Archives of Maryland
(Biographical Series)

Emanuel Devins
MSA SC 3520-17782

Biography:

Emanuel Devins enlisted as a private in Captain Edward Veazey's Seventh Independent Company in 1776. Maryland's independent companies were formed in early 1776, and differed from the nine companies that made up Colonel William Smallwood’s First Maryland Regiment. While the Council of Safety, Maryland's Revolutionary executive body, used the nine companies of regular troops to fulfill the state's quota for the Continental Army, it dispatched seven independent companies throughout Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore to guard the vast shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay. Half of the Seventh Independent Company, including Devins, was stationed on Kent Island, while the rest were sent to Chestertown, in Kent County. In these first months, the company had great difficulty obtaining supplies, including uniforms and weapons. In the summer of 1776, Congress requested additional troops from Maryland to help reinforce the Continental Army, and the state agreed to shift the independent companies to that duty. When the First Maryland Regiment marched for New York in early July, it was accompanied by the Fourth, Fifth and Seventh independent companies; the rest followed later that fall. [1]

The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, and prepared to protect the city from attack by the British. On August 27, the Americans clashed with the British at the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island), the first full-scale encounter of the American Revolution. 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 was able to cross the creek to safety. The rest, the Seventh Independent Company among them, were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, these men, now known as the "Maryland 400," mounted a series of daring charges, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. [2]

The Seventh Independent Company suffered greatly during the battle. Its commander Captain Veazey was killed early in the fighting and two of the company's lieutenants were captured. First Lieutenant William Harrison was the sole officer in the company to escape, and only 36 men avoided death or captivity, just a third of the company. Devins was one of the lucky soldiers who survived, but there were so few men left in his company that they were consolidated into different units; Devins moved to the Fourth Independent Company, which was also raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. [3]

Devins served with the Marylanders through the rest of the 1776 campaign. They fought in battles at Harlem Heights, White Plains, and Fort Washington, as the Americans were pushed out of New York, as well as the revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton late that winter. His enlistment expired at the end of 1776, and he probably returned to Maryland. However, he returned to military service almost immediately, enlisting on March 5, 1777 as a private in the newly-formed Second Maryland Regiment, which was largely composed of the disbanded independent companies. [4]

In August of 1777, Devins and the rest of the Marylanders fought at the disastrous Battle of Staten Island, then traveled south towards Philadelphia, where the American capital was being threatened by the British. That fall they faced the British at the battles of Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777), both significant defeats. The Marylanders also fought at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778. Devins stayed with the army until December, 1779, when his enlistment expired. Nothing else is known about his life. [5]

Owen Lourie, 2018

Notes:

[1] Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to Emanuel Deven, late 1776/early 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-1, MdHR 19970-6-7/1 [MSA S997-6-23, 1/7/3/11]; Mark Andrew Tacyn “’To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 33-34, 43; Journal of the Maryland Convention and Council of Safety 1775-1776, Archives of Maryland Online vol. 11, pps. 318, 468; Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety, July-December, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online vol. 12, p. 4.

[2] Tacyn, 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.

[3] Extract of a letter from an officer in the Maryland Battalion, 28 August 1776, American Archives series 5, vol. 1, p. 1195; Return of the Maryland troops, 27 September 1776, from Fold3.com.

[4] Account of money paid sundry soldiers; 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, p. 101.

[5] Compiled Service Record; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 101.

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