Project sponsored by the Maryland Society of the Sons of the American Revolution
Recent posts: Finding the Maryland 400
Help Support the Maryland 400!
In August 1776, a group of soldiers—the Maryland 400—helped hold back the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn, allowing the rest of the Americans to escape the field. The Marylanders lost a quarter of their men that day, but their stand saved the Continental Army, allowing it to live and fight another day. For […]
Revolutionary Book Review: George the Drummer Boy
The first book I ever read about the American Revolution was a children’s book called George the Drummer Boy, by Nathaniel Benchley, with illustrations by Don Bolognese. It tells the story of a drummer in the British Army who is stationed in Boston in 1775. His unit is chosen to march out of Boston to […]
A New Podcast Tells the Story of the Maryland Line
We are excited to share that a new podcast about the Revolutionary War, and Maryland’s soldiers, has been launched by Mission History. The series tells the story of the events that brought two armies, including nearly 2,000 soldiers from Maryland, to Camden, South Carolina in August 1781. The battle fought at Camden was one of […]
A Beating in Baltimore: Communal Violence during the Revolution
Today’s post comes from Marshall Cooperman of St. John’s College in Annapolis, who was part of the Maryland State Archives’ intern class of 2023. Marshall’s project team worked on cataloging a large collection of Revolutionary-era correspondence, and he came across the letters that tell this story while doing that work America in 1776 was a […]
Author Archives: Finding the Maryland 400
Maryland’s Quakers in the Revolution Podcast
Recently, longtime friend of Finding the Maryland 400 Jason Aglietti appeared on the AskHistorians podcast, to talk about his recently finished master’s thesis, “The Friends They Loathed: The Persecution of Maryland Quakers During the Revolutionary War.” You should listen! AskHistorians … Continue reading
Alonzo Chappel and the Romantic Visual Culture of Antebellum America
This spring, Finding the Maryland 400 has partnered with students at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. These students, in Professor Adam Goodheart’s class studying the Maryland 400 and the state during the Revolution, researched and wrote biographies of Maryland 400 … Continue reading
What’s In a Name: Companies, Regiments, and Battalions
Revolutionary War military terminology can be pretty confusing. Starting today, we are publishing periodic posts to help explain what some of these words mean, moving towards a full glossary of eighteenth-century military terms.
The Case of Thomas Connor, Who Didn’t Die in Battle
Of the 256 Marylanders who were killed or captured at the Battle of Brooklyn (more than 25 percent of the regiment), very few have so far been identified by name. We know the names of just four who died and … Continue reading
Another Completed Company!
We have recently completed the biography of the last remaining Second Company soldier, and are excited to say that yet another company is done! We’re one step closer to having biographies of all of the Maryland 400’s soldiers.
A Pennsylvanian in the Maryland Line?
Most Maryland 400 veterans returned to Maryland after their military service ended. Many, perhaps most, of them stayed in the state afterward, but plenty moved on instead, mostly heading west in search of land. Michael Waltz, a private in the … Continue reading
A Veteran Remembers
The last officially recorded fact about Joseph Steward’s military service is that he enlisted in the Second Company of the First Maryland Regiment, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, on February 26, 1776. There is nothing to tell us what became … Continue reading
Upcoming Maryland 400 Lecture
On Saturday, September 9, Finding the Maryland 400 project director Owen Lourie will give a lecture at Belair Mansion in Bowie, Maryland. He will talk about the Maryland 400 at the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, and highlight the stories … Continue reading
The Battle of Brooklyn in Five Objects: Number 4, Daniel Bowie’s Will
Today’s object is one that we have featured before: the will that Captain Daniel Bowie wrote on August 26, 1776, the day before he was killed in combat at the Battle of Brooklyn. For most of the year, Bowie had … Continue reading
The Battle of Brooklyn in Five Objects: Number 2, Mordecai Gist’s Portrait
Today’s object, as we move closer to the beginning of combat at the Battle of Brooklyn, is the portrait of Mordecai Gist. As the First Maryland Regiment’s major, Gist was the third-highest ranking officer, and the man who led the … Continue reading
Finding the Maryland 400 