Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

William Brooks (1745-1844)
MSA SC 3520-17544

Biography:

William Brooks was born in Little Breeches, Pennsylvania, in 1745. It is possible that his parents died when he was young, since he spoke later of "the man who raised me," rather than his father. Brooks was a Revolutionary War soldier who lived in Maryland and North Carolina. His exact service is difficult to determine, but he fought to defend Charleston, South Carolina in 1779-1780, and may have been part of the famed "Maryland 400," who made a heroic stand at the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. [1]

In the 1830s, Brooks recalled that in 1776, he was living in the city of Frederick, Maryland, when he enlisted in the First Maryland Regiment, the first unit of full-time, professional soldiers raised in Maryland for service in the Continental Army. He joined the Second Company, commanded by Captain Patrick Sim, which was raised mostly in Montgomery and Prince George's counties. In July 1776, the regiment received orders to march to New York 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. [2]

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. They held the British at bay for some time before being overrun, at the cost of many lives. The Marylanders 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. [3]

Brooks described surviving the battle and serving with the rest of the Marylanders through the rest of the difficult fall of 1776. They fought the British at the Battle of Harlem Heights in September, and at the Battle of White Plains six weeks later. At White Plains, Brooks's right leg was broken, and he was transferred to an American hospital to recover. He stayed there until early 1777, when he was discharged and returned home to Maryland. [4]

While Brooks's account of the 1776 campaign in New York was compelling and accurate, there is no other evidence that he was part of Sim's company, or any other Maryland unit that year. The only William Brooks whose service is documented in Maryland was a private in the Second Maryland Regiment from January 1777 until June 1781. While some of the companies of the First Maryland Regiment have incomplete enlistment records, the Second is not one of them. Whether Brooks misremembered his service--it had been fifty years--gave a false account, or truly served in the First Maryland Regiment without any documentation, is impossible to determine. [5]

Sometime between 1777 and 1779, Brooks moved to Guilford County, North Carolina. His arrival came around the same time that the action in the war shifted to the south after stalemate in the north. Brooks was drafted into a militia unit in late 1779 and marched to Charleston, South Carolina, which was threatened by the British. Brooks and his regiment dug defenses in anticipation of a British assault on the city, but the American commander Benjamin Lincoln instead surrendered on May 12, 1780. Brooks was not in the city at the time and escaped captivity, and went home a short time later. The next summer, Brooks was drafted again, serving from June to December 1781. His unit took part in "no general engagement but had several skirmishes," including a fight "on Deep River [with] the Tories." [6]

The British maintained a military presence in the south until the end of 1782, but there was virtually no combat after the fall of 1781, and Brooks returned to civilian life for good. He lived in Guilford County, North Carolina until around 1790, when he moved west to Rutherford County. He married a woman named Nancy, and they had ten children: David, Constantinople, Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Hiram, Elizabeth, and John. William was a farmer and also operated a grist mill. In 1834, Brooks was awarded a Federal veteran's pension for his Revolutionary War service. He received $41.11 per year until his death on January 22, 1844. [7]

-Owen Lourie, 2017

Notes:

1. Pension of William Brooks. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 6717, from Fold3.com.

2. Brooks pension.

3. 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.

4. Brooks pension.

5. Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, 83, 293, 523; his enlistment date is incorrectly given as February 13, 1778. His correct date is from Original Enlistment Papers, William Brooks, Second Maryland Regiment, 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 16, no. 28, MdHR 19970-16-16 [MSA S997-16-90, 1/7/3/14].

6. Brooks pension.

7. Brooks pension; Will, William Brooks, 1844, Rutherford County, North Carolina, pps. 21-22.

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