Thomas Cunningham
MSA SC 3520-17137
Biography:
Thomas Cunningham was an early volunteer for Maryland's contribution to the Continental Army, enlisting as a sergeant in the Fourth Company of the First Maryland Regiment on January 13, 1776. He may have been with the regiment at the Battle of Brooklyn (or Battle of Long Island) that August, where it made a daring stand against the British. [1]
Cunningham probably began his military career in the Harford County militia in the fall of 1775, before securing his sergeant's rank in January. As a sergeant, his primary duty would have been working to keep the men of his company properly aligned during battle, and his main qualification for the job was probably simply being literate. After forming in Harford in early 1776, Cunningham's company spent several months training in Baltimore, until the regiment left Maryland in early July, traveling to New York to challenge the British attempt to capture the city. [2]
On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn. 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, Cunningham'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 the other Fourth Company sergeants, 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. [3]
All told, the company lost 80 percent of its men, killed or captured like McMillan. Only the company's drummer, a dozen privates, and a 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." [4]
Cunningham disappears from the historical record for several years afterward, and it is unclear what happened to him after the Battle of Brooklyn--or if he was even present. A Thomas Cunningham living in Harford signed the Oath of Fidelity to the Revolutionary cause in 1778, and a man by that name enlisted as a private in Rawling's Rifle Regiment in April 1779. [5] Who he was, and what happened to him during the war, is unknown. Two Thomas Cunninghams were recorded living in Harford County in 1783, but no trace of them exists afterwards. [6]
Owen Lourie, 2015
[2] The experience of the Fourth Company is described in the pension of William McMillan, one of the company's sergeants. See Letter, William McMillan to Secretary of Treasury, ca. October 1828. Pension of William McMillan, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 2806, p. 33-35, from Fold3.com; S. Eugene Clements and F. Edward Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War, (Silver Spring, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1987), 174.
[3] McMillan pension.
[4] 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.
[5] Governor and Council, Oaths of Fidelity, Harford County, 1778, box 3, folder 47 [MSA S963-47, 1/1/4/31]; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 100. The year is not listed, but the regiment was re-formed in the spring of 1779, after being decimated earlier in the war. See Robert K. Wright, The Continental Army (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1983), 319.
[6] General Assembly, House of Delegates, 1783 Assessment, Harford County, Bush River Lower Hundred, p. 41 [MSA S1161-6-2, 1/4/5/59] and Gunpowder Upper and Lower Hundred, p. 79 [MSA S1161-6-7, 1/4/5/59]. Both Thomas Cunninghams are listed among the unmarried men liable for a 15 shilling tax.
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