regiments who continued to fight with distinction throughout the Revolutionary War, giving Maryland its nickname,“ The Old Line State.”
Some 3,000 men in the new Montgomery County enlisted in the military, including at least five documented free African-Americans. Maryland was the only southern state that allowed service by enslaved men, whether voluntarily or as substitutes for their owners; some of these may have been granted their freedom after service.
In the entire Continental Army and state militias, perhaps four percent— 5,000 to 10,000— were Blacks, mostly freemen in the northern states. But two or three times that number fought on the British side in the American south, enticed by the cynical British offer of freedom to slaves who escaped from Patriot owners— but not from Loyalist enslavers.
Who was Richard Montgomery?
British and Hessian forces under Lord Cornwallis were headquartered in this stone house in Brooklyn, N. Y., when Maryland troops under Maj. Mordecai Gist staged one of the most heroic and costly assaults against superior forces in American history. After escaping across the East River, Washington exclaimed,“ My God, what brave fellows I must this day lose!” Cornwallis said admiringly of the Marylanders:“ They fought like a wolf.” A monument there is inscribed:“ In honor of Maryland’ s Four Hundred, who on this battlefield, Aug. 27, 1776, saved the American army.” The painting,“ Battle of Brooklyn, 1776” is by Mark Maritato.
other wealthy Maryland Loyalists 2,000 troops, the“ Maryland 400”( Tories), had fled to England. at the Old Stone House gave Gen.
Maryland was recruiting its Washington time to evacuate his state quota of soldiers for the Continental Army. On Aug. 27, Maryer to Manhattan.
army to safety across the East Rivland troops led by Maj. Mordecai Gist fought with incredible horrendous loss— 259 of 400 dead,
The Marylanders suffered a bravery against the British attack on Brooklyn, on Long Island, er— and became legendary. They
another 100 or more taken prison-
N. Y. Holding off a British assault of were part of the“ Maryland Line” of
Our namesake, Gen. Richard Montgomery, had no ties to Maryland— never set foot in the colony. He was a well-born scion of a prominent Scottish / Northern Irish family, he served with distinction as in an officer in the British Army in North America and the Caribbean, and he immigrated to upstate New York in 1773. He married into the very wealthy, politically powerful and slaveholding Livingston family in the Hudson Valley, and was elected to the New York Provincial Congress in 1775, on the very eve of the American rebellion. He was selected by Gen. Washington to be a brigadier general in the new army.
plenty I autumn harvest 2026 45