Robert Ratliff (1754-?)
MSA SC 3520-17321
Biography:
Robert Ratliff was born in 1754 in Ireland. [1] In early 1776, at age 22, Ratliff enlisted as a private in Edward Veazey's Seventh Independent Company. [2] He was five feet, eight inches tall. Many of those in the Seventh Independent Company were recruited from Kent, Cecil, and Queen Anne counties, and were in their twenties. [3] The average age was about twenty-five, but soldiers born in the thirteen colonies were slightly younger than those from foreign countries. [4]
The independent companies, early in the war, had a different role than William Smallwood's First Maryland Regiment. They had the role of securing the Chesapeake Bay's shoreline from British attack. Smallwood's men, on the other hand, were raised as full-time Maryland soldiers as part of the Continental Army, and were divided between Annapolis and Baltimore. The Seventh Independent Company was stationed in Kent County's Chestertown and on Kent Island in Queen Anne County. [5] During this time, Veazey was uneasy that his company did not receive "arms nor ammunition" until June. [6]
While the independent companies were originally intended to defend Maryland, three of them accompanied the First Maryland Regiment when it marched to New York in July 1776. The transfer of the independent companies to the Continental Army showed that Maryland was more than willing to do its part to recruit the men needed for the revolutionary cause. [7] The independent companies and the First Maryland Regiment arrived in New York in early August, with the Battle of Brooklyn set between the Continental Army and the British Army, joined by their Hessian allies.
Ratliff served with his company at the Battle of Brooklyn in late August 1776. Along with the companies of Daniel Bowie and Peter Adams, which suffered heavy casualties, sixty-eight percent of Veazey's company were killed or captured. Specifically, Captain Veazey was killed while Second Lieutenant Samuel Turbett Wright and Third Lieutenant Edward De Coursey were captured. [8] As a result of Veazey's death, First Lieutenant William Harrison took charge of the company. After the battle, only 36 men remained out of the original force of over 100. [9] The loss of life 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" even as the battle brought the men of the Maryland 400 together. [10]
The Battle of Brooklyn, the first large-scale battle of the war, 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.
Ratliff survived the Battle of Brooklyn. By the spring of 1777, the command of the Seventh Independent Company was uncertain since Wright and De Coursey were prisoners, Veazey had been killed, and Harrison had resigned. [11] As a result, the company, among with the other independent companies, became part of the Second Maryland Regiment.
Ratliff's military service between 1777 and 1779 is not known since he does not appear on any muster rolls until August 1779. [12] However, he likely reenlisted in the Second Maryland Regiment in early 1777, along with other Maryland 400 veterans who had survived the battle. As a result, he would have fought at the battles of Brandywine (1777), Germantown (1777), Monmouth (1778), and elsewhere.
On August 31, 1779, Ratliff deserted from the Second Maryland Regiment. [13] While his reason for deserting is not known, he left the regiment before it wintered camp at Middlebrook, New Jersey. [14]
After the war, Ratliff settled down in Cecil County. In 1783, he lived with his relative, James, who owned four horses and 150 acres of land. [15] A few years later, on October 13, 1787, he married Mary Kirk. [16] A few years later, on December 23, 1800, he married another woman named Anne Husler. [17] The reason he remarried is that his wife died.
At some point, Anne died and he married a third time to woman named Elizabeth, who survived him. [18] He had two children named James and Elizabeth, but the mother's name is not known.
In the late 1790s, Ratliff and his wife were living in Kent County, Maryland. [19] In 1802, still living in Kent County, he bought land in New Castle County, Delaware, preparing for the next stage of his life. [20]
Eight years later, he was living in St. George's Hundred, in the same county of Delaware, with his wife, children, and two enslaved blacks. [21] A few years later, in 1813, he was a farmer in Delaware's Appoquinimink Hundred, on a plot of land with his wife. [22] He was well-off, owning a walnut dining table, small looking glass, 3 cows, 7 sheep, and a few horses. [23]
Being very "weak in body," Ratliff wrote his will on April 5, 1813, making his "beloved wife" Elizabeth his executor, manumitted an black enslaved woman, named Jane, and distributed his land to his children. [24] He died sometime between the writing of his will and collection of testimony on November 3, 1814.
In November 1823, members of Ratliff's family agreed that Ratliff's son, James, should own his father's estate in Delaware. [25] A few years later, James negotiated to buy his father's land in Delaware. [26] By the 1850s, the Ratliff family was still living in Appoquinimink Hundred. [27]
- Burkely Hermann, Maryland Society of the Sons of American Revolution Research Fellow, 2016.
