John McCoy (1751-1831)
MSA SC 3520-17213
Biography:
Scottish immigrant John McCoy, was born in 1751, and came to Maryland as a child. [1] He first settled in Frederick, Maryland and then moved to Baltimore in 1774. [2] Enlisting in Capt. Nathaniel Ramsey's Fifth Company, part of the First Maryland Regiment, he rose from the rank of private to Lieutanent and acted as foragemaster. Since many Scottish people who came at this time were indentured servants, it is possible he was also an indentured servant.
In January 1776, John enlisted in the First Maryland Regiment. [3] The First Maryland Regiment were the first troops Maryland raised at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Maryland was more than willing to do its part to recruit the men needed to fill the Continental Army's depleted ranks. [4] A few days after independence was declared, the First Maryland Regiment was ordered to New York so it could join the forces of General George Washington. The regiment arrived there in early August, with the Battle of Brooklyn set between the Continental Army and the British Army, joined by their Hessian allies.
He and his company served at the Battle of Brooklyn in late August 1776. Ramsey's company was placed at the front of the lines, but "hardly a man [in the company] fell," even though they took the first line of fire from the British. [5] This confirmed the assessment of the British Parliament's Annual Register which described how "almost a whole regiment from Maryland…of young men from the best families in the country was cut to pieces" while the battle brought men of the Maryland 400 together. [6] Years later, Captain Enoch Anderson of the Delaware Regiment wrote about the Battle of Brooklyn, saying the following:
"A little before day, we marched towards the enemy, two miles from our camp we saw them. A little after daylight our Regiment and Colonel Smallwood's Regiment from Maryland, in front of the enemy took possession of a high commanding ground,--our right to the harbour. Cannonading now began in both armies...Colonel Smallwood's Regiment took another course,--they were surrounded but they fought hard. They lost about two hundred men, the rest got in. A hard day this, for us poor Yankees! Superior discipline and numbers had overcome us. A gloomy time it was, but we solaced ourselves that at some other time we should do better." [6]
The Battle of Brooklyn, the first large-scale battle, fits into the larger context of the Revolutionary War. If the Maryland Line had not stood and fought the British, enabling the rest of the Continental Army to escape, then the Continental Army would been decimated, resulting in the end of the Revolutionary War. This heroic stand gave the regiment the nickname of the Old Line and those who made the stand in the battle are remembered as the Maryland 400.
The next year, after serving a year in the Fifth Company, John re-enlisted in the First Maryland Regiment under Captain Nathaniel Ewing, serving as a sergeant from 1777 to 1778. [8] Later on, he served in Ewing's company as an ensign, with the exact date unknown, and a lieutanent in 1781 in the Fourth Maryland Regiment. [9] Around that same time he acted as a "forage master" in the First Maryland Brigade and later become a second lieutanent in the Fourth Maryland Regiment, where he served until January 1783. [10] A foragemaster is someone who provides and transports fodder for cattle, horses, and other animals, called forage.
John's life after his military service gives more of a picture of his personal life. After the war, he was a dues-paying member of the Society of Cincinnati along with numerous other officers of the Maryland Line. [11] In June 1818, when he applied for his pension, he was a resident of Erie County, Pennsylvania, in Western Pennsylvania giving his age as 75 years. [12] However, in 1820, still living in the county, specifically in Mill Creek Township, he said he was 82 years and gave no explanation for the age discrepancy. [12] His wife, who was 80 years old in 1820, died sometime in the 1820s, and nothing is known of their children. [12]
John died on June 30, 1831 and was buried in Erie Cemetary where his gravestone still stands.
- Burkely Hermann, Maryland Society of the Sons of American Revolution Research Fellow, 2016
Notes
[1] Sometimes his last name is spelled McKay or McCay but the name McCoy is used because it is the name used on his gravestone.
[2] Pension of John McCoy. National Archives. Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files. Record Group 15. NARA M804. Roll 1666. Pension Number S.40,132. Courtesy of Fold3.com.
[3] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online Vol 18, 434, 436.
[4] Arthur Alexander, "How Maryland Tried to Raise Her Continential Quotas." Maryland Historical Magazine 42, no. 3 (1947), pp. 187-188, 196.
[6] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "'To The End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD Diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 4.
[7] Enoch Anderson, Personal Recollections of Captain Enoch Anderson: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution (New York: New York Times & Arno Press, 1971), 21-22.
[8] Service Records of John McCoy. National Archives. Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War. Record Group 93. NARA M881. Roll 0398. Courtesy of Fold3.com; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online Vol 18, 137.
[9] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online Vol 18, 518; Pension of John McCoy; Pay account of John McCoy, 1781, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers. MdHR 19970-3-21 [MSA S997-3, 1/7/3/9]; Rieman Stueart, A History of the Maryland Line in the Revolutionary Line 1775-1783 (Towson: Society of Cincinnati in Maryland, 1969), 108; Service Records of John McCoy. National Archives. Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War. Record Group 93. NARA M881. Roll 0398. Courtesy of Fold3.com.
[10] Pension of John McCoy; Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of Revolution April, 1775 to December, 1783 (Washington D.C.: Rare Book Shop Publishing Inc., 1914), 367.
[11] Register of the Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland Brought Down to February 22nd, 1897 (Baltimore: Society of Cincinnati of Maryland, 1897), 94; Stueart, 168.
[12] Pension of John McCoy.
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