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 […]
Tag Archives: Battle of Long Island
The Dysfunctional Company
At the beginning of this project one of our first tasks was to establish which companies were actually present at the Battle of Brooklyn This reason for this is obvious enough: so that we do not waste too much time … Continue reading
Battle Maps of Long Island
Hello all, We recently came across some very interesting maps that show the events of the Battle of Long Island in good detail. As some of you may have noticed, one of these maps is now the background for the … Continue reading
Desertion: Scourge of the Army
Only disease could pose a greater danger to the cause of American Independence than that of desertion. No army in the 18th century, not even well trained professional ones, could escape the inevitability that many of the soldiers would leave … Continue reading
237 Years Ago
On July 6, 1776 the Convention of Maryland ordered Colonel William Smallwood to march his 6 Companies stationed in Annapolis and the 3 Companies in Baltimore to Philadelphia. Joining them would be three of the Independent Companies, specifically those under … 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
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
Pay Abstract (August-September 1776)
The following PDF file contains a scan of the pay abstract described in an earlier blog post.
2 First Entries
Today I finished compiling some information on two of the soldiers in the Maryland 400 and
Progress Update
While the first few days of work consisted mainly of us learning about the battle and creating a framework to organize what we find, the last several days have seen Daniel and myself doing more research on the men of … Continue reading
Finding the Maryland 400 