Joshua F. Batchelor
MSA SC 3520-16819
Biography:
Probably born in England in 1785 or 1786. Son of William Batchelor. Married, wife's name unknown; died by 1835. At least one son, William. Died in Newark, New Jersey, September 13, 1855.
Joshua F. Batchelor, a blacksmith and veteran of the Battle of North Point, is best remembered as the propagator of the story of the "Cowpens Flag." Batchelor claimed his father had carried the flag, which had a circle of twelve stars, with a thirteenth representing Maryland in the center, at the Battle of Cowpens in 1781 as a member of the Maryland Line. Batchelor said that he himself carried the flag at the Battle of North Point. In truth, the flag he purportedly carried was made in the 1840s, and his father may well have been killed at the Battle of Camden, months before Cowpens. Joshua Batchelor also reported that he was born in England in 1785 or 1786, facts which do not match his story of his father's death. Nevertheless Joshua did serve at North Point, where he was wounded [1].
Some details of Batchelor's military service are hazy; state militia records call him both a lieutenant and an ensign [2]. The likely truth, supported by depositions in his 1826 pension application, is that Batchelor was an ensign (an officer below a lieutenant) in Captain Schwarzaur's company of the 27th Infantry Regiment, based in Baltimore City. While fighting at North Point, Batchelor "was struck by a [bullet] in the groin...[that] glanced from a pistol [he] had in a belt" [3]. At the time, he "thought the wound trifling," but it developed into a hernia, and severally hampered his ability to work as a blacksmith [4]. Batchelor was awarded a pension of $6.50 per month, which was increased to $9.75 in 1827.
In 1820, and again in 1828, Batchelor was forced to declare himself an insolvent debtor, perhaps a consequence of his war wound. He was "a good mechanic," and was a member of the Union Fire Company. By 1835, he moved to New York City, and eventually to Newark, New Jersey, where he died in 1855 [5].
Notes:
1. Grace Rogers Cooper. Thirteen-Star Flags: Keys to Identification (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973), 28-29.
2.
ADJUTANT GENERAL (Militia Appointments) 1794-1825, 27th Regiment, p.
30, MdHR 5589 [MSA S348-3, 02/06/05/011]; William M. Marine, The British Invasion of Maryland 1812-1815 (Baltimore, 1913), 213.
3. Deposition of Joshua F. Batchelor, 17 February 1826. Veteran's pension application. Accessed via fold3.com.
4. Deposition of Samuel Smith, 24 April 1826, pension.
5. Baltimore Patriot, 7 August 1820; Baltimore Gazette and Daily Advertiser, 8 September 1828; Baltimore Patriot, 28 January 1828; pension; 1850 Census, East Ward, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey.
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