USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 11
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But before leaving Oxford his orders were countermanded and he was required to proceed to Annapolis with his company, where the authorities were apprehending a visit from Lord Dunmore, whose fleet was in the lower Bay. This fear was not realized, and the Talbot company after remaining at the seat of government for a short time joined the main army, as had been originally commanded. After the withdrawal of Capt. Hindman from Oxford, Capt. Nicholas Martin, on the twentieth of July, offered to the Council of Safety to station his militia company at that place, saying that it was much exposed. It is not known that his offer was accepted, but later the company of Capt. Greenbury Goldsborough appears to have been placed at that point. Besides the independent companies from the Eastern Shore there were seven com- panies of the battalion of the militia sent forward to join the commander in chief. Whether a company for this service was recruited by Capt. Greenbury Goldsborough in Talbot, and whether that company was one of the battalion, there is no record. Capt. Hindman's company consisted of one hundred men, and these were counted as a part of the , quota of the county which was required to form the flying camp. The officers of the battalion were Col. William Richardson, of Caroline county, Lieut. Col. Joseph Earle of Queen Anne, Adjutant, Robert Campbell of and Major William Hopewell, of Arriving at headquar-
ters the Maryland forces all under Colonel Smallwood's immediate com- mand, were placed in the brigade of General Lord Sterling, where they were associated with Delaware and Pennsylvania troops. On the eighth of July the British forces arriving from Halifax, under the command of
39 American Archives, v series, vol. 1, p. 465.
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General Howe and his brother Admiral Howe, took possession of Staten Island in the mouth of New York Bay, and after an unsuccessful attempt to open negotiations with the commander in chief, and to sow disaffec- tion among the people by the circulation of a pacific proclamation, a large force was crossed over to Long Island under Gen'l Clinton, for the pur- pose of attacking the American army there entrenched for the defence of New York City. This was on the twenty-second day of August. The enemy immediately advanced and the disastrous battle of Long Island ensued, in which the Maryland troops, though defeated, acquitted themselves with such distinction as to have called forth the plaudits of the commander in chief. It is not the purpose of this contribution to give the details of this battle. They may be read in any work upon the general history of the country, but the following letter, never before published, may be welcomed, though it adds nothing to our previous knowledge of this engagement. It was written by Mr. Edward Tilgh- man, the distinguished jurist, of Queen Anne's County, and addressed to Mr. James Holliday, of the same county, and formerly a member of the convention.
WYE, 3rd Sept., 1776.
Sir: Probably it may be new to you that a copy of a letter from T. T.40 dated Wednesday even, Head Quarters, Long Island, was brought down by the post on Sunday. I had a sight of a copy, and took off the substance of part. "Lord Sterling, Gen'l Sullivan, Col. Miller (a word is here illegible) Atlee and Major Bird, missing." (Sullivan, my son says, killed.) "Three companies of Smallwood's Battalion were left surrounded and fighting with great bravery. No troops on earth ever behaved better than Smallwood's and Hazlett's battalions. They supported a retreat with the greatest regularity against a very superior force. We saw them make several charges in the open field in which they always made the British troops give way. Col. Grant killed his watch and had come in. Deserters and prisoners, say 500 of the enemy were lost in killed and wounded." T. T. does not believe it. T. T. was not out of the lines. My son was in the heat. Fortunately a lad near him having his arm broke by a grape shot in a canonade of two hours from two field pieces, Lord Sterling ordered my son off to bring up the surgeons and dressing &c., by which mean, with a good deal of management, and through considerable danger, he escaped unhurt. Ld. Sterling, he says, was soon after attacked by one of the cols [columns?] of the enemy, which my son saw in con- siderable numbers pouring down from the woods on the hills, when our people had flattered themselves they would be able to defeat them with
40 This was Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, aide de camp of Gen'l. Washington, and a native of this county.
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ease. Ld. Sterling made a proper disposition to retreat and behaved with great gallantry, but is killed or taken. Gen'l Sullivan killed. The enemy advanced furiously to our lines from whence they received so hot a fire as obliged them to retreat out of cannon shot. In this affair both sides have lost many men-no saying which has suffered most. I am, sir, your very humble servant, E. TILGHMAN.
