Andrew Porter Jr.
MSA SC 3520-16919
Biography:
Andrew Porter Jr. was commissioned as a lieutenant in Captain Walter Alexander’s company August 6, 1776, part of the Fourth Regiment of Flying Camp commanded by Col. William Richardson. Porter’s commission bears the signatures of four members of the Council of Safety, Maryland’s Revolutionary executive body: Council President Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, John Hall, James Tilghman, and Benjamin Rumsey. [1]
The Flying Camp was raised to serve as short term volunteers, supplementing the regular troops commanded by Col. William Smallwood already serving as part of the Continental Army. Those troops, the First Maryland Regiment, were the ones who fought so bravely at the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776. [2]
Made up of men from Cecil County, the company Porter served in took time to come together, and had difficulty raising men and gathering supplies. Most of the regiment left Maryland for New York in mid-August, but Alexander’s Company was not ready to depart until several weeks later. [3]
They arrived in New York sometime in late September or early October, joining an army which was reeling. The Americans had been soundly defeated--and nearly annihilated--at Long Island on August 27. Since then, they had fought a series of small battles with the British, who were chipping away at the American grip on Manhattan.
On October 28, Porter and the men of his company saw their first action at the Battle of White Plains, fought just north of New York. The battle was a success of sorts--the Americans were able to demonstrate improved combat abilities--and the Marylanders fought well. Despite these hopeful signs, the Americans took heavy losses, and were clearly losing ground to the British, who were gradually pushing them from New York. [4]
Porter may also have fought at the disastrous defense of Fort Washington in mid-November, where a large American force was surrounded and captured. Trapped in the fort in northern Manhattan, the garrison surrendered, and nearly 3,000 Americans were taken prisoner, including some 400 Marylanders. Porter certainly was not inside the fort--or he would have been captured--but may have been involved in nearby fighting. After the fall of Fort Washington, the Americans abandoned New York to the British. Porter and the rest of the company retreated into New Jersey, dodging the British, and then on to Philadelphia. Shortly before Christmas, the troops’ enlistments expired, and the men returned to Maryland. They did not, as a result, take part in the rejuvenating American victories at Trenton and Princeton. [5]
After returning to Maryland in early 1777, Porter was offered a commission as a lieutenant in a new regiment of troops being raised, which he declined. Porter appears to have not served further in the American Revolution. [6]
Notes:
1. Proceedings
of the Council of Safety of Maryland, Archives
of Maryland Online vol.
12, p. 174. Porter’s commission was approved by the Maryland
Convention on June
29. Proceedings of the Convention,
Archives of Maryland Online vol. 78,
p. 178; Reiman Steuart, History of the Maryland
Line in the Revolutionary
War, 1775-1783 (Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland, 1969),
9, 119;
Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the
American
Revolution, Archives
of
Maryland Online vol. 18, p. 61-62.
2. Read more about the First Maryland Regiment at Finding the Maryland 400, a research blog maintained by the Maryland State Archives at http://msamaryland400.wordpress.com/.
3. Council of Safety to Capts. Walter Alexander and Joshua George, Order to march “northwards,” ca. mid-August 1776, Maryland State Papers, Series A, MdHR 6636-4-149 [MSA S 1004-4-40]; Proceedings of the Council of Safety of Maryland, Archives of Maryland Online vol. 12, p. 131, 203, 207.
4. Information about the regiment’s location and service comes from the Federal veteran’s pension applications of John Emmitt, who served in the same company as Porter, and Cornelius Comegys, who was in another company in the same regiment. Widow’s pension of Catherine Comegys (widow of Cornelius Comegys), Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files. NARA M804, W 6718; Veteran's pension of John Emmitt, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files. NARA M804, W 8692. From Fold3.com. For more on the Battle of White Plains, see “The Battle of White Plains,” http://msamaryland400.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/the-battle-of-white-plains/.
5. Pensions of Emmitt and Comegys; “‘A Cursed Affair’: The Loss of Fort Washington,” http://msamaryland400.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/a-cursed-affair-the-loss-of-fort-washington/.
6. Pensions
of Emmitt and Comegys; Maryland State Papers, Red Books, List
of officers in Fifth Maryland Regiment, ca. June 1777, no. 16, p. 88
[MSA S
989-23]; Red Books, no. 14, p. 9 [MSA S 989- 20]; Compiled military
service
record of Andrew Porter, Fifth Maryland Regiment, 1777, National
Archives M881,
Roll 0405. From Fold3.com.
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