William Baggott
MSA SC 3520-17134
Biography:
On May 29, 1776, William Baggott enlisted as a private in the Fourth Company of the First Maryland Regiment, and served with the unit through the rest of 1776, enduring harsh conditions and terrible defeats, and becoming one of the fabled "Maryland 400." The company was made up mostly of men from Harford County, and a number of them had served with Baggott in the county militia, including William McMillan, Samuel McMillan, John Price, and Richard Watts. [1]
On August 27, 1776, Baggott and the rest of the First Maryland Regiment faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), seeking to resist the British attempt to take New York. 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, Baggott and the rest of 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, Baggott's company among them, 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, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. One of Baggott's fellow Fourth Company soldiers, William McMillan, described what happened:
My captain was killed, first lieutenant was killed, second lieutenant shot through the hand, two sergeants was killed; one in front of me…my bayonet was shot off my gun...My brother [Sergeant Samuel McMillan] and I and 50 or 60 of us was taken…The Hessians broke the butts of our guns over their cannon and robbed us of everything we had, lit their pipes with our money…gave us nothing to eat for five days, and then [only] moldy biscuits…blue, moldy, full of bugs and rotten. [2]
All told, Baggott's company lost 80 percent of its men, killed or captured like McMillan. Only the company's drummer, a dozen privates, and one sergeant made it back to the American lines. The Marylanders took enormous causalities, with other companies losing nearly as many men as the Fourth, but their action had delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape, earning themselves the moniker "Maryland 400." [3]
Baggott was probably among the small number of men from his company who survived the battle, and likely the other defeats the Americans endured during the fall and winter of 1776, as they were gradually pushed out of New York. How long he served is unclear; he was paid in late December, 1776, but no record of his fate exists after that time. He may well have returned home when his enlistment expired at the end of the year. [4]
Owen Lourie, 2015
Notes
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 11 [hereafter Archives of Maryland vol. 18]; S. Eugene Clements and F. Edward Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War, (Silver Spring, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1987), 173.
[2] Pension of William McMillan, National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 2806, 33, from Fold3.com.
[3]
Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, 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), 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] Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to William Baggott 22 December 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-3 [MSA S997-6, 1/7/3/11].
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