John Hite
MSA SC 3520-17638
Biography:
John Hite (or Hyde) enlisted as a private in the Ninth Company of the First Maryland Regiment on February 8, 1776. The regiment was Maryland's first contingent of full-time, professional soldiers raised to be part of the Continental Army. Many of the men in the company came from Western Maryland, and it was designated as the light infantry company for the regiment. Instead of fighting in a line with the other companies, the light infantry was often deployed in small groups ahead of the main body of troops as scouts or skirmishers. They carried rifles, rather than muskets, and were intended to be a more mobile group. [1]
Hite and the rest of the company were ordered to travel from Frederick to Annapolis in March 1776, to join with the rest of the regiment. As they departed, however, they were instructed to head for Baltimore instead to provide reinforcements in case of an anticipated British attack launched from the HMS Otter, a warship reportedly heading for the city. No attack ever materialized, and the company proceeded to Annapolis. They trained there until July, when the First Maryland Regiment was ordered to march north to New York, to protect the city from invasion by the British. [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. As the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, they were forced to stop at the swampy Gowanus Creek. Half the regiment was able to cross the creek and escape the battle. However, the rest, including the Ninth Company, 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. [3]
The Ninth Company fared poorly at the battle, probably because the light infantry's role placed them closest to the enemy lines during combat. At least thirteen soldiers from the company were captured, and fewer than half the men from the Ninth Company escaped death or captivity at the battle. Hite survived the battle, and went on to fight with the Marylanders through the rest of the difficult fall and winter of 1776. While the Maryland troops demonstrated their skill and bravery at Harlem Heights in September and White Plains in October, 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. [4]
While it is certain that Hite served with the Marylanders for the whole 1776 campaign, determining other details of his life is made difficult because of uncertainty over his last name. While he enlisted as "Hite," he is listed on a December 1776 payroll as "Hyde." A man named John Hide or Hyde enlisted in the Fourth Maryland Regiment in February 1777. He fought in the campaign to protect Philadelphia in 1777-1778, and in the ferocious, decisive battles in the Carolinas in the 1780s, before receiving his final discharge on November 15, 1783. While there is a strong likelihood that soldier was the same person who served in the Ninth Company in 1776, it cannot be definitively confirmed. No information about his life after leaving the army is known. [5]
Owen Lourie, 2018
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 20; George Stricker to Council, 21 January 1776, Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, August 29, 1775 to July 6, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 11, p. 102.
[2] Order to Capt. Stricker, Council of Safety Proceedings, 6 March 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 11, p. 202; Order to Capt. Stricker, 9 March 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 11, p. 224-225.
[3] 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] Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com.
[5] Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to John Hyde [Hite], late 1776/early 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-3a, MdHR 19970-6-7/3a [MSA S997-6-25, 1/7/3/11]; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, pps. 123, 353, 456, 486, 538; John Hyde, discharge certificate, 1783, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 52, no. 133-1, MdHR 6636-52-133/1 [MSA S1004-74-12576, 1/7/3/60].
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