Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Carbry Burn
MSA SC 3520-17605

Biography:

Carbry Burn enlisted as a private in the Sixth Company of the First Maryland Regiment, led by Captain Peter Adams, on January 23, 1776. [1]

The Sixth Company was recruited primarily from the Eastern Shore, but traveled to Annapolis  in the spring of 1776 to complete six months of training.  The company then moved north, making it to Philadelphia by mid-July 1776 and to New York by August 14.  It was positioned with the rest of the First Maryland Regiment about one mile outside of New York, with orders to prepare for battle.

The Marylanders met the British at the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island) on August 27, 1776, where the Continental Army, led by General George Washington, fought to defend New York. The American troops were severely outnumbered and surrounded when they were ordered to retreat.  Half the regiment was able to escape the battle, however the other half, including most of the Sixth Company, was trapped by the swampy Gowanus Creek.  They turned back to face the British, holding their position long enough for the rest of the Marylanders to return to safety.  This heroic stand earned them the honorable name of the “Maryland 400.” [2]

The First Maryland Regiment suffered major losses. The Sixth Company alone lost 58 men, or 80 percent. By the end of the battle, Maryland losses totalled 256 men killed or captured.  Despite the heroic actions of the Maryland 400, the battle was a defeat for the Americans. [3]

Burn’s fate at the battle is unknown, and there is no record of him completing his nine-month enlistment.  There was, however, a man named Carbry Burns who served in a loyalist unit from 1778 through 1781, at which time the loyalists were captured and held by the British until the end of the war. Unfortunately, there is no solid evidence linking the Carbry Burns from the Maryland 400 with the Carbry Burns who served in the loyalist unit, and no additional information is known about him. [4]

-Natalie Miller, Maryland Society Sons of the American Revolution Research Fellow, 2017

Notes:

[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol 18, p. 14.

[2] Mark Andrew Tacyn, "To the End: The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution," (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 48-73; Extract of a letter from New-York: Account of the battle on Long-Island, 1 September  1776, American Archives Online, series 5, vol. 2, p. 107.

[3] Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com.

[4] Murtie June Clark, Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1999), 476-583.

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