Thomas Reed
MSA SC 3520-17221
Biography:
Thomas Reed, sometimes spelled Read, was born in England in 1751 or 1752. [1] It is possible that Reed came over as an indentured servant. Reed enlisted in the First Maryland Regiment in May 1776 in Capt. Nathaniel Ramsey's Fifth Company. [2] 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. [3] 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, Reed 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. [4] 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" and brought men of the Maryland 400 together. [5] 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." [6]
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.
Reed re-enlisted at the end of 1776 and stayed with the First Maryland Regiment. [7] After the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, he deserted on the retreat from the disasterous battle. [8] The Battle of Brandywine had heavy casualties for the Continental Army and Sir William Howe of the British won the day, but the Continental Army was allowed to escape. [9] Reed was described as a "well made fellow" who was 5'10'' with short dark hair and a dark complexion. [10] He was wearing a scarlet-lined blue regimental coat and took a brown waistcoat, "woollen stockings, a fine hat...shoes with silver buckles, [and] two or three good linen shirts" with him. [10]
Desertion in the Revolutionary War had many causes. For Reed the cause for desertion is not known.
- Burkely Hermann, Maryland Society of the Sons of American Revolution Research Fellow, 2016
Notes
[1] "Seventy Dollars Reward," Maryland Journal (Baltimore), 16 Dec. 1777, page 4.
[2] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "'To The End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD Diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 287; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online Vol 18, 640.
[3] Arthur Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continential Quotas." Maryland Historical Magazine 42, no. 3 (1947), pp. 187-188, 196.
[5] Tacyn, 4.
[6] Enoch Anderson, Personal Recollections of Captain Enoch Anderson: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution (New York: New York Times & Arno Press, 1971), 21-22.
[7] Tacyn, 287; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online Vol 18, 154.
[8] "Seventy Dollars Reward."
[9] Craig L. Symmonds, A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution (Baltimore: Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1996), 53; John Dwight Kilbourne, A Short History of the Maryland Line in the Continental Army (Baltimore: Society of Cincinnati of Maryland, 1992), 14.
[10] "Seventy Dollars Reward."
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