To the courage and firmness of the troops under Colonel Smallwood in this engagement there are many extant testimonials, but none of them is more hearty than that of Colonel Tilghman himself, who witnessed their behavior in the field, and as a Marylander felt a very natural pride in their conduct. He said in a letter to his father of Sept. third: "The behavior of the southern troops in the late action has shamed the north- ern people. They confess themselves unequal to them in officers and discipline. No regular troops ever made a more gallant resistance than Smallwood's regiment. If others had behaved as well, if General Howe had obtained a victory at all, it would have been dearly bought." Of the conduct of the men of Talbot we know but little from any authen- tic contemporary source; and unfortunately that little is not in the form of unqualified encomium, but rather of defence against certain imputations of their courage and steadiness under fire. A letter, too long and discursive for insertion, of Capt. James Hindman, bearing the date of October 12, 1776, has been preserved, in which he refers to aspersions that had been cast upon his company by Captain Stone, who was in command of one of the Western Shore companies. The following is an extract from this letter, from which it will be seen that he very warmly resents the imputations cast upon his company, and claims that his command displayed as much bravery as any other body of men that was engaged during the day. To substantiate these claims he appeals to Colonel Smallwood himself.
I am very sorry to hear from my brother that a report is spread among Capt. Stone's friends that my company the day we engaged on Long Island behaved ill. I gave him by the earliest opportunity as true a statement of the whole affair as I could recollect, which, he informs me he showed to Mr. Chamberlaine, and which I believe the officers under me can aver to the truth of, as can the officers under Capt. Stone. I cannot judge him guilty of writing anything of the kind. * * Such aspersions are base and ungenerous, and not giving men a fair chance of vindicating themselves. I have the vanity to think the company I have the honor to command have behaved them- selves as well as any in the service, notwithstanding the dark insinuations that have been thrown out to their prejudice."
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Captain Hindman's company lost three men in this engagement whose names history has not recorded. Among the wounded was the First Lieut. Archibald Anderson, whom his captain recommended for promotion.
Although there is little authentic information respecting the partici- pation of the Talbot troops in those engagements which succeeded the disastrous battle of Long Island, where the Marylanders bore off the chief honors of all that were won, there is little doubt that the men of this county shared in whatever credit was gained or whatever humilia- tion was suffered by the affairs at Harlem Heights and White Plains.
Of the conduct of the Maryland troops at Harlem Heights, we have this account from the pen of Col. Tench Tilghman whose words are more worthy of being quoted that those of any other person, because he was a son of Talbot. In a letter to his father of September 19, he says:
The General finding that they [that is Colonel Knowlton and Major Leitch, who had been sent to capture a detachment of the enemy on the 16th] wanted support, ordered out a part of Colonel Griffith's and part of Colonel Richardson's Maryland regiments. These troops though young charged with as much bravery as I can conceive. They gave two fires and then marched right forward, which drove the enemy from the woods into a buckwheat field, from whence they retreated. The General fearing (as we afterwards found) that a large body was coming to support them, sent me over to bring off our men. They gave a hurra, and left the field in good order. We had about forty wounded and a very few killed.
Again, while the American army was holding its position at White Plains, in expectancy of a general engagement with the enemy under General Howe, the regiment of Colonel Smallwood, into which all the Maryland troops had been incorporated, distinguished itself in the defence of Chatteron Hill, a fortified position which the British general thought it necessary to possess before he should make his attack upon the American lines. After a determined resistance, the brunt of which seems to have been borne by Smallwood's men, the position was aban- doned by Gen. McDougal, the American commander, who made good his retreat, and joined the main army. Of the Maryland regiment forty-six were killed and wounded, including Col. Smallwood himself and Captains Scott and Bracco-the last of whom belonged to a family well known and long resident in this county. Of this affair Col. Tilgh- man in a letter to his father of the thirty-first October says:
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"Our troops made as good a stand as could be expected, and did not quit the grounds till they came to push bayonets. We lost about one hundred killed and wounded. Smallwood's regiment suffered most .- He himself is wounded in the hand and hip but not badly. Captains Bracco and Scott killed."
