Philip Hawkins
MSA SC 3520-16876
Biography:
Phillip Hawkins was about twenty years old when he enlisted in Baltimore to fight in the American Revolution, signing on as a private in Samuel Smith's Eighth Company on January 26, 1776. The company was part of the First Maryland Regiment, the state's first contingent of full-time, professional soldiers raised to be part of the Continental Army. In July, the regiment was ordered to march north to New York, to protect the city from invasion by the British. [1]
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. As the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, they were forced to stop at the swampy Gowanus Creek. Half the regiment, including the Eighth, was able to cross the creek and escape the battle. However, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, this group of soldiers, today called the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges. They held the British at bay for some time before being overrun, at the cost of many lives, losing 256 men killed or captured. Because the Eighth Company was able escape the fight early, it lost only about six men. [2]
Hawkins was among the men who survived the battle, and he went on to fight with the Marylanders through the rest of 1776. While the Maryland troops demonstrated their skill and bravery at Harlem Heights in September and White Plains in October, the Americans were nevertheless pushed out of New York, and put on the run through New Jersey. Not until late that winter did they secure revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton. After the Battle of Princeton, Hawkins was part of a detachment sent to escort some of the Hessian soldiers captured by the Americans to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. [3]
From Lancaster, Hawkins returned home to Maryland. His enlistment ended in December 1776, but he chose to reenlist, joining the Second Maryland Regiment on January 15, 1777, probably just a few days after his return from Pennsylvania. During Hawkins's second enlistment, the Marylanders fought in the disastrous raid on Staten Island (August 1777), and the major battles of the Philadelphia Campaign, Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777), all significant defeats. The Marylanders also fought at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. Hawkins was selected to be part of the Corps of Light Infantry, an elite part of the Continental Army. The Light Infantry's greatest success came at the Battle of Stony Point, a daring nighttime bayonet attack on a British fort, which they captured without firing a shot in 1779. In January 1780, Hawkins's enlistment ended, and he was discharged while in camp at Morristown, New Jersey. [4]
Hawkins spent the next two and a half years living in Maryland as a civilian, probably in Baltimore. Then, in the fall of 1782 he signed on as a sailor on the Jolly Tar, a privateer preparing to sail from Baltimore. Although most combat had ended after the British surrender at Yorktown the year before, the war at sea continued and naval battles were common. Carrying a letter of marque, The Jolly Tar was authorized by Maryland to engage British ships in combat, and seize enemy cargo. It left Baltimore September 24, carrying a crew of sixty-five men, bound for Havana. Two days later, it reached the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. [5]
Sailing in a convoy with other merchant ships, the Jolly Tar encountered a British frigate later that day, HMS Jason. After a short fight, the Jolly Tar found itself badly out-gunned and surrendered; most of the other ships in the convoy suffered the same fate. Hawkins later recalled that the crew "was taken to New York," still held by the British, "and put on board the Jersey prison ship," notorious for its horrid conditions. Arriving in New York in early October, Hawkins endured about four months of captivity until he was released on parole in the winter of 1783. He was still on parole when the war came to an end. [6]
After the war, Hawkins got married, and he and his wife had two daughters, one born around 1803, and the other around 1809. The family left Maryland at some point, settling in Belmont County, Ohio by 1816. They owned fifty acres of land, enough for a small farm. Hawkins also bought sixty acres in neighboring Guernsey County. [7]
The family seems to have fallen on hard times in the late 1820s. Hawkins's wife, whose name is not known, fell ill and was "entirely helpless with the palsy." The family sold their land in Belmont County and moved to Guernsey, where their land was "not worth much and [was] unimproved." In 1832, seeking a financial lifeline, Hawkins applied for a veteran's pension from the Federal government, writing that he "could not now maintain himself without charitable assistance." Then seventy-six years old, Hawkins was awarded a pension of eight dollars per month for the rest of his life. How long he lived and received his pension is not known. [8]
Emily Huebner, 2014; Owen Lourie, 2018
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 18; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com.
[2] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 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. Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com.
[3] Pension of Phillip Hawkins. National Archives. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, S41612, from Fold3.com.
[4] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 119; Compiled Service Record; Hawkins pension.
[5] Hawkins pension; Jolly Tar (Maryland), American War of Independence At Sea [AWIAS]; Manifest of the Jolly Tar, 6 September 1782, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 38, no. 93B, MdHR 6636-38-93B [MSA S1004-51-12115, 1/7/3/49]; Clearances from Port of Baltimore, Jolly Tar, 24 September 1782, Maryland State Papers, Blue Books, vol. 3, no. 30, MdHR 4642 [MSA S990-4-5, 1/6/4/42]; Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Maryland, 1781-1784, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 48, p. 255.
[6] AWIAS; Pennsylvania Packet, 12 October 1782; Protest of Charles Harrison, Captain of the Jolly Tar, in James Calhoun to Benjamin Franklin, 24 October 1782, Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. XXVI, p. 47, American Philosophical Society; Samuel Chase to Benjamin Franklin, 18 September 1783, Founders Online, National Archives; Hawkins pension.
[7] Hawkins pension; Belmont County, Ohio property taxes, 1817-1833, from FamilySearch.org; Guernsey County, Ohio property taxes, 1829-1832, from FamilySearch.org; U.S. Federal Census, 1830, Guernsey County, Ohio.
[8] Hawkins pension.
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