Category Archives: wills

“Being Desirous to Settle my Worldly Affairs”: Private George Claypoole’s Will

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of our work researching Maryland’s Revolutionary War soldiers is connecting their military service to civilian life. It’s relatively straight forward to piece a man’s army history together, but finding records of that person’s life afterward, … Continue reading

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A Young Soldier Prepares to Leave for War

“Ordered, That colonel Smallwood immediately proceed with his battalion to the city of Philadelphia, and put himself under the continental officer commanding there,” wrote the Convention of Maryland, the state’s Revolutionary legislature, on July 6, 1776. The men of the … Continue reading

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The Short Life of Capt. Daniel Bowie

Daniel Bowie had been a soldier for seven months, and a captain for just seven weeks, when he wrote out his will on August 26, 1776, the day before he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Brooklyn. We have … Continue reading

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Corporal Zachariah Gray’s Last Will and Testament

Corporal Zachariah Gray may have been the oldest enlisted man in the First Maryland Regiment when the regiment fought at the Battle of Brooklyn. At the time of his enlistment on February 3, 1776 Gray was forty-five years old, significantly … Continue reading

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The Last Will and Testament of Edward Sinclair

As a sergeant in the Fifth Company during the Battle of Brooklyn, Edward Sinclair was among those men who heroically covered the retreat of the Continental Army, thus saving the American forces from destruction.[1]

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“If I Fall on the Field of Battle”

Captain Daniel Bowie wrote his last will and testament on the eve of the Battle of Brooklyn. The next day he was wounded in battle and captured by the British. While imprisoned he would succumb to his wounds and become … Continue reading

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