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: personal stories
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 →
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 →
The Role of the Captain on and off the Battlefield
Since the foundation of the Continental Army by the Continental Congress in 1775, the role of the company was quite significant. In the Continental Army, the company was the most basic unit of the army, both on and off the … Continue reading →
Soldiering On
In late November of 1776, the Continental Army was facing dismantlement by a surer force than the British military. The Americans’ enlistments were expiring. On December 10, a large chunk of the Continental Army, including many of the most experienced … Continue reading →
The Missing Men
The Maryland 400 project aims to create a more accurate and detailed portrait of the men who fought at the Battle of Brooklyn by hunting down the clues that survive in documents. Sometimes these clues are so rich that they … Continue reading →
Mordecai Gist: Leading the Maryland 400
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and … Continue reading →
Finding the Maryland 400 