After Washington had crossed the Hudson, the Maryland troops, sadly decimated by the casualities of battle and by sickness, having been placed, during the temporary and enforced retirement of Col. Smallwood and who had been wounded, under the command of Major Gist, followed the fortunes of the main army in its retreat across the Jerseys. Their conduct was always such as to reflect credit upon their State, and was sometimes distinguished above that of their associates in arms. There are no means, however, of learning anything of the behavior of the men of Talbot; but when honors are to be distributed for firm- ness and bravery upon the field of battle, and when praises are to be bestowed for fortitude upon the march, or patient endurance of hard- ships in the camp, probably better tests of soldierly qualities than conduct in the presence of the enemy, we may justly claim for them, if not a greater, at least an equal share with their compatriots. The militia that had constituted the flying camp of Maryland having enlisted to serve until the first of December, the Convention appointed four Commissioners, of whom James Lloyd Chamberlaine of this county was one, to repair to the camps on the Jerseys and New York for the purpose of ascertaining what officers and men of the regular troops or of the flying camps "were willing to engage in the service of the United States during the war, and to organize such as were willing to enlist into companies and battalions upon the basis of the previous organizations." This was done in furtherance of the wishes of Congress and the Commander in Chief, who saw the army melting away under the systems of short service and the employment of militia. It is stated, apparently with authority, that the independent companies, including, it is presumable, that of Captain James Hindman of Talbot re-enlisted for three years in the Continental service.41 The militia in great part returned home after the expiration of the term of enlistment. The army, including those Maryland troops that continued in the service, after the reassuring battles of Trenton and Princeton, in which they appear to have participated, went into winter quarters, and before the opening of another campaign were differently disposed under the
41 Scharf's Hist. Md., vol. ii, p. 290.
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new arrangement as authorized by the Convention, and as directed by its Commissioners, a more particular reference to which will presently be made.
As almost every incident of this period, however trifling in itself, has a degree of interest, two or three items may be here noted, as they are connected with military affairs in this county. On the 13th of July, 1776, the Council of Safety ordered that all the live stock upon Tilgh- man's, Sharp's, and Poplar islands, except so much of it as was neces- sary for tillage, should be removed beyond the reach of the enemy, whose fleet was in the lower bay. On the 22nd of that month Mr. Matthew Tilghman requested of the Council that a vessel be purchased and commissioned to defend such parts of the county lying upon the Bay as were exposed to depredations by the enemy. The Council replied that it could not furnish boats for the defence of every exposed point, but that it would do what it could for the protection of the prop- erty of the citizens of Talbot. It advised Mr. Tilghman to sell the stock upon his island. One of the needs of the military service was gun flints, and search was made for the proper stone from which to form them. On the twenty-seventh July, Messrs. Sam'l Chase and Charles Carroll of Carrollton wrote to the Council of Safety that flint stones were to be found in Choptank and Wye Rivers, they having been brought into those rivers as ballast of ships. Another letter speaks of flint stones being found near Emerson's, now Wye Landing.42 On the twenty-fourth of October, 1776, William Webb Haddaway was com- missioned as First Major of the 38th Battalion of Militia, and on the twenty-ninth commissions were issued by the Council of Safety to Edward Markland as Lieutenant and Richard Coward as master of the schooner Dolphin, an armed vessel, probably a privateer. The names these officers who were residents of Oxford or its vicinity, would indi- cate that the Dolphin sailed from that port, but this is merely conjectural.
Having followed the current of military affairs to the end of the memorable year of 1776, it is now necessary to return and follow that of the political to the same date. It has already been noted that an election had been ordered to be held for delegates to a new Convention, the principal duty of which was to be the framing of a constitution and form of government for Maryland, which the previous Convention had declared to be an independent State; that the election had been held,
42 But a few years ago lumps of chalk were to be found in the back creek at Oxford, brought there as ballast in colonial times.
