Daniel Rankins
MSA SC 3520-16803
Biography:
Daniel Rankins enlisted as a private in the First Maryland Regiment's Second Company, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, in February 1776. The company was raised mostly in Prince George's County in the beginning of the year, then traveled to Annapolis in the spring, where they joined five of the regiment's other companies; three additional companies were in Baltimore. Commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, the regiment was the first unit of full-time, professional soldiers raised in Maryland for service in the Continental Army. [1]
In July, the regiment received orders to march to New York to defend the city from an impending British attack. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August and joined the rest of the Continental Army, commanded by General George Washington. On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale engagement of the war. The battle was a rout: the British were able to sneak around the American lines, and the outflanked Americans fled in disarray.
As the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, they were forced to stop at the swampy Gowanus Creek. Half the regiment, including the Second Company, was able to cross the creek and escape the battle. However, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, this group of soldiers, today called the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges. They held the British at bay for some time before being overrun, at the cost of many lives. The Marylanders took enormous casualties, but their actions delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. [2]
In all, the First Maryland lost 256 men, killed or taken prisoner, and some companies lost nearly 80 percent of their men. Most soldiers in the Second Company successfully escaped and it lost fewer than ten men in total. Rankins later recalled that "at the Battle of [Brooklyn] I heard them a firing and I went over [the] East River & our men was retreating and I assisted them over the river." If his memory was correct, it would mean the Rankins was not with his company during most of the fighting, but helped the fleeing Americans cross the Gowanus. [3]
Over the next few months, Rankins fought with the Marylanders at the Battle of White Plains in October 1776. By November, however, the Americans were pushed out of New York, and put on the run through New Jersey. Not until late that winter did they secure revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton. Rankins did not fight at those last two battles: "I was not able to be in the ranks. I had a swelling in my limbs at this time. But about the same time I passed a waggon & took the Congresses goods to the Head of Elk [Elkton, Maryland] and delivered them there." The Continental Congress left Philadelphia in mid-December, 1776, and relocated to Baltimore, to be further away from the British army, and evidently Rankins traveled back to Maryland with Congress' baggage. [4]
Rankins's enlistment expired in December 1776, around the time he returned to Maryland, and he reenlisted in the First Maryland Regiment for a three-year term. During his second tour of duty, Rankins and his regiment fought at the disastrous raid on Staten Island (August 1777), and at Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777), the major battles of the Philadelphia Campaign. At Brandywine, Rankins "was sent off with the General's waggon." Rankins and the Marylanders were also at the Battle of Monmouth (June 1778). After Monmouth, Rankins said he " was in detached parties [for] about nine months a guarding the Commissaries Store," or supply depot. After that, "I went in the detached parties three months in the enemies lines, and from [then]...I was in detached parties and sentries the balance of my time" in the army. Serving on details like these was not uncommon, particularly in 1778 and 1779, when there was little actual combat. Rankins stayed in the army until he was discharged on December 27, 1779. Rankins, like all soldiers, performed one other duty while in the army: "I think it unnecessary to mention all of my parading, as it is [too] tedious to recollect." [5]
Very little is known about Rankins's life during the next decades. In the spring of 1792, he married Eleanor Tongue in Loudoun County, Virginia in a Methodist ceremony. Daniel and Eleanor had three children: James, Nancy, and John, all born in the first decade of the 1800s. Eleanor was a kinswoman to Mary Tongue, who married Milburn Coe in 1783; Coe enlisted in the Second Company with Rankins in 1776, and the two men stayed in the army until 1779 together. [6]
By 1818, the Rankins family had moved west, settling first in Brown County, Ohio, in the southern part of the state. That year, he applied for a Federal veteran's pension, and was awarded $80 per year. Rankins applied again in 1824, now living in neighboring Adams County, Ohio, after he had been dropped from the pension program--many veterans lost their benefits amid efforts to eliminate fraudulent applications. He had not planned on reapplying: "he intended to support himself if possible without the aid of his government, but he finds it a successless attempt, and from his poverty and infirmity he is compelled again to [apply]." Rankins gave a grim assessment of the family's situation. He was a farmer, but was "totally unable to [farm by] himself, his right arm, having been dislocated, is useless and he is otherwise infirm & diseased. His wife is also very infirm having lost the use of her left arm by the rheumatism." At the time, Rankins was about seventy, and Eleanor was fifty-five; their children were all teenagers. [7]
Daniel Rankins died in April, 1834. About a year and a half later, Eleanor married a man named George Washburn and moved to Indiana. Washburn died on March 9, 1850. The next year, Eleanor applied for a Federal pension as Rankins's widow, which she ultimately received in 1852, at a rate of $96 per year. She died in the fall of 1854. [8]
Owen Lourie, 2017
Notes:
[2] Mark Andrew Tacyn "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73. For more on the experience of the Marylanders at the Battle of Brooklyn, see "In Their Own Words," on the Maryland State Archives research blog, Finding the Maryland 400.
[3] Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com; Pension of Daniel Rankins. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, W 9877, from Fold3.com.
[4] Rankins pension.
[5] Rankins's official reenlistment date was recorded as December 10, 1776, but he and his captain John H. Beanes both later reported that he actually rejoined on May 1, 1777. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 154; Rankins pension; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; List of receipts of soldiers who were paid upon discharge, 27 December 1779, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 3, no. 7-21, MdHR 19970-3-7/21 [MSA S997-3-94, 1/7/3/9].
[6] Rankins pension. Several different dates in March and April 1792 are given for the marriage.
[7] Rankins pension; U.S. Federal Census, 1820, Liberty Township, Adams County, Ohio; U.S. Federal Census, 1830, Brown County, Ohio.
[8] Rankins pension. Rankins's death date is recorded as April 13 and April 30.
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