Samuel Turbutt Wright
MSA SC 3520-1427
Biography:
Samuel Turbutt Wright was born in 1748 or 1749 in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, the son of Nathan Samuel Turbutt Wright and his wife Dorcas. He had a brother, Thomas Hynson, and two sisters, Mary and Rachel. After Dorcas's death, Nathan remarried, and he and his second wife Francis had three children together: Henry, James, and John. [1]
Wright was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Captain Edward Veazey's Seventh Independent Company in early 1776. Maryland's independent companies were formed in early 1776, and differed from the nine companies that made up Colonel William Smallwood’s First Maryland Regiment. While the Council of Safety, Maryland's Revolutionary executive body, used the nine companies of regular troops to fulfill the state's quota for the Continental Army, it dispatched seven independent companies throughout Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore to guard the vast shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay. Half of the Seventh Independent Company, was stationed on Kent Island, while the rest including Wright, were sent to Chestertown, in Kent County. In these first months, the company had great difficulty obtaining supplies, including uniforms and weapons. As a lieutenant, Wright's responsibilities included supervising the company's non-commissioned officers. He was in his late twenties at the time, which was unusual for lieutenants, who were typically much younger men. [2]
In the summer of 1776, Congress requested additional troops from Maryland to help reinforce the Continental Army, and the state agreed to shift the independent companies to that duty. When the First Maryland Regiment marched for New York in early July, it was accompanied by the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh independent companies; the rest followed later that fall. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, and prepared to protect the city from attack by the British. On August 27, the Americans clashed with the British at the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale encounter of the American Revolution. [3]
The battle was a rout: the British were able to sneak around the American lines, and the outflanked Americans fled in disarray. During the retreat, the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, but were blocked by the swampy Gowanus Creek. Half the regiment was able to cross the creek to safety. The rest, the Seventh Independent Company among them, were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, these men, now known as the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. [4]
The Seventh Independent Company suffered greatly during the battle. Its commander, Edward Veazey, was killed early in the fighting, while Wright and Third Lieutenant Edward De Coursey were both captured. Only one officer, First Lieutenant William Harrison, and thirty five other soldiers escaped death or captivity, just a third of the company. Americans captured in New York were held in terrible conditions, and about half of the soldiers captured at Brooklyn died in 1776, from disease, starvation, or exposure. While officers received markedly better treatment, they too faced harsh captivities at the hands of the British, who saw them only as rebels, not soldiers. For a time, Wright was treated in a British hospital while in captivity, although whether for illness or injury is not known. While there, he criticized the care he was receiving, for which he was sent to the Provost, the feared prison where the British interned recalcitrant officers in particularly bleak conditions. [5]
Wright remained in captivity until the spring of 1778, about a year longer than most of the other Marylanders. He was among four officers, along with Hatch Dent, Jr., Walker Muse, and Edward Prall, who were inexplicably not returned in earlier prisoner exchanges. Smallwood lobbied their case in April 1778, and the four were finally released on April 20. Wright had been promoted to captain in the Second Maryland Regiment at the end of 1776, and he joined his unit that June. At some point during that period, Wright may also have served as an aide to General "Mad" Anthony Wayne. However, his time as a prisoner had harmed his health, and a year later "he resigned...in consequence of his health having been impaired by confinement," as his wife later wrote. [6]
Not long after he left the army, Wright began a career as a public official which lasted the rest of his life. Three months after he resigned his commission, he was appointed Register of Wills for Queen Anne's County, after his uncle, Thomas Wright, stepped down from the post. Samuel stayed in the position for just over a year, resigning in late 1780 to become a member of Maryland's Executive Council, which served alongside the governor. Wright served on the council 1780-1781, and 1783-1785. In 1787, Wright was appointed the clerk of Queen Anne's County Court, an office he held until his death in 1810. In 1794, Wright was appointed lieutenant colonel, commanding the Thirty-Eighth Regiment of Maryland Militia, an appointment which he earned though his political influence as much as his military experience. [7]
During these years, Wright got married to Mary (Polly) Sewell, the daughter of Rachel and Clement Sewell. They had at least two children together: a daughter named Mary, and a son named Samuel, who was born around 1789; they most likely had another son, born in 1786 or 1787, who probably died young. Polly died by 1790, and two years later, Wright remarried. His second wife, Ann Wright, was his first cousin; their fathers were brothers. [8]
However diligent Wright was in his duties as court clerk, he was apparently not particularly active in overseeing his militia regiment. He was hardly alone in this; the militia functioned mostly as a social and political organization, a problem which came to the fore in 1807. That June, American frigate Chesapeake was defeated by a British ship, Leopard, off of Norfolk, Virginia. The attack prompted the federal government to call out the militia of each state, in case a British invasion was to occur. When Maryland moved to comply with the order, it discovered that its militia was in poor shape--badly organized, untrained, and neglected. As the governor, Robert Wright, later wrote, "the total disorganization of the Militia" was such that "there [was] not...one organized Regiment or Battalion in the State, indeed scarcely a Company." The situation was made even worse because the state had no adjutant general to command the militia The previous adjutant general, Henry Carberry (himself a veteran of the Battle of Brooklyn), had resigned the previous year. While Philip Reed, another officer, had been appointed as his replacement, he had never assumed the duties. [9]
