Tag Archives: battle of brooklyn

The Maryland 400’s Veterans

The mission of Finding the Maryland 400 is to pay tribute to Maryland’s Revolutionary War veterans. Today, however, we want to focus on the members of the First Maryland Regiment who were already veterans before the unit’s first battle in … Continue reading

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A “little groggy”: the deputy sheriff of Baltimore and his “bowl of toddy”

On December 21, 1776, Sergeant John Hardman of the Edward Veazey‘s Seventh Independent Company arrived at a public prison in Baltimore Town with captured British soldiers. [1] He was there escorting the British prisoners from Philadelphia. That night, Hardman ordered a “bowl of … Continue reading

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“Flecking the hedges with red”: Palmer’s Ballad on the Maryland 400

In the past, we have written about poems and songs relating to the Maryland 400. [1] They were celebrated years after and during the Revolutionary War, with newspapers often containing poems and songs. Such poems included one about William Sterrett in 1776 … Continue reading

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Which Private Smith is the Right Private Smith?

Piecing together service records of Revolutionary War soldiers can be complicated. No one got a DD 214 when they were mustered out. Many soldiers had their service records compiled by the Federal Government in the late nineteenth century, and applications for … Continue reading

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British “masters of the field”: The disaster at Brandywine

On the night of September 10, 1777, many of the soldiers and commanding officers of the Continental Army sat around their campfires and listened to an ominous sermon that would predict the events of the following day. Chaplain Jeremias (or Joab) Trout … Continue reading

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The 240th Anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn

Late on the night of August 26, 1776, the First Maryland Regiment and the rest of the Continental Army began to cross the East River from Manhattan to Long Island. Awaiting them were some 20,000 British and Hessian soldiers. Earlier … Continue reading

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“Games of Exercise” During the American Revolution

With the Olympics in full swing, this is a good time to talk about the athletic pastimes of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. Active campaigning took a relatively small part of the year during the American Revolution, and as … 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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A Common Soldier’s Inventory, and His Career

We recently posted about the extensive probate inventory of Henry Neale’s personal property, and how, running seven pages long, it can tell us a lot about its subject. Today, we have an inventory from another veteran of the First Maryland … Continue reading

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Evaluating the Maryland Officers

In late 1776, Maryland expanded its military contribution to the Continental Army from one regiment to seven. This required a great deal of planning, as each new regiment required about 50 new officers, and so many promotions required much deliberation. … Continue reading

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