William Woods
MSA SC 3520-18179
Biography:
William Woods enlisted as a private in Maryland's Fourth Independent Company on January 28, 1776 under Captain James Hindman. Hindman’s company originally played a role in the Maryland Council of Safety's plan to protect the Chesapeake Bay from potential British invasions. At first stationed at Oxford in Talbot County, Hindman's company travelled 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 suffered only three casualties. Hindman defended his actions during the battle to the Council of Safety, arguing that rumors referring to the Fourth Independent Company’s “very ill” behavior were unfounded. Hindman instead declared that “the company [he] had the honor to command...behaved themselves as well as in the service, notwithstanding the dark insinuations...thrown out to their prejudice.” The Fourth Independent Company later fought at the Battle of White Plains in October 1776. Woods survived the Battle of White Plains, despite heavy American losses. One Hessian volley alone wounded and killed ninety-two soldiers during the battle, and forty soldiers of the Maryland Line were killed, captured, or wounded in total. [2]
William Woods's enlistment ended in the winter of 1776 and 1777. Woods probably did not re-enlist and instead returned to his home. Because multiple people living in Maryland and other states shared his name in the late 1700s and early 1800s, Wood's post-war life cannot be conclusively determined. [3]
-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), 33-34, 44-45.
[2] Tacyn, pp. 52-67; Journal and Correspondence of the Maryland Council of Safety July 7, 1776 to December 31, 1776, Archives of Maryland Online, vol. 12, pp. 345-346; David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 111.
[3] Eight different individuals named William Wood or William Woods lived in Maryland according to the 1790 census, for example. Multiple people named William Woods served in different regiments in the Revolutionary War, but cannot be linked to the Fourth Independent Company.
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