George Ledburn
MSA SC 3520-18054
Biography:
George Ledburn enlisted as a private in the Third Company of the First Maryland Regiment in January 1776. The company was part of Maryland's first contingent of full-time, professional troops, raised to fulfill the state's quota of soldiers for the Continental Army. The Third Company was commanded by Captain Barton Lucas, a veteran of the French and Indian War. Most of the company's men enlisted in Bladensburg, Maryland, and many of them were natives of Prince George's County. The company spent the first part of 1776 stationed in Annapolis, along with most of the other companies of the regiment (the rest were in Baltimore), where it trained and prepared for deployment. [1]
In July, the regiment received orders to march to New York to defend the city from an impending British attack. The Marylanders arrived in New York in early August, where they joined with the rest of the Continental Army, commanded by General George Washington. 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. Half the regiment was able to cross the creek, and escape the battle. However, the rest of the men, including the Third 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, which held the British at bay for some time, at the cost of many lives, before being overrun. They took enormous casualties, with some companies losing nearly 80 percent of their men, but their actions delayed the British long enough for the rest of the Continental Army to escape. In all, the First Maryland lost 256 men, killed or taken prisoner. [2]
The Third Company suffered greatly, and more than 60 percent of its men were killed or captured, while at least twenty two were taken prisoner by the British. Lucas was sick during the battle and unable to fight with his men, and was greatly affected by the high number of casualties they took. One of his soldiers recalled that "Captain Barton Lucas became deranged in consequence of losing his company...Lucas was sent home" later that fall. [3]
Ledburn survived the battle, and during the fall of 1776, he and the rest of the Marylanders fought a series of battles in New York: Harlem Heights (September), White Plains (October), and Fort Washington (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. [4]
In December 1776, Ledburn’s enlistment came to an end, and he signed on again, this time for a three-year term. The Marylanders fought in the disastrous raid on Staten Island in August 1777, and the major battles of the Philadelphia Campaign, Brandywine (September 1777) and Germantown (October 1777), both significant defeats. They also fought at the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, an American victory. The next year, 1779, saw little major combat as the war slowed to a stalemate. At the end of the year, Ledburn's term in the army expired. He received his discharge, and returned to Maryland. [5]
Early in 1780, however, Ledburn once again returned to the army, reenlisting in the First Maryland Regiment. Later that spring, Ledburn and the Marylanders joined the American army sent to the Carolinas to counter the new front that the British had opened in the south. Over the next two years, the Maryland troops fought in the Revolutionary War's fiercest battles. On August 16, 1780, at the first battle of the campaign, the Americans suffered a terrible defeat at the Battle of Camden. The battle ended in a chaotic American retreat, and the Marylanders took particularly heavy casualties, losing some 600 men--about one-third of their troops. [6]
George Ledburn was among the Marylanders taken prisoner during the battle. Some of the American soldiers captured at Camden were eventually released at the end of the war, but there is no information about Ledburn's fate. [7]
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, 10; Pension of John Hughes. National Archives, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land-Warrant Application Files, S 5954, from Fold3.com.
2. Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776, Revolutionary War Rolls, NARA M246, folder 35, p. 85, 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), 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. Return of the Maryland troops, 13 September 1776; Hughes pension.
4. Account of money paid sundry soldiers by Gen. Smallwood, paid to George Ledburn, 1777, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 6, no. 7-3 [MSA S997-6, 1/7/3/11].
5. Compiled Service Records of Soldiers Who Served in the American Army During the Revolutionary War, NARA M881, from Fold3.com; Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, 132; List of receipts of soldiers who were paid upon discharge, 27 December 1779, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers, box 3, no. 7-21, p. 1 [MSA S997-3-94, 1/7/3/9].
6. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, 132; Journal and Correspondence of the State Council, 1779-1790, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 43, 62, 78; Tacyn, 216-225.
7. Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, 132.
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