Richard Cheaney
MSA SC 3520-17202
Biography:
Richard Cheaney, sometimes spelled Cheney or Chaney, enlisted in Captain Nathaniel Ramsey's Fifth Company, part of the First Maryland Regiment, in 1776. [1] He was present among the Maryland 400 at the Battle of Brooklyn. The First Maryland Regiment were the first troops Maryland raised at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Maryland was more than willing to do its part to recruit the men needed to fill the Continental Army's depleted ranks. [2] A few days after independence was declared, the First Maryland Regiment was ordered to New York so it could join the forces of General George Washington. The regiment arrived there in early August, with the Battle of Brooklyn set between the Continental Army and the British Army, joined by their Hessian allies.
He and his company served at the Battle of Brooklyn in late August 1776. Ramsey's company, Cheaney included, was placed at the front of the lines, but "hardly a man [in the company] fell," even though they took the first line of fire from the British. [3] This confirmed the assessment of the British Parliament's Annual Register which described, how "almost a whole regiment from Maryland…of young men from the best families in the country was cut to pieces" but it brought men of the Maryland 400 together. [4] Years later, Captain Enoch Anderson of the Delaware Regiment wrote about the Battle of Brooklyn, saying the following:
"A little before day, we marched towards the enemy, two miles from our camp we saw them. A little after daylight our Regiment and Colonel Smallwood's Regiment from Maryland, in front of the enemy took possession of a high commanding ground,--our right to the harbour. Cannonading now began in both armies...Colonel Smallwood's Regiment took another course,--they were surrounded but they fought hard. They lost about two hundred men, the rest got in. A hard day this, for us poor Yankees! Superior discipline and numbers had overcome us. A gloomy time it was, but we solaced ourselves that at some other time we should do better." [5]
The Battle of Brooklyn, the first large-scale battle, fits into the larger context of the Revolutionary War. If the Maryland Line had not stood and fought the British, enabling the rest of the Continental Army to escape, then the Continental Army would been decimated, resulting in the end of the Revolutionary War. This heroic stand gave the regiment the nickname of the Old Line and those who made the stand in the battle are remembered as the Maryland 400.
In December 1776, as Maryland reorganized its soldiers, Cheaney re-enlisted as a private. [6] During that term of service, Cheaney took part in the defense of Philadelphia, as the Americans sought to protect their capital from the British, likely fighting at the battles of Brandywide and Germantown in 1777. He probably also saw combat at the Battle of Monmouth (1778), and untold smaller skirmishes and engagements. The Americans also had severe supply problems during this period, and the soldiers of the Continental Army suffered greatly from starvation and illness.
His service record after the fall of 1776 is unclear. He might have been the same Richard Cheaney who deserted while in the Fourth Regiment in November 1779. [7] When the campaign season ended, the army moved to Morristown, New Jersey where soldiers, endured a brutal winter, with many "required to spend the nights with little or no protection from the elements," leading to the death of many soldiers and conditions grew worse over time due to the weather and "continued scarcity of provisions." [8] Considering these horrible conditions, it is possible that Cheaney deserted as a means of survival since he did not want to die at Morristown and wanted to return home.
- Burkely Hermann, Maryland Society of the Sons of American Revolution Research Fellow, 2016
Notes
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online vol. 18, 640.
[2] Arthur Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continential Quotas." Maryland Historical Magazine 42, no. 3 (1947), 187-188, 196.
[4] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "'To The End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD Diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 4.
[5] Enoch Anderson, Personal Recollections of Captain Enoch Anderson: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution (New York: New York Times & Arno Press, 1971), 21-22.
[6] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution Archives of Maryland Online vol. 18, 91.
[7] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution Archives of Maryland Online vol. 18, 99.
[8] Tacyn, 211-212.
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