.
The two rifle and the four German companies were promptly recruited for three years, but owing to its size, the
before, the second brother shot as the former had done * But will you believe me when I tell you, that one of the men took the board, and placing it between his legs, stood with his back to the tree while another drove the center. What would a regular army of con- siderable strength in the forests of America do with 1,000 of these men, who want nothing to preserve their health and courage but water from the spring, with a little parched corn and what they can easily procure in hunting, and who, wrapped in their blankets in the damp of the night, would choose the shade of a tree for their covering, and the earth for their beds. Forces Archives.
Mr. Thatcher, in his Military Journal of August, 1775, says : "these men are remarkable for the accuracy of their aim, striking a mark with great certainty at 200 yards distant * * They are now stationed on our line, and their shot have frequently proved fatal to British officers and soldiers who exposed themselves to view, even at more than double the distance of common musket shot."
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Flying Camp could not be fully recruited until the fall, though the Maryland convention, exerted its best energies to expedite the movement.1
On the 6th of July, two days after the declaration of inde- pendence had been issued, Colonel Smallwood was ordered to march at once with his battalions to Philadelphia and place himself at the command of Congress. The independent com- panies from the counties of Saint Mary's, Talbot, Kent and Queen Anne's, were ordered to immediately proceed to Phila- delphia and place themselves under the command of Colonel Smallwood, and a little later all of the remaining independent companies were ordered to also place themselves under the command of Colonel Smallwood, and to march with expedition.
1 In all of the leading events which immediately preceded, and which led up to the American Revolution, Maryland was in the forefront. It was her patriotic and courageous sons, who determined that her soil should not be poluted by the English Stamp Act, met at the Annapolis harbor, four years in advance of the Boston tea party, the ship "Good Intent", loaded with dutiable goods, and compelled her to put back to sea and return to the kingdom of George III her cargo of unwelcome merchandise; and who a little later, not under cover of mask or dis- guised as Indians, but in the open lime-light of day, compelled her owner to burn the Peggy Stewart, loaded with tea, to the water's edge. And to their unalterable determination and unflinching courage, may also be ascribed the fact, that there were not only no British stamps distributed in Maryland, but that the stamp distributor, Zachary Hood, fled panic stricken from the state, and soon thereafter surrendered his commission. It was her Frederick County Court that had the sagacity to see and the courage to decide, that the Stamp Act was illegal, null and void. It was a Maryland man, Daniel Dulany, who issued that masterly contribution to ante revolutionary literature against the right of the British government to tax the American colonies. James Otis of Massachussetts and Patrick Henry of Virginia, those brilliant cham- pions of American liberty, by their peerless oratory, had kindled the latent spark of patriotism into a blazing flame of enthusiastic indigna- tion, but Daniel Dulany, that great oracle of the law and wonder of the age, struck at the very root of the trouble, and bearded the lion in his own den. By his famous essay, designed for the British Parlia- ment and the English people, and which for boundless learning, powerful logic, scholarly attributes and convincing eloquence, is un- excelled in the annals of American revolutionary literature, demon- strated that under the British constitution, under the very fundimental
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This placed under the command of Smallwood the whole quota of 1,444 men, who constituted the troops which first composed what came to be commonly known as "The Mary- land Line."
On August 16th, such part of the Flying Camp as had been recruited and armed, was ordered to the front, under com- mand of Brig .- General Rezin Beall, and on that day the Mary- land Council of Safety, as indicating its zeal and interest in the cause, and especially in the defense of New York, wrote the Maryland delegates in Congress that, with the troops already in the field, "We shall have nearly 4,000 men with you in a short time We are sending all that can be armed and equipped, and the people of New York, for whom we have great affection, can have no more than our all."
