John Grant
MSA SC 3520-17457
Biography:
John Grant enlisted into the First Maryland Regiment on February 8, 1776. At was the time of the Battle of Brooklyn (otherwise known as the Battle of Long Island) on August 27, 1776, Grant was a private within captain Patrick Sim’s Second Company. Although the battle was a defeat for the Americans, the valiant defense by Grant and the other soldiers of the “Maryland 400” held off the British long enough to allow much of the trapped American army to escape. Grant was one of the lucky soldiers who survived that day, his company losing fewer than ten men. [1]
After the Battle of White Plains, the Battle of Trenton, and the Battle of Princeton, Grant chose not to reenlist into the First Maryland Regiment once his enlistment was up. He instead returned to Prince George’s County, Maryland where he married Ephana Claud on October 21, 1777. [2]
After living at home with his wife for another year, Grant chose to reenlist into the Continental Army’s Seventh Maryland Regiment on February 20, 1778. He joined up with his company in April, possibly waiting until he had been inoculated with smallpox immediately upon enlistment. Grant was most likely at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 but otherwise saw very little action. He became sick again a year later, in April 1779, but was well enough to join the Light Troops in July 1779. It is feasible that he was at the Battle of Stony Point, which consisted of light infantry soldiers, on July 16, 1779. [3]
The importance of a surprise attack was not understated and multiple measures were taken to preserve secrecy. For example, not only were the men were not allowed to load their muskets in fear that they would accidentally be set off, but guards were posted at nearby houses to prevent people from passing and all dogs in the surrounding area were killed to inhibit barking. Although British spies knew an attack was going to happen, they were not aware when it would occur. In a well planned and executed nighttime attack, the Americans killed 63 British and Hessian soldiers, wounded 74, and took 543 prisoners. General Charles Lee called the battle "not only the most brilliant [assault] through the whole course of this war on either side, but...one of the most brilliant [he was] acquainted with in history." [4]
Grant continued to serve until January 1780, when he was captured as a prisoner of war at an unknown skirmish. This was unfortunate timing, as he either had just reenlisted or was about to be discharged. [5]
As there were multiple people living in Maryland at the time, there is no further definitive information about Grant’s life. It is possible that he was the John Grant, an eighty-five-year-old veteran born in 1755, who lived in Mercer, Kentucky in 1840. After the war, many veterans from Maryland moved west in hopes of finding financial stability, and this man would have been around the right age. [6]
-Taylor Blades, 2017
Notes:
[2] Marriage Licenses, 1777-1797, Prince George's County Court, p. 2 [MSA C1260-1, 1/21/9/5].
[3] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 307, 314; Samuel W. Pennypacker, “The Capture of Stony Point.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 26, no. 3 (1902), 369.
[4] John Dwight Kilbourn, A Short History of the Maryland Line in the Continental Army (Baltimore, MD: The Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland, 1992), 27.
[5] Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 211.
[6] U.S. Federal Census, 1840.
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