Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Patrick Smith
MSA SC 3520-17410

Biography:

Patrick Smith enlisted in Captain Edward Veazey's Seventh Independent Company in 1776, volunteering in the early days of the American Revolution to defend Maryland from a feared British invasion. Smith was a forty-year-old Irishman, making him the second-oldest soldier in the company. Only a handful of men in the their forties enlisted in Maryland in 1776. While foreign-born men like Smith tended to be a bit older than their American counterparts, the typical Maryland soldier in 1776 was twenty-three. [1]

Maryland's independent companies were formed in early 1776, and differed from the nine companies that made up Colonel William Smallwood’s First Maryland Regiment. While the Council of Safety, Maryland's Revolutionary executive body, used the nine companies of regular troops to fulfill the state's quota for the Continental Army, it dispatched seven independent companies throughout Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore to guard the vast shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay. Half of the Seventh Independent Company was stationed on Kent Island, while the rest, including Smith, were sent to Chestertown. In these first months, the company had great difficulty obtaining supplies, including uniforms and weapons. In the summer of 1776, Congress requested additional troops from Maryland to help reinforce the Continental Army, and the state agreed to shift the independent companies to that duty. When the First Maryland Regiment marched for New York in early July, it was accompanied by the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh independent companies; the rest followed later that fall. [2]

The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, and prepared to protect the city from attack by the British. On August 27, the Americans clashed with the British at the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale encounter of the American Revolution. 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. Half the regiment was able to cross the creek to safety. The rest, Smith's company among them, were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, these men, now known as the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. [3]

Smith's fate at the Battle of Brooklyn is unknown. There were several men with that name in Maryland, including one who served in the Continental Army 1780-1781. That man was part of the Regiment Extraordinary, a unit raised during a severe troop shortage in 1780, which had many veterans who had served in the early part of the war. While it is feasible that Patrick Smith was the same man who had fought at the Battle of Brooklyn, it is impossible to determine for certain. [4]

Owen Lourie, 2017

Notes:

[1] Descriptions of men in Capt. Edward Veazey’s Independent Company, 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, MdHR 19970-15-36/01 [MSA S997-15-36, 1/7/3/13].

[2] Mark Andrew Tacyn “’To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 33-34, 43; Journal of the Maryland Convention and Council of Safety 1775-1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 11, pps. 318, 468; Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, July-December, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 12, p. 4.  

[3] Tacyn, 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] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 342, 627; Muster Roll, Ewing's Company, 2nd Maryland Regiment, 1 August 1781, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 20, MdHR 19970-6-20 [MSA S997-6-45, 1/6/2/42].

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