Colonel Smallwood, after the order of July 6th, at once made ready his battalions and began his march on the 10th of July. Upon his arrival at Philadelphia, he reported to President John Hancock, who on the 17th instant, directed him to proceed to New York and report to General Washington. President Hancock communicated this fact to General Wash- ington, and represented to him that it was "An exceedingly fine body of men."
principles upon which the English government was founded, and as expounded by her highest judicial tribunals, American colonial rep- resentation in the English Parliament was an impossibility, either in theory or in fact, and that a tax on the colonies without their consent for the single purpose of revenue, was unconstitutional and destructive of the very foundation itself upon which the colossal statute to Eng- lish liberty stood. Not only that, but to bring the support to his cause of the industrial and commercial interests of the British Empire, so eager to command American trade, he sounded the signal of danger by giving expression to that patriotic thought, then as new as it later became effective, of non importation and home manufacture. "Let the goods of American manufacture be the symbol of dignity and the badge of virtue", he proclaimed, "and it will soon bring the commercial in- terests of England to the support of our cause". This note of warn- ing, this essay, this master-piece in American literature, vibrated throughout the length and breadth of the British Empire; it furnished power to the great Pitt in his immortal and triumphant effort to have the Stamp Act repealed; it brought the industrial interests of Great
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On reaching New York, Washington ordered Smallwood's Maryland to be attached to the brigade of Brig .- General Stir- ling. This battalion, says Fields, "Was one of the few uni- formed and well disciplined organizations in the American Army, and was at once relied upon by Washington for per- forming the most hazardous and important duties". Its first engagement was the battle of Long Island-August 27th, 1776, a most crucial turning point in the war for independence and a most exhaustive test of the material of which this well appointed and well drilled battalion was composed. The British, augmented to 30,000 disciplined troops by the recent arrival of the Hessians, resolved upon the capture of New York, hoping thus to cut off New England from the Southern colonies. Washington realized that his only chance to defeat such an attack was to occupy Brooklyn Heights on Long Island, which eminence commanded the city from the water side. It was a dangerously exposed position, and owing to the im-
Britain to the side of the colonies, and it stamped Daniel Dulany not only as one of the foremost statesmen and brilliant scholars of the age, but distinctly marked him as the father of what commonly come to be known as the great American system. It was Maryland that first proposed a Continental Congress, and elected the first delegates to it. It was a Maryland man, Thomas Johnson, who placed in nomina- tion George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and it was a Maryland man, Charles Carroll, who, as a member of the board of war, defeated the historic Conway cabal, designed to put Gates in Washington's place. And when the closing struggle came, and the master stroke was struck at Yorktown, it was a Maryland man, Colonel Tench Tilghman, Washington's aide, who had the honor of be- ing selected by the commander-in-chief, to bear the important news to Congress. With his horse in an open boat he sailed down the York and up the Chesapeake to Rock Hall, and riding on horseback from thence to the seat of the Continental Congress-one hundred miles- thundered into Philadelphia at midnight and laid before that tribunal the pleasing intelligence that Cornwallis had been taken and that the crowning effort for American liberty had been won. It was a Maryland man, too, John Hanson, who, as "the First President of the United States in Congress assembled", had the distinction of receiving Washington's official report of the surrender at Yorktown, and of pre- senting him, as the Father of His Country, to the Continental Con- gress.
