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: Continental Army
A “dull place” on the Patapsco: Baltimore and the Marr Brothers
In May 1776, the Revolution had been raging for almost a year with skirmishes between the British imperial army and the rag-tag revolutionaries. William Marr, probably with his brothers Nicholas and James, enlisted in the Continental Army in Capt. Nathaniel Ramsey’s … Continue reading
“He had never gave them an inch before he found that he had nothing left to keep them off with”
In late August 1777, the American Army planned a raid on Staten Island. Intelligence available to the Americans suggested that the British forces there were primarily American Loyalist militia rather than British regular troops. Furthermore, the inexperienced Tories were stealing … Continue reading
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
William Chaplin: Defector to the British
The American colonies’ direct relationship with Britain meant that there were many colonists who did not support the Revolutionary War, and even the act of enlisting into the Continental Army did not mean that a person was devoted to the … Continue reading
Feeding an Army
The struggles of the Revolution can seem remote to generations living over two centuries later. However, the enjoyment of food and the challenges of feeding an army are both relatable themes to modern Americans as Thanksgiving approaches.
The Rain and the Retreat
The morning of August 28, 1776 dawned cold, gray, and rainy. The demoralized American troops were trapped in their Brooklyn entrenchments, an area about three miles around. They were fenced in by the British army to their front and the … Continue reading
“They must be well watched”
After the British landed on Long Island they advanced to within three miles of the American lines, and then they stopped. On August 23rd, 1776, the tension grew in New York as the American leadership tried to determine the enemy’s … Continue reading
Finding the Maryland 400 