John Dill
MSA SC 3520-17735
Biography:
John Dill enlisted as a private in the Eighth Company of the First Maryland Regiment on January 24, 1776. The regiment was Maryland's first contingent of full-time, professional soldiers raised to be part of the Continental Army. The Eighth Company, commanded by Captain Samuel Smith, formed in Baltimore in early 1776, and it trained there that spring and summer. Two other companies from the regiment were located in Baltimore as well, while the rest were stationed in Annapolis. In July, the regiment was ordered to march north to New York, to protect the city from invasion by the British. The Eighth Company lost four men who deserted along the march, a problem which plagued the regiment that summer. [1]
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, including the Eighth, 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, losing 256 men killed or captured. Because the Eighth was able to escape the battle early, it lost only about six men. [2]
It is not known if Dill survived the battle. There were multiple people in Maryland with the name John Dill during and after the Revolutionary War, and it is difficult to differentiate between them. According to information submitted to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Dill survived the campaign of 1776, leaving the army when his enlistment expired at the end of the year. He left Maryland with his wife Mary Ellen Fonderon, moving first to South Carolina, then to Alabama, where he lived until his death in 1862. [3]
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; Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; "Eight Pounds Reward." Philadelphia Evening Post, 10 August 1776; William Sands to John and Ann Sands, 14 August 1776, Maryland State Archives, Special Collections, Dowsett Collection of Sands Family Papers [MSA SC 2095-1-18, 00/20/05/28]. Some sources give his enlistment date as January 27, 1776.
[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; Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com. 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] John Dill, ancestor no. A035336. Daughters of the American Revolution Ancestor Database.
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