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mense area of exposure, it was one that it was difficult to garrison. He fortified it as best he could and concentrated on Long Island, under command of General Putnam, 7,500 troops, the half of his army, the other half being left for the defense of New York. General Howe, the British commander, was convinced that he could destroy either half of the American Army and that would end the war for independence. - While pretending to be preparing to attack the city, he realized he could not do so without placing himself between two fires, the army in New York in front, and that on Brooklyn Heights in the rear. He therefore, determined to storm the latter and to do it so effectually as to stampede all further efforts at resis- tance, and with an army of 30,000 men and 400 ships, the task of subjugation would seem to have been simple and easy. To that end, he began on August 22nd, the debarkation of 20,000 troops on Long Island. A few days were spent in recon- noitering and in learning the points of locality. On the night of the 26th, he began to form his lines of march which by midnight were completed and the start was made for the American works. Knowing that it was quite impossible for Washington, with a limited force, to have securely barricaded all of the roads, Howe proceeded by four different routes, se- lecting those that were most likely to offer the least resistance. The Gowanus Road was given to General Grant with his High- land regiments; the Flatbush Road was assigned to the Hes- sians, under General De Heister ; the Bedford Road to General Cornwallis, some bridle paths across the eastern end of the island to General Clinton, while the rest of the army, conducted by Howe in person, was to take the Jamaica Road. Howe's purpose was to draw the American army outside of the lines, get it scattered and its attention diverted by attacks from Grant, De Heister, Cornwallis and Clinton, while he, sweeping around the Jamaica Road, would encircle the enemy, close it in and cut off its retreat. Thus completely hemmed in and en- trapped, the whole army must suffer either surrender or death. General Putman blundered and fell into the trap and sent out 5,000 men, all that were available, to check the ad-
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vance, under Sullivan, who was to guard the Flatbush Road and Stirling, who was to meet the enemy on the Gowanus Road. Sullivan, attacked by De Heister in front and Clinton in the rear, was soon routed, and he, with many of his men, fell into the hands of the enemy. Stirling, commanding Smallwood's Maryland, Atlee's Pennsylvania and Haslett's Delaware troops, took position by break of day near the stone house on the Gowanus Road. A line of battle was formed, and then and there on the 27th of August, 1776, was fought the first open field and regularly pitched battle, as well as one of the most heroically contested and critically important battles of the American Revolution. For six hours the battle raged fiercely, but Stirling maintained his ground well and kept back Grant and his Highlanders, though outnumbered five to one. News now reached him of Sullivan's capture and that Cornwallis had entrenched himself in and around the Gowanus stone house, mounting guns where they could be used through its windows and around its corners, and was about to attack him in the rear. Stirling now realized his extremely perilous posi- tion and that, as against such greatly superior numbers, it was a question of surrender or martyrdom. Surrender meant the total loss of the American Army on Long Island, and to a certainty, the end of the Revolution; martyrdom, while awful to contemplate, might mean that the army could be saved and the hope for American liberty still be kept alive. He chose the latter course and ordered all of his men to retreat and get within the lines, except 400 of the Maryland Line. This could only now be done by wading across Gowanus marsh and creek, all other avenues of escape being cut off, and as the tide was fast coming in no time could be lost. Nor could this even be done unless the British army could be driven back or held at bay. Maryland's immortal four hundred were now called upon by Stirling and Gist to make the sacrifice. With a military bearing and a sublimeness of spirit and valor, and a self sacrificing devotion to country and to duty no where surpassed, they undertook this appalling task, and plunging into that fearful carnage of battle and tempest of death,
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held back the enemy until the rest of the army had made its escape. And yet, to a man they never faltered, not even when their ranks had become badly thinned and shattered, nor yet, when the last call from their gallant leader rang forth over the heat and fire of battle and the din and roar of musketry and cannon, "Close up, close up", one more charge and the army is safe, though half their number were dead or dying, and though to obey meant only a march into the eternal jaws of an almost inevitable death. Five times they charged with bayonets upon the powerful forces of the enemy, closing up over their dead and dying, each time gathering renewed energy for a still fiercer assault, until the sixth charge was made when the heavy columns of Cornwallis recoiled and was about to give way in confusion. Assisted at this moment by fresh troops- the Hessians-also by a British brigade in the rear, the fierce- ness of the attack became too severe for human endurance. More than half of their number were dead or dying, and a por- tion of what was left of this little band surrendered with Stir- ling, though a part of three companies, with Major Gist, ani- mated by a most unconquerable determination, cut their way through the British ranks and made their escape. A heavy cannonade was not only kept up against them, but they were vigorously pursued by the Hessians, who would doubtless have destroyed the last man of them while crossing Gowanus marsh and creek, except that Colonel Smallwood, was happily in position to save them. When the Maryland troops were sent over to Brooklyn the day before the battle, Smallwood was held in New York, by order of Washington, on Court Martial duty. But he hurried over early the next morning, and when Stirling ordered his whole brigade to retreat across the marsh and creek and get within the lines, except Maryland's four hundred, who were to hold back Cornwallis, Washington ordered Smallwood to cover the retreat, sending him for the purpose some field pieces, a Connecticut regiment and the Maryland Company of Captain John Allen Thomas. This order was successfully exe- cuted, even to the extent of enabling the retreating troops to carry off with them twenty-eight prisoners, except that a few
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men each from the Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware regi- ments were drowned while crossing the creek, and Smallwood was still on the ground to render the same service to the little remnant of his badly shattered but gallant brigade, who, with their comrades, now either fallen or captured, had saved Ster- ling's division of the American Army.
