Thomas Rowse
MSA SC 3520-16832
Biography:
Thomas Rowse enlisted as in Maryland's Fifth Independent Company, led by Captain John Allen Thomas, in early 1776. Rowse's rank was not recorded, but there is a good change that he was a non-commissioned officer. The company was raised in St. Mary's County, Maryland, where Rowse lived, and was one of seven independent companies that the Maryland Council of Safety formed across the state in early 1776, intended to guard the Chesapeake Bay's coastline from a feared British invasion. As Rowse recalled later, the company served "on and near the Waters of the Chesapeake." [1]
By that summer, the independent companies were dispatched to New York, to help reinforce the Continental Army as it prepared to defend the city from the British. In total, twelve companies of Maryland troops traveled to New York that July and August: nine companies that comprised the First Maryland Regiment, commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, and the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Independent companies, the only three that were ready to travel then. [2]
On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale engagement of the war. 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. While half the regiment was able to cross the creek, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, the Marylanders mounted a series of daring charges. These men, now known as the "Maryland 400," held the British at bay long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape, at the cost of many lives. [3]
In all, 256 Marylanders were killed or captured by the British; some companies lost as much as 80 percent of their men. Rowse and his company likely saw little combat. Instead, the Fifth Independent Company did not cross the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn until after the fighting had begun, and did not venture into the field of battle. They did, however, perform valuable service assisting the Americans retreating through the Gowanus Marsh. [4]
During the fall of 1776, Rowse and the rest of the Marylanders fought a series of battles in New York: Harlem Heights (September), White Plains (October), and Fort Washington (November). While the Americans had some tactical successes at these engagements, by November they had been pushed out of New York entirely, though they secured key revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton late that winter. At the end of the year, when the enlistments of the soldiers expired, the independent companies were disbanded.
Many of the men from the independents joined the newly-formed Second Maryland Regiment, including Rowse. He was promoted to ensign, and then to second lieutenant, in the spring of 1777, a reflection of his status as a veteran soldier, and likely an indication that he was a corporal or sergeant in 1776. As Maryland expanded its troops from one regiment to seven, it needed many more officers, and men like Rowse were the beneficiaries. [5]
His first assignment as a lieutenant was to help recruit men for the regiment, working in his native Southern Maryland. In at least one case, Rowse was overly-zealous in his pursuit of prospective soldiers. One of the men he enlisted, Kensey Gardner, later asserted that "Rowse, a recruiting officer...did put some money under [Gardner's] arm without the knowledge of [Gardner] and thereby claimed him as a recruit." Gardner "never intended to engage in the service of the just war, by reason of having the care of his antient parents on his hands," and had to petition the governor to be released from his unwilling enlistment. [5]
Rowse and the Second Maryland saw combat together in August 1777, at the Battle of Staten Island. The Americans' goal was to defeat a small Loyalist militia on the island, but instead found themselves facing a sizable force of British army regulars. In the ensuing American retreat, the Maryland Line was ordered to cover the rear, and took heavy casualties, just as they had at Brooklyn a year earlier. The Marylanders lost by some estimates about 200 men, including Rowse, who was taken prisoner. [7]
Americans captured during the Revolution were held in horrible prison conditions, where disease and starvation were rampant, and thousands died. As an officer, Rowse received better treatment, though his ordeal was undoubtedly harrowing. He endured more than three years as a prisoner, until October 1780, when he was released in a prisoner exchange. [8]
Rowse had been promoted to first lieutenant, and moved to the Fifth Maryland Regiment, during his captivity. By the time he was released, the Maryland Line had suffered another terrible defeat, at Camden in August 1780. Because of the need for reinforcements, Rowse was once again detailed to recruit new soldiers. It is also possible that after so long in British captivity, Rowse was not in good enough health for the rigors of life in the field. He worked in this role until the summer of 1782, when he and his unit was ordered north to New York, and stationed near West Point. In the spring of 1783, with the war all but over, Rowse and his men returned to Maryland. Rowse spent a few months in Frederick, Maryland until he received his formal discharge on November 16, 1783, some eight years after he first enlisted. [9]
A few weeks later, Rowse was in Annapolis, attending the founding meeting of the Maryland chapter of the Society of Cincinnati, an organization of former Continental Army officers. Unfortunately, after that time, there is very little information about Rowse's life. By 1811, his fortunes had declined. He had lost his sight, and was probably living in Virginia. The Maryland General Assembly granted him a pension as a former Revolutionary officer in 1811, and he received another one from the federal government in 1818. He died in Virginia on August 27, 1832, the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. [10]
Owen Lourie, 2019
Sources:
[1] Pension of Thomas Rowse, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 39051, from Fold3.com; Mark Andrew Tacyn "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 33-45.
[2] Tacyn, 33-45.
[3] 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.
[4] Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 154-155.
[5] Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; Steuart, 125; Rowse pension.
[6] Kensey Gardner to Gov. Thomas Johnson, 30 May 1777, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 7, no. 139, MdHR 6636-7-139 [MSA S1004-7-504, 1/7/3/28].
[7] Rowse pension; Compiled Service Record; Return of the 2nd Maryland Regiment, 23 August 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 7, no. 1, MdHR 19970-7-1 [MSA S997-7-1, 1/16/1/35].
[8] Rowse pension; Steuart, 125; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 616.
[9] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 481; Rowse pension; Compiled Service Record; Charles H. Lesser, ed., The Sinews of Independence: Monthly Strength Reports of the Continental Army (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 236-252.
[10] William Smallwood to George Washington, 29 November 1783, Founders Online, National Archives; Steuart, 167-169; Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates, 1811, p. 54 [MSA SCM 3187]; Maryland General Assembly, Session Laws, 1811, Resolution 13, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 614, p. 260; Rowse pension.
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