John Brady, MSA SC 3520-16924

John Brady, a noncommissioned officer, served in the military for the entirety of the Revolutionary War. Brady began his military service by enlisting in Ramsey’s Fifth Company as a sergeant by May of 1776.[1] Brady fought with the Fifth Company at the Battle of Brooklyn.

The Battle of Brooklyn, fought on August 27, 1776, as the British sought to take control of New York , was the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. American troops under the command of General Lord Stirling and Major Mordecia Gist were caught unaware by a British flank attack, resulting from a lack of American surveillance. The left line of the American Army collapsed immediately and an emergency retreat was ordered. The First Maryland Regiment along with the Delaware Continentals held off the British, providing cover for the withdrawing American Army. While retreating themselves, the Fifth Company was ambushed by an advanced British company pretending to surrender. The First Maryland succeeded in temporarily pushing back the British at the Gowanus Creek, allowing the First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Companies to escape through the swamp.[2] The remaining Third, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and Seventh Independent Companies skirted the edge of the swamp and took heavy casualties after making a last stand at the Old Stone House. [3]

Brady continued to serve in the First Maryland Regiment until January of 1777, when his initial enlistment expired. The Continental Army was badly in need of reenlistments at the end of 1776 and beginning of 1777, with a large portion of the initial one year enlistments expiring. In response, the Continental Congress agreed to pay, soldiers in cash and clothing in return for a three year enlistment, and land was added to the payment if enlisting for the duration of the war.[4] Brady reenlisted as a private instead of a sergeant, for reasons unknown, for a three year term in the newly created Second Maryland Regiment.[5] Brady served in the Second Maryland Regiment from January 1777 to August 1780.

Although he enlisted as a private, Brady spent the duration of his time in the Second Regiment as a fifer. One possible explanation for this oddity is pay rate. While transitioning from a private to a musician appears to be a downgrade in status, fifers earned fifty cents more per month than privates because they possessed a higher skill set. Throughout this period, Brady participated in American attempts to regain control of New York and the unsuccessful defense of the American Capital at Philadelphia . Brady spent the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge and the winter of 1778-1779, hunkered down at the Middlebrook encampment in New Jersey.[6]

In March of 1780, Brady’s three year enlistment ended and he promptly reenlisted, this time for the duration of the war, and once again joined the First Maryland Regiment.[7] Some records indicate that Brady was briefly taken prisoner in March of 1780, but was back with his unit in time to travel south with the army in April of 1780.[8] During this period of service, Brady participated in the Southern Campaign, in which the American Army successfully fought off British attempts to defeat the revolutionaries through subjugating the southern half of the colonies. Brady finished out his Revolutionary War service as a sergeant in the Seventh Company of the Second Maryland Regiment in November of 1783.[9]

As a result of his enlistment in 1780 for the duration of the war, Brady was awarded lot 1416, a fifty acre tract of bounty land in Western Maryland almost at the border of present day West Virginia. Brady however, never claimed this land. It is unclear why Brady never claimed this land, but it may have had something to do with the remote location of the lot and its lack of farmable terrain.[10] Apart from being awarded bounty land in Western Maryland, little is known about Brady following his service in the Revolutionary War. There were a number of John Brady’s living in Baltimore City following the War, and one known John Brady in Charles County.[11] There is no clear evidence available however, to determine which John Brady served in the Fifth Company of the First Maryland Regiment at the Battle of Brooklyn.

Notes:

[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p.369.

[2] Extract of a letter from New-York: Account of the battle on Long-Island, September 1, 1776, American Archives Online, series 5, vol. 2, p.107.

[5] John Brady, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, 0399, fold3, p.1 (hereafter cited as Service Records)

[6] Service Records, p.6.

[7] Service Records, p.4.

[8] Service Records, p.4.

[9] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p.494.

[10] Land Office, Military Lot Plats, 1787-1935, Map of Military Lots, Tracts, and Escheats, MdHR 50,823 [MSA S451-1, OR/04/18/000]; Commissioners for Reserve Land Westward of Fort Cumberland, Bounty Land Soldiers, 1789, MdHR 17,301-1 [MSA S162-1, 01/27/01/031]; LAND OFFICE (Lots Westward of Fort Cumberland) 1793-1903, p.140, MdHR 17,302 [MSA SE1-1].

[11] There was a John Brady of Baltimore serving in the artillery during the Revolutionary War who died in 1784. This is not the same John Brady whose biography is written above. Baltimore County Register of Wills, Wills, Will of John Brady, 1784, Box 19, Folder 10 [MSA C437-23, 2/33/8/17]; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p.564, 567, 569, 574, 579, 582, and 583; John Brady Matross Second/Third Maryland Artillery, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, 0408, fold3; John Mullin, Cornelius William Stafford, and William Fry, The Baltimore City Directory for 1799 (Baltimore: Warner & Hanna, 1799), p.9.