Notes
[1] Descriptions of men in Capt. Edward Veazey’s Independent Comp, 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, MdHR 19970-15-36/01 [MSA S997-15-36, 1/7/3/13]; Petition of Rachel Tarbutton requesting Richard Ratcliffe be discharged from military duty, June 18, 1781, Maryland State Papers, Red Books, MdHR 4595-05, Red Book 26 [MSA S989-39, 1/6/4/27]; Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1781, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 47, 301, 302; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 18, 156, 375. There is another man in the Maryland Line named R. Ratcliff, but this man was born in 1764, which does not align with Robert's age on the descriptive roster. On this roster, it lists him as "R. Ratliff" but many years later, a man named Robert Ratcliff enlisted in the Second Maryland Regiment, which is clearly him since many of those in the Seventh Independent Company, who survived the Battle of Brooklyn, joined the Second Maryland Regiment.
[2] Descriptions of men in Capt. Edward Veazey’s Independent Comp.
[3] Mark Andrew Tacyn, “'To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 24-25, 97; Descriptions of men in Capt. Edward Veazey’s Independent Comp.
[4] For more information, see "Demographics in the First Maryland Regiment" on the Finding the Maryland 400 research blog.
[5] Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, July 7-December 31, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 12, 4; Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, August 29, 1775 to July 6, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 11, 245, 272, 547, Tacyn, 33-34.
[6] Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, August 29, 1775 to July 6, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 11, 318, 468; Tacyn, 37, 39.
[7] Arthur Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continental Quotas." Maryland Historical Magazine 42, no. 3 (1947), 187-188, 196.
[8] "Mortuary Notice," Salem Gazette, Salem, Massachusetts, March 1, 1833, Vol. XI, issue 18, p. 3.
[9] Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, p. 92, From Fold3.com; Tacyn, 98.
[10] Tacyn, 4.
[11] List of Regular Officers by Chamberlaine, December 1776, Maryland State Papers, Red Books, MdHR 4573, Liber 12, p. 66 [MSA S989-17, 1/6/4/5].
[12] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 18, 156.
[13] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 18, 156.
[14] Tacyn, 162, 186.
[15] Record of James Ratliff and Robert Ratliff, 1783, General Assembly House of Delegates, Assessment Record, p. 7 [MSA S1161-37, 1/4/5/46].
[16] Marriage of Mary Kirk and Robert Ratliff, 1787, Cecil County Court, Marriage Licenses, MdHR 9435, p. 45 [MSA C632-1, 1/11/6/38].
[17] Marriage of Anne Husler and Robert Ratliff, 1800, Cecil County Court, Marriage Licenses, MdHR 9435, p. 127 [MSA C632-1, 1/11/6/38].
[18] Will of Robert Ratliff, 1813, New Castle County Court House, Wilmington, Delaware, Register of Wills, Book R 1813-1823, p. 40-41. Courtesy of Ancestry.com; Probate of Robert Ratliff, 1814-1815, New Castle, Register of Wills, Delaware State Archives, New Castle County Probates, Record Group 2545. Courtesy of Ancestry.com; Indenture between Robert Ratliff, Elizabeth, and Sarah Baird, June 13, 1799, Kent County Court, Land Records, Liber TW 1, p. 214-216 [MSA CE 118-31].
[19] Indenture between Robert Ratliff, Elizabeth, and Sarah Baird.
[20] Record of Robert Ratliff, June 1802, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–1947, Delaware Public Archives, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011, p. 440, 442. Courtesy of Ancestry.com; Session Laws, 1824, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 629, 44. Ratliff owned land near John Zillefro/Zilerfrow. This man was the first husband of Rachel Ozier, who was living with her second husband, Maryland 400 veteran Andrew Meloan, and their children, in Montgomery County, Kentucky at the time.
[21] Census of St. Georges Hundred, New Castle, Delaware, 1810, Third Census of the United States, 1810, National Archives, NARA M252, Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29, Roll 4, Pagw 287. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
[22] "Ratliff's land," 1813, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–1947, Delaware Public Archives, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011, p. 435. Courtesy of Ancestry.com
[23] Probate of Robert Ratliff. He also owned a young enslaved black male who was only two years old.
[24] Will of Robert Ratliff.
[25] Indenture between James Ratliff and Hannah, Thomas Ratliff and Mary, and Henry Webb and Elizabeth, November 23, 1823, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–1947, Delaware Public Archives, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011, p. 4-6. Courtesy of Ancestry.com; Session Laws, 1824, Archives of Maryland Online Vol. 629, 44; Indenture between James Ratliff and Jacob Hornes (Colored Man), May 26, 1826, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–1947, Delaware Public Archives, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011, p. 300-301. Courtesy of Ancestry.com. These members of his family included his son James and his wife Hannah in Cecil County, Thomas Ratliff and his wife Mary in Butler County, Ohio, and Elizabeth Webb, his daughter, and Henry Webb. They all received some part of the estate.
[26] Indenture between James Ratliff and Jacob Hornes (Colored Man).
[27] Indenture between Thomas Ratliff and Ann Ratliff, October 9, 1854, Delaware, Land Records, 1677–1947, Delaware Public Archives, Recorder of Deeds, New Castle County, RG 2555, Subgroup 000, Series 011, p. 59-62. Courtesy of Ancestry.com.
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