Such was the sacrifice made by those brave young sons of Maryland, and which for heroism, courage and valor, stands without a parallel in the history of the American Revolution. A sacrifice made in order to defeat and wash away with their own patriotic blood the well laid plans of General Howe to make the battle of Long Island the closing act in the drama of the American Revolution; made in order that the spirit of liberty might bask in the sunshine of another day, and draw- ing from it a decree of renewed vitality and inspiration, which might in their fullness lead on to certain victory; made in order to bequeath to their country, and to those to whom the great majority had bid their final adieu, the assuring hope that American independence might yet be won, and with it the price- less heritage of American liberty.
Of this crucial turning point in the war for independence, the Long Island Historical Society, in its estimable work, the Battle of Long Island, by Thomas W. Fields, says: "Fired with a common emulation of slaughter, Hessian and British troops were now pressing forward, to enclose Stirling's di- vision between them and Grant, in the same fatal embrace which had crushed the life out of Sullivan's corps. The right wing of the enemy, commanded by Lord Cornwallis in person, was hastening forward Cornwallis had proceeded as far as the Cortelyou house This house he proceeded to at once occupy as a redoubt. It thus became apparent to Lord Stirling that his position was no longer defensible. The gigan- tic extent, and the consummate skill, of the British combination, was apparent to the General at a glance. In order, says Stir- ling, to render the escape of the main body (of the army) across the creek more practicable, I found it absolutely nec- essary to attack the body of troops commanded by Lord Corn-
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wallis, posted at the house at the upper mills, which I in- stantly did with about half of Smallwood's regiment, first or- dering all the other troops to make their way across the creek.1 The onset of the victorious foe must be checked, while his re- treating columns toiled through the soft marshes, and across the deep tide water creek, in their rear. *
* Fortunately for his purpose, the noblest instruments for his design were at hand. The Maryland regiment, now commanded by Major Gist, * * was burning with patriotism. * * This body of young men * * had been emulous of the praise of being the best drilled and disciplined of the revolutionary forces, and their high spirit, their courage, their self devotion, as well as the discipline of which they were proud, were now to be proved in the fierce furnace of battle. Flinging himself at the head of these brave lads, who on that day for the first time saw the flash of the enemy's gun, Stirling determined to stem the advance of the foe.
"On all sides the enemy were now closing around the feeble band commanded by Stirling, with the intention to
1 Colonel Smallwood in his official report to the Maryland Con- vention, says: "By this time they had so secured the passes on the road to our lines that there was no possibility of retreating that way. Between the place of action and our lines there lay a large marsh and deep creek, not above eighty yards across at the mouth, * * towards the head of which creek there was a mill and bridge, across which a certain Colonel Ward, from New England, who is charged with having acted a bashful part that day, passed over with his regi- ment, and then burned them down, though under cover of our cannon, which would have checked the enemy's pursuit at any time, otherwise this bridge might have afforded a secure retreat. There then remained no other prospect but to surrender or attempt to retreat over this marsh and creek at the mouth, where no person had ever been known to cross * * He (Washington) immediately sent for and ordered me to march down a New England regiment and Captain Thomas's Com- pany, which had just come over from New York, to the mouth of the creek, opposite where the brigade was drawn up, and ordered two field pieces down to support and cover their retreat ' Thomas' men contributed much in bringing over this party."
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