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: revolutionary baltimore
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
Persecuted in Revolutionary Baltimore: The Sufferings of Quakers
In March 1777, revolutionary leader John Adams wrote an angry letter to his wife, Abigail. He declared that Baltimore was a “dull place” where many of the town’s remaining inhabitants were Quakers, who he described as “dull as Beetles” and a “kind of neutral Tribe, … Continue reading
The political climate of Baltimore in 1776
Baltimore Town was more than a diverse and pre-industrial port town that sat on the Patapsco River. It had numerous sentiments, ranging from the pro-revolutionary, some of which were militant in their beliefs, to support for the British Crown. This article continues the series … Continue reading
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
In Their Own Words: An Oral History of the Battle of Brooklyn
Next week marks the 238th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. Beginning Friday, we will be provide updates of the battle as it unfolded. In preparation for that, over the next two days, we are publishing a compilation of several … Continue reading
Demographics in the First Maryland Regiment
A former member of the Fifth Company who fought at the Battle of Brooklyn, John Burgess was described as a slender, 42-year-old man, with light brown hair, a “swarthy” complexion, and a height of five feet eleven inches, who was … Continue reading
Brothers in Arms
During the Revolutionary War, it was not uncommon for multiple men of the same immediate family to enlist. Some brothers, like Samuel and William McMillan, enlisted in the same company, while other sets of siblings dispersed and entered separate companies … Continue reading
John Brady: Sergeant Turned Fifer
On this day in 1776, the First Maryland Regiment began its trip to New York. Among the men leaving from Baltimore was John Brady, the subject of our most recent biography.
Persistence is Key: Petitions of John Gassaway
John Gassaway, of the prominent Gassaway family in Anne Arundel County, was a tenacious man whose persistence served him well both during and after the Revolutionary War. As soon as it became evident that the colonists were going to war … Continue reading
David Plunket: A Radical Rebel
As Second Lieutenant of the Fifth Maryland Regiment at the time of the Battle of Brooklyn, David Plunket fought bravely and resolutely amidst heavy cannon and mortar fire to hold off the British Army, while the body of the Continental … Continue reading
Finding the Maryland 400 