Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Dennis May
MSA SC 3520-17656

Biography:

Dennis May enlisted as a fifer in the Ninth Company of the First Maryland Regiment on January 28, 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. As a musician, May had an important role in the company, for which he was paid the same wages as a corporal. Fifers and drummers played music to communicate orders during battle and in camp, and to help pass the time on long marches. [1]

May 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. Fewer than half the men from the Ninth Company escaped death or captivity at the battle, and at least thirteen soldiers were taken prisoner. May 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]

May served with his company for most of the 1776 campaign, although sometime in November or December he left the unit. Many Marylanders fell ill that winter, and it is possible that May was among them. Nevertheless, he reenlisted when his initial term expired at the end of 1776. May served as a fifer in the First Maryland Regiment in 1777, and was part of the American force which made a landing on Staten Island that August. The goal was to defeat a small Loyalist militia, but the Americans instead found themselves facing a sizable force of British army regulars. In the ensuing American retreat, the Maryland Line was ordered to cover the rear, and took heavy casualties, just as they had at Brooklyn a year earlier. The Marylanders lost by some estimates about 200 men, including May, who was taken prisoner. Some of the Americans captured at Staten Island were released in prisoner exchanges the following year, and countless others died in the horrific conditions on British prison ships. May's fate is unknown, however, and there is no record of his life after his capture. [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. 18; 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. 102; 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] May's presence in the company is relatively easy to track, because fifers and drummers were counted separately on strength returns from the rest of the men. See Pay Abstract, First Maryland Regiment, September 1776, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 5, MdHR 19970-6-5 [MSA S997-6-6, 1/7/3/11]; Pay Abstract, First Maryland Regiment, October-December 1776, Maryland State Papers, Series A, box 1, no. 108, MdHR 6636-1-108 [MSA S1004-1-87, 1/7/3/25]; Return of the Six Independent Companies and First Regiment of Maryland Regulars, 1 December 1776, American Archives, series 5, vol. 3, p. 1081-1082; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 137; Tacyn, 137; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 157.

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