John Walker
MSA SC 3520-17467
Biography:
John Walker enlisted as a private in the First Maryland Regiment's Second Company, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, in February 1776. After enlisting, Walker and his company traveled to Annapolis, joining five other companies of the regiment that were stationed there; three additional companies were in Baltimore. Commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, the regiment was the first unit of full-time, professional soldiers raised in Maryland for service in the Continental Army. [1]
In July, the regiment received orders to march to New York, in order to defend the city from an impending British attack. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, where they joined with the rest of the Continental Army, commanded by General George Washington. On August 27, 1776, the Americans faced the British Army at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale engagement of the war. 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, including the Second Company, was able to cross the creek and escape the battle. However, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, this group of soldiers, today called 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. They took enormous casualties, with some companies losing nearly 80 percent of their men, but their actions delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. In all, the First Maryland lost 256 men, killed or taken prisoner. [2]
Walker survived the battle, and continued to serve with the Marylanders through the rest of the difficult fall and winter of 1776. While the Maryland troops demonstrated their skill and bravery, the Americans were nevertheless pushed out of New York, and put on the run through New Jersey. Not until late that winter did they secure revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton. By the time of those battles, however, Walker was no longer present. He had been transferred to the Philadelphia, suffering from an unknown illness or injury. When he arrived there is not recorded, but by mid-December he was described as "walking about, but weak," indicating that he had begun to recover. [3]
After his time in the hospital, Walker reenlisted in the First Maryland Regiment for a three-year term. During this period, Walker probably took part in the disastrous raid on Staten Island (August 1777), and the major battles of the Philadelphia Campaign, Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777). The Marylanders also fought at the Battle of Monmouth (June 1778). In October 1777, Walker was promoted to corporal. A number of the soldiers who had fought in the 1776 campaign received similar promotions that year, a reflection of the veteran leadership that they could contribute to the army. He was discharged in late December 1779, when his enlistment expired. It is possible that he served into 1780, but ambiguity in his service records make that unclear. [4]
After the war, little can be determined about Walker's life. There were a number of men with that name living in Maryland in the years after the Revolutionary War, including several in Prince George's and Anne Arundel counties, where his initial company had been recruited from. It is unclear if any of them was the same man who survived the Battle of Brooklyn as part of the Maryland 400 in 1776.
Owen Lourie, 2017
Notes:
2. 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.
3. "List of Sick Soldiers in Philadelphia, December 1776." Pennsylvania Archives, second series, vol 1, 532.
4. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, pp. 173, 177; List of receipts of soldiers who were paid upon discharge, 27 December 1779, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 3, no. 7-21, MdHR 19970-3-7/21 [MSA S997-3-94, 1/7/3/9], which lists Walker as a private in Captain William Bruce's company of the First Maryland Regiment. See also Compiled Service Record of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, National Archives, NARA M881, from Fold3.com, which has listings for a John Walker as private and corporal in Bruce's Company, First Maryland Regiment until 1779, and a John Walker private and corporal in Bruce's Company, Third Maryland Regiment from 1 January 1780 to 16 August 1780. There are some clues that these service records may be about the same person. August 16, 1780 was the day of the Battle of Camden, where many Marylanders were killed, and a service record that ends on that day can mean the soldier died in combat (or that he was transferred to a new regiment, after the army was reorganized in the wake of the battle).
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