Joseph Merchant
MSA SC 3520-18127
Biography:
Joseph Merchant enlisted as a private in Maryland’s Fourth Independent Company on January 28, 1776 under Captain James Hindman. Hindman’s company was part of an effort spearheaded by Maryland’s Council of Safety to protect the Chesapeake Bay from potential British invasions. Originally stationed at Oxford in Talbot County, Hindman's company was sent to New York to reinforce the Continental Army in preparation for a British invasion. The Fourth Independent Company arrived in New York by mid-August 1776. [1]
On the morning of August 27, 1776, American forces faced British troops at the Battle of Brooklyn (otherwise known as the Battle of Long Island). While several companies engaged the British Army on the Gowanus Road and the nearby Gowanus Creek, taking severe losses in the process, the Fourth Independent Company was largely spared. The company suffered only three casualties, including Joseph Merchant. British soldiers captured Merchant during the battle. [2]
As the British considered American troops to be rebels, American prisoners like Merchant were often treated cruelly with abuse and torture. Furthermore, conditions deteriorated because the British had not prepared for the large number of prisoners taken during 1776, leading to environments rife with disease. Thomas McKeel, another American prisoner captured during the Battle of Brooklyn, noted that he "remained a prisoner on board of a Prison Ship until the British troops got possession of New York." The British took McKeel and others ashore afterwards, and released most Marylanders, including Joseph Merchant, in the winter of 1776-1777. [3]
Merchant did not return to military service afterwards and nothing of his later life is known.
-James Schmitt, Maryland Society Sons of the American Revolution Research Fellow, 2019
Notes:
[1] Muster Rolls and Other Records of Service of Maryland Troops in the American Revolution, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 18, p. 24; Mark Andrew Tacyn, “‘To the End:’ The First Maryland Regiment and the American Revolution” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 1999), pp. 33-34, 44-45.
[2] Tacyn, pp. 52-67.
[3] George C. Doughan, Revolution on the Hudson: New York City and the Hudson River Valley in the American War of Independence (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), p. 72; Pension of Thomas McKeel, National Archives and Records Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, NARA M804, S 34977, from Fold3.com; A Return to Mr. Christopher Richmond of Cash Paid to Each of the Men which were Redeemed from Captivity at New York, Maryland State Papers, Revolutionary Papers MdHR 19970-06-25/1 [MSA S997-6-59, 1/7/3/11].
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