John Veatch
MSA SC 3520-17485
Biography:
John Veatch enlisted as a private in the First Maryland Regiment's Second Company, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, in February 1776. He was around nineteen years old at the time. After enlisting, Veatch 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]
Veatch 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, although whether Veatch fought at that those battles is not clear. His enlistment expired at the end of 1776 and he did not reenlist, but when he left the army is not known specifically. [3]
Veatch hailed from Montgomery County, Maryland. His father was Ninian Veatch (his mother's name is not known), and he had two siblings: Jemima and Solomon. In 1777, he was called to serve in the county militia, but he was excused from duty. The Maryland Council of Safety found that Veatch suffered from an "Indisposition" that rendered him "incapable of Service." No information survives about what his "Indisposition" stemmed from, but other former soldiers were exempted from service for either physical or psychological trauma after 1776, including Francis Osborn, who served with Veatch in the Second Company. [4]
In June 1792, Veatch married a woman named Nancy Weaver Davis in Frederick County. They had at least two children together, Jesse and William; John had two other sons, John Hillary and Jeremiah, but they may have had a different mother. John's father Ninian died in 1798, and John inherited about sixty acres of land in western Montgomery County, close to the Potomac River, although he ultimately sold close to half of it in his lifetime. The family was near the bottom of the county economically, but probably had a relatively stable financial situation. John Veatch died by 1817. His family had moved to Harvey County, Virginia (now West Virginia), and they sold the land in Maryland after his death. [5]
Owen Lourie, 2017
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 8; Daughters of the American Revolution, Ancestor Search, John Veech [Veatch]. The information from the DAR has been validated independently.
[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] Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to John Veech, late 1776/early 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-2, MdHR 19970-6-7/2 [MSA S997-6, 1/7/3/11].
[4] S. Eugene Clements and F. Edward Wright, The Maryland Militia in the Revolutionary War, (Silver Spring, Maryland: Family Line Publications, 1987), 195; Journal and Correspondence of the Council of Safety, 1777-1778, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 16, p. 306; Will of Ninian Veatch, 1798, Montgomery County Register of Wills, Estate Record, Liber D, p. 17 [MSA C118-6, 1/17/8/5]; John Veatch and Solomon Veatch, Deed of Partition, 1798, Montgomery County Court, Land Records, Liber H, p. 357 [MSA CE148-9].
[5] Marriage of John Veatch and Nancy Weaver Davis, 16 June 1794, Frederick County Court, Marriage Licenses, vol. 1 [MSA C825-1/40/14/10]; Deed, Jesse, Solomon, and Ann Veatch to Daniel Trundel, 1817, Liber T, 396 [MSA CE148-21]. John Hillary and Jeremiah were both born after 1795. John Veatch appears to have remarried sometime between 1803 and 1817, as the deed disposing of his land after his death list a widow named Ann; no record of that marriage can be found. Liber H, 357; Montgomery County Commissioners of the Tax, Assessment Record, Second District, 1793, 57-58, 43 [MSA C1110-1, 1/18/14/17]; 1798, Second District, 19, 72 [MSA C1110-2, 1/18/14/18]; 1804, Second District, 183, 235 [MSA C1110-2, 1/18/14/18]; 1813, Second District, 23, 72 [MSA C1110-3, 1/18/14/19]. No probate for Veatch can be located.
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