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the delegates chosen, and the Convention organized August 14, 1776, by the choosing the Hon. Matthew Tilghman as its President. The first steps that were taken by this Convention were with reference to military affairs, but on the seventeenth the main business was brought up, and a committee was chosen by ballot "to prepare a declaration and charter of rights and a form of government for this State." The gentlemen selected were probably the most eminent men of their day in Maryland, of those that had espoused the patriot cause. The Com- mittee consisted of the Hon. Matthew Tilghman, Charles Carroll, the barrister, William Paca, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Plater, Samuel Chase, and Robert Goldsborough, Esquires. Mr. Chase and Mr. Carroll, the barrister, having received instructions from their constituents which they were unable to obey, being, as they thought, "incompatible with good government and the public peace and happi- ness," resigned their seats in the Convention, and therefore in the Committee. Thomas Johnson and Robert T. Hooe were elected in their place in the Committee. Mr. Chase was subsequently re-elected to a seat in the Convention. It was by the Committee thus constituted, with the venerable member from Talbot as its chairman, that the admirable Bill of Rights and Constitution were originally framed; the first of which has remained to the present time essentially unchanged. and the last of which has hardly been improved by any alterations and additions that subsequent revisions and so-called reforms have made in its substance. This great charter will continue to be, as it is now, a monument to perpetuate the political wisdom of the statesmen by whom it was constructed, and of the names inscribed upon it, Talbot is honored and proud that the name of her chief citizen stands first. 43
What farther part the delegates from Talbot took in the formation of the state constitution, there are no means of knowing. The pro- ceedings of the Convention as they have been preserved, are meagre, and contain with reference to this subject little more than the record of votes on a few questions. It may be well enough to notice here that the delegates of this county seem not to have shared in the vindictive
43 Not as a matter of importance, but as indicating how heavily the burthen of the war was weighing upon the people of Talbot, it may be mentioned that they sent in a petition to the Convention that they might be relieved from a tax which had been imposed on them in 1775, at their own request, for the purchase of land and the building a house thereon for the reception of the poor. A portion of this tax had been collected by the Sheriff. This was ordered to be paid to the Trustees of the Poor, but the uncollected tax was remitted.
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feelings which animated the minds of others of the Convention against those persons who refused to sign the articles of Association, and did not sign them before July 4th past; for upon a motion of Mr. Chase that an article be inserted in the Constitution forbidding such persons from holding offices of profit or trust unless qualified by Act of Assem- bly, Mr. Gibson, the only member from Talbot present and voting, voted in the negative. The Constitution was finally agreed to Novem- ber 7, 1776, and under it elections were held for delegates to the first General Assembly of the State of Maryland on Wednesday, the eight- eenth of December, and for elections for the Senate on Monday the twenty-fifth November. These gentlemen were named as the judges of election in Talbot: John Goldsborough, William Perry and John Bracco, Esquires. The elections were accordingly held and resulted in the choosing John Gibson, James Benson, Henry Banning and Edward Lloyd, Esquires, as members of the Lower House of Assembly for Tal- bot. On the ninth of December the state electoral college assembled at Annapolis and chose fifteen state senators, six of whom were of the Eastern and nine of the Western Shore. The Senators of the Eastern Shore were the Hon. Matthew Tilghman of this county, and Messrs. Joseph Nicholson, Robert Goldsborough, Thomas Wright, James Tilghman and Samuel Wilson. Before adjourning the Convention made provision for the issue of bills of credit to defray the extraordinary expenses attendant upon the war. These bills were really what we now call national currency, or vulgarily greenbacks. As a protection against dishonesty upon the part of the printer of these bills, a commit- tee of supervisors was appointed, whose duty it should be to give an immediate oversight to the printing of the bills and to have the custody of the plates from which they were stricken, until these plates should be returned to the Convention, or, during its recess, to the Council of Safety. A commission was appointed to sign the bills, of which ten members were of the Western Shore, and eight of the Eastern. Of these from this shore, all or most of them belonged to Talbot, and they were as follows: Richard Tilghman, William Perry, Samuel Sharp, Joseph Bruff, Samuel Edmondson, Alexander Irvine, Charles Edward Irvine and Thomas Dawson. The bills after they had been properly printed, numbered and signed, were delivered to the treasurers for each of the Shores (William Hindman being the treasurer of the Eastern and Thomas Harwood of the Western Shore), who were required to give bond, the latter to Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer and Charles Carroll, the barris- ter, and the former to the Hon. Matthew Tilghman, Edward Lloyd,