With a crisis on its hands, the governor and council wrote to Reed that "You hold the Commission of Adjutant General, but have never signified your acceptance," and demanded a definitive answer. Reed did not give one, and so the council declared that "that at this important Crisis of our affairs, and considering the deranged state of the Militia, the attendance of the Adjutant General at the Seat of Government at this time cannot be dispensed with." Needing a new adjutant general, the governor and council turned to Samuel Turbutt Wright, who readily accepted the position. Wright was not necessarily an obvious choice. There were plenty of officers senior to him, and Wright's time in the militia was not particularly distinguished. A week and a half before he was appointed adjutant general, Wright had conceded to the governor that "At this awful and Momentous Crisis, no one Company of the 38th Regt., Which I am honored with the command of, is organized," leading Wright to despair of "The duty I owe to myself, my native state, and the Union." Wright, however, had a great deal of political influence on the Eastern Shore, and was well-connected personally. [10]
At the next session of the legislature, the General Assembly passed a new militia law, intended to revitalize the institution. As adjutant general at the time, Wright was one of the officials responsible for implementing the reforms. How effective the effort was is not certain, since the legislature passed another militia law three years later. Wright was no longer in office by then; he died on June 30, 1810. [11]
At the time of his death, Wright was in a somewhat precarious financial position. He had incurred significant debts over the years and struggled to pay them off. The last dozen years of his life were spent contending with court cases over money he owed. How wealthy Wright was is uncertain, but he probably owned a significant amount of land in Maryland, and possibly in Delaware as well. At one time, he owned more than sixty slaves, but he probably held them in trust for his son Samuel, Jr. [12]
Wright's widow Ann lived in Queen Anne's County until her death in 1848, when she was close to eighty years old. Over the years, she was granted several pensions as the wife of an Revolutionary War soldier. In 1836, the Maryland General Assembly voted her a pension, while the federal government awarded her one in 1838. [13]
Owen Lourie, 2019
Notes:
2. Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 28; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 152; Mark Andrew Tacyn “’To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 33-34, 43; Journal of the Maryland Convention and Council of Safety 1775-1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 11, pps. 318, 468; Frederick Steuben, Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, Part I. (Philadelphia: Styner and Cist, 1792), 132-133.
4. Tacyn, 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.
5. Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com; Edwin G. Burroughs, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 64. Burroughs also notes that “if we count prisoners who died of malnutrition or disease soon after their release, the overall mortality rate probably reached 60 or even 70 percent.” Burroughs, 281 n40; Otho Holland Williams to Charles McKnight, 13 March 1784, Williams Papers, Maryland Historical Society, MS 908. Williams himself was confined to the Provost for an extended period. Burroughs, 96-97.
6. William Smallwood to George Washington, 8 April 1778, Founders Online, National Archives; Williams to McKnight, 13 March 1784; Archives of Maryland Online vol. 18, pps. 522, 616; Steuart, 152; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; Pension of Samuel Turbutt Wright. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, W 4408, from Fold3.com.
7. Papenfuse, et al., 922-923, 925; Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, 1778-1779, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 43, p. 4; Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1780-1781, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 45, p. 213; Adjutant General, Militia Appointments, vol. 2, p. 94 [MSA S348-2, 2/6/5/10].
8. Papenfuse, et al., 922-923; Deed, Samuel Turbutt Wright to Samuel Wright, Jr., 1810, Queen Anne's County Court, Land Records, Liber STW 9, p. 249 [MSA CE143-27]; J. Hall Pleasants, ed., "Letter of Molly and Hetty Tilghman," Maryland Historical Magazine 21:2 (Jun. 1926), 142; Wright pension; Record of marriage of Samuel Turbutt Wright and Ann Wright, 1792, Queen Anne's County Court, Land Records, Liber STW 2, p. 195 [MSA CE143-20].
9. Governor and Council, Letterbook, 1796-1811, pps. 174, 180-181 [MSA S1075-11, 2/26/2/26].
10. Governor and Council, Letterbook, 1796-1811, p. 174 [MSA S1075-11, 2/26/2/26]; Governor and Council, Proceedings, 1807-1813, p. 440 [MSA S1071-31, 2/26/1/2]; Samuel Turbutt Wright to Gov. Robert Wright, 8 July 1807, Adjutant General, Militia Papers, box 49, no. 57 [MSA 926-31, 2/5/2/38]. Emphasis in original.
11. Laws of Maryland, 1807, Ch. 168, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 569, p. 70; Laws of Maryland, 1811, Ch. 182, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 614, p. 178; Papenfuse, et al., 923; "Died," Maryland Gazette (Annapolis), 11 July 1810.
12. U.S. Federal Census, 1800, Queen Anne's County, Maryland; Will of Clement Sewell, 1795, Queen Anne's County Register of Wills, Wills, Original [MSA C1496-17, 2/3/4/27]; Deed, Samuel Turbutt Wright to Samuel Wright, Jr., 1810. No probate was ever filed for Wright's estate.
13. Wright pension; Laws of Maryland, 1836, Resolution no. 10, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 537, p. 352.
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