Nathaniel Thomas
MSA SC 3520-17881
Biography:
Nathaniel (or Nathan) Thomas enlisted as a private in the Fifth Independent Company, led by Captain John Allen Thomas, in February 1776. The company was raised in St. Mary's County, and was one of seven independent companies that the Maryland Council of Safety formed across the state in early 1776, initially intended to guard the Chesapeake Bay's coastline from a feared British invasion. By that summer, however, the independent companies were dispatched to New York, to help reinforce the Continental Army as it prepared to defend the city from the British. In total, twelve companies of Maryland troops traveled to New York that July and August: nine companies that comprised the First Maryland Regiment, commanded by Colonel William Smallwood, and the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Independent companies, the only three that were ready to travel then. [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. During the retreat, the Maryland troops fought their way towards the American fortifications, but were blocked by the swampy Gowanus Creek. While half the regiment was able to cross the creek, the rest were unable to do so before they were attacked by the British. Facing down a much larger, better-trained force, the Marylanders mounted a series of daring charges. These men, now known as the "Maryland 400," held the British at bay long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape, at the cost of many lives. In all, 256 Marylanders were killed or captured by the British; some companies lost as much as 80 percent of their men. Thomas and his company likely saw little combat. Instead, the Fifth Independent Company did not cross the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn until after fighting had begun, and did not venture into the field of battle. They did, however, perform valuable service assisting the Americans retreating through the Gowanus Marsh. [2]
During the fall of 1776, Thomas and the rest of the Marylanders fought a series of battles in New York: Harlem Heights in September, White Plains in October, where Thomas's leg was broken by a musket shot, and Fort Washington in November. While the Americans had some tactical successes at these engagements, by November they had been pushed out of New York entirely, though they secured key revitalizing victories at Trenton and Princeton late that winter. At the end of the year, when the enlistments of the soldiers expired, the independent companies were disbanded. Thomas returned home to Maryland, and received his discharge. [3]
Little is known about Thomas's life during the decades after he left the army. He married his wife Margaret (last name unknown) around 1782, but where they lived at the time cannot be determined. By 1810, the family had moved to Mason County, Kentucky, in the northern part of the state. Between 1806 and 1820, Nathaniel and Margaret had six children together. The family was not very well off, and Thomas worked as "a common labourer." In 1818, Thomas applied for a pension from the Federal government as a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and he was awarded eight dollars per month. In 1821, he updated his application, noting that he was unable to work because of the wounds that he had sustained at the Battle of White Plains. His left leg never healed properly, and "as I get older it gets worse." [4]
Thomas's pension undoubtedly provided vital assistance for the family. He continued to receive it until his death on July 24, 1822. His widow Margaret continued to live in the area until she died in April 1841. [5]
Owen Lourie, 2018
Sources:
[1] Pension of Nathaniel Thomas, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, R 10507, from Fold3.com; Mark Andrew Tacyn "'To the End:' The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution" (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), 33-45.
[2] Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, from Fold3.com; Tacyn, 48-73; Reiman Steuart, The Maryland Line (The Society of the Cincinnati, 1971), 154-155. 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] Thomas pension.
[4] Thomas pension. The marriage date, based on Thomas's recollection, may be incorrect. In 1821, he said that Margaret was "between 40 and 50 years of age," meaning that she was roughly born in the 1770s, too young to have been married in the early 1780s. As their youngest child was born around 1820, Thomas's estimate of Margaret's age seems correct; if she was old enough to get married in 1782, she would have been too old to have children in 1820. U.S. Federal Census, 1810, Mason County, Kentucky.
[5] Thomas pension; U.S. Federal Census, 1830, Mason County, Kentucky.
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