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and James Lloyd Chamberlaine, Esquires. On the tenth November the Hon. Matthew Tilghman, and Thomas Johnson, Jr., William Paca, Thomas Stone, Samuel Chase, Benjamin Rumsey, and Charles Carroll (barrister) Esquires, were appointed delegates to represent the State in Congress until the meeting of the General Assembly. It would seem that the conservative element was still predominant in this Con- vention and that there still lingered a hope and a wish for reconciliation with the mother country, for coupled with instructions for the prose- cution of the war given to these delegates was this remarkable precept: "And the said delegates, or any three or more of them, are hereby authorized and empowered, notwithstanding any measures heretofore taken, to concur with Congress, or a majority of them, in accommo- dating our unhappy differences with Great Britain, on such terms as the Congress, or a majority of them shall think proper." In truth at the time when these instructions were issued there was great des- pondency prevailing throughout the United States, and some of the most sanguine were losing heart under repeated defeats of the army. On the same day, the following gentlemen were chosen to be the Council of Safety, the last ones to hold that responsible office: John Hall, George Plater, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Brice Beal Worthington, Charles Grahame, Esquires, of the Western Shore and Joseph Nicholson, Nicho- las Thomas, of Talbot, William Rumsey, and James Tilghman, Esquires of the Eastern Shore. On the following day, 11th November, this Convention adjourned to meet on the - inst., or upon the call of the Council of Safety; but it assembled no more, and early in the following year the new State government under the constitution was organized and went into full operation. The Committees of Observation and the Council of Safety dissolved, and the Provisional government ceased in Maryland.
The experience of the last campaign had served to confirm the Com- mander in Chief in his often expressed opinion that the war could not be successfully conducted by the employment of troops whose term of service was generally so brief that they could not be brought to the state of discipline necessary to give them firmness in the field. Congress had also arrived at the same conclusion, though long hesitating to encourage the enlistment of an army for a long term, from an appre- hension that such an army might be turned against the very power that created it. The colonies shared these feelings, and they discovered
44 McSherry's Hist. Md., p. 384, and Scharf's Hist. Md., 868.
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the futility of trusting to temporary levies. Accordingly we find that in September, Congress made a requisition for regulars of which Mary- land was required to furnish eight battalions. On the ninth of October the Convention resolved "to use its utmost endeavors to raise the eight battalions required (including the troops already raised and in the service of the United States), as soon as possible." Commissioners, as has been noted, were appointed to go to the camps for the purpose of learning how many men then in the field could be induced to enlist under the continental plan, namely for the war. Before the adjourn- ment of the Convention it empowered the Council of Safety "to take and pursue all measures that they may think necessary and proper for raising, completing and equipping the eight battalions" for the conti- nental service. Before the opening of the campaign of 1777, in accord- ance with the orders of Congress and the Convention, the Maryland troops were reorganized and what became known as the "Maryland Line" was formed, old officers as far as possible being retained. There appears actually to have been but seven battalions-Capt. James Hindman of the independent company of Talbot became Lieut. Colonel of the fifth battalion, with William Richardson as his colonel. In this battalion also we find Perry Benson, who now in the rank of first lieuten- ant, subsequently during the war rose to the rank of captain, and is remembered as General Benson, of the Maryland militia in the war of 1812. In the same battalion and company with Benson was Jonathan Gibson, as second lieutenant, who also rose to be captain and died soon after the close of the war. In the second battalion Archibald Anderson had command of a company with Thomas Price as his colonel. He was originally first lieutenant in Captain Hindman's independent company, rose to the rank of major, and died bravely upon the field of battle, at Cowpens as has been mentioned. Edward Hindman, a brother of Colonel Hindman, was made captain of a company in the third battalion, Colonel Mordecai Gist. These are the only names of officers belonging to Talbot, that can be found in the rolls of March 27, 1777. These seven battalions were placed under the command of Gen. William Smallwood.
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