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 […]
Category Archives: Biographies
The Resurrection of William Sterrett
An anonymous poet composed the following eulogy for nineteen-year-old lieutenant William Sterrett. It was published in the Maryland Gazette on September 12, 1776, just over two weeks after the Battle of Brooklyn: On the death of Mr. WILLIAM STERET, who … Continue reading
The Peale Family: Picturing the Maryland Line
When the Maryland line was ordered to retreat from the Battle of Brooklyn, they were forced to ford a marsh. Many men were shot down in the quagmire and many more drowned. Two men related by marriage were part of … Continue reading
Biography of William McMillan, Maryland 400 Soldier
Earlier this summer, I wrote a post about a letter I had found in a pension file. The letter was a firsthand account of a Revolutionary War veteran’s experience in the war, written many years after the fact. The man … Continue reading
The Story of James Marle
Yesterday we celebrated America’s independence. James Marle was one of the men who fought to earn it in the Revolutionary War. If the age given in his pension application is accurate, Marle was born in or around 1762. This would … Continue reading
An Anecdote from the Wartime Service of Gassaway Watkins
Gassaway Watkins, one of the men of the Maryland 400, wrote down a brief account of his service before he died. Unfortunately, only part of the document still exists, as evident by its abrupt end. However, the sketch is long … Continue reading
William McMillan Letter
As I was working on the biography for William McMillan yesterday I found an interesting letter included in his pension. At first I was not sure how helpful it would be, but after reading his description of the time he … Continue reading
Finding the Maryland 400 