Washington's Immortals Read online

  Like Gist and Smith, many of the company’s members were prosperous merchants. For them, the decision to join the company meant sacrificing their livelihood—the ability to trade with Great Britain. For years they had been on the sharp end of onerous taxes and restrictions that required the colonies to trade exclusively with Britain. Responding to the spiraling crisis in Boston, delegates from the American colonies met in the First Continental Congress. Formed at the urging of Benjamin Franklin and first organized in 1774 in Philadelphia, Congress comprised representatives from twelve of the thirteen colonies (initially Georgia didn’t participate, since it felt that it needed British protection from hostile Indians). The Congress remained undecided on the issue of declaring independence from Great Britain, but its members firmly believed that King George III owed the people of the colonies better treatment. The representatives wanted their voices heard in London. On September 5, 1774, Congress adopted the Articles of Association, which declared that if the Intolerable Acts were not repealed by December 1, 1774, the colonies would boycott British goods. A provision in the articles also called for an embargo of British goods by September 1775 if the acts weren’t abolished. It was a bold move: Americans struck at the heart of British trade, which heavily relied on the North American economy. The Continental Congress’s actions were a serious challenge to imperial rule, essentially amounting to a declaration of economic war against the Crown.

  The independent spirit that gave rise to this decision to rebel against Britain had been fomenting in Maryland since its founding. In 1632 the king granted the ownership of the colony to George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, who was designated the “proprietary.” Unlike most of the colonies, which answered to the king or to locally elected governments, Maryland answered to the proprietary, who set up the government as he saw fit. The arrangement essentially created “an empire within an empire” and made it easy for the people who lived in Maryland to see themselves as independent of the Crown. This unusual form of government persisted until 1691, when Britain appointed a royal governor for the colony.

  In the middle of the eighteenth century, the French and Indian War planted seeds of discontent in America and had an impact on many of the Maryland officers. Also known as the Seven Years’ War, the war was a worldwide conflict between Britain and France that began in 1754. Both countries had extensive holdings in the New World, and disagreements arose over disputed territory and trading rights in the Ohio Valley. The governor of Virginia sent twenty-one-year-old Major George Washington and a small group of men to evict the French from the area, but the French refused to leave, pushing the two countries on the path toward war. On May 28, 1754, Washington led the British troops to victory in the Battle of Jumonville Glen, which is generally regarded as the first battle in the French and Indian War.

  In the early days of the conflict, both sides developed irregular warfare techniques, such as the use of proxies and the use of ranging forces. The proxies included Rogers’ Rangers, Americans who fought for Britain. The British and the French also developed light infantry, which were lightly armed forces known for their quickness, speed, and flexibility. More importantly, the colonists learned to train, organize, and move large numbers of men through untamed wilderness. Americans fighting for the British—including George Washington, William Smallwood, and Daniel Morgan, along with future Americans and British officers Edward Hand, Horatio Gates, and Charles Lee—gained invaluable battle experience in the conflict. They also learned Indian tactics. Many Native American tribes fought on the side of the French during the conflict. Unlike the Europeans, the tribes often struck in surprise attacks with small raiding parties that hit the enemy hard and then retreated before casualties could mount, and they fired from behind trees and other natural obstructions rather than out in the open. The seeds of an American way of waging war were planted.

  By 1760 most of the fighting in North America had come to end, although battles continued to rage in the West Indies and Europe for some time. The North American portion of the war officially came to a close on February 10, 1763, when the two sides signed the Treaty of Paris. Five days later, they ended the European war with the Treaty of Hubertusburg. Under the terms of surrender, France gave up all rights to the mainland of North America but held on to its island colonies in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Spain, which had entered the war on France’s side, agreed to cede Florida to Britain in exchange for regaining control of Cuba and gaining control of Louisiana. Britain was left as the primary power in control of Canada and the thirteen colonies that would become the United States.

  While the British were victorious, the cost was exorbitant. The war had nearly doubled the empire’s debt. To offset this enormous financial burden, the Crown began raising taxes on its colonies so that they would pay for their own administration and defense, allowing the government in London to put more money toward its war debts. When Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, the colonists were primed to revolt. Extremely unpopular in the American colonies, the onerous act required that all printed materials, including legal documents and newspapers, use specially stamped paper produced in Britain. The colonists objected to this regulation on the grounds that they shouldn’t be taxed without their consent. Although Parliament eventually repealed the Stamp Act, it passed a series of other laws and taxes that the Americans found objectionable, including a law that forbade the colonies from issuing currency and a fateful tax on tea.

  Outraged by the new and oppressive laws, Massachusetts appealed to its sister colonies for support. In a show of solidarity, the Continental Congress agreed to ban the import of British goods. It went one step further, by placing an export ban on American commodities that were valued by the Crown, such as tobacco, rice, and a long list of naval products. The men in Maryland who joined the cadets certainly objected to the taxes, but for them the Revolution wasn’t only about money. They were motivated by ideals of freedom and liberty, and they didn’t want their daily lives and business decisions at the mercy of the bureaucracy in London.

  While war seemed inevitable in hindsight, it was not a foregone conclusion, even as the various independent companies throughout the colonies began to organize. In fact, many of the colonies hoped for a diplomatic solution to the crisis that would keep them as part of the British Empire. The act of rebellion—if it came to that—would be a last resort.

  With the clouds of war gathering on an uncertain horizon, the Baltimore cadets began to arm and outfit themselves with the best weapons and uniforms money could buy. This company of wealthy Baltimoreans went into battle carrying a “good gun” with a bayonet plus a brace of pistols and a sword. However, most of the other American units could not afford such expensive guns and supplies; many of their brothers-in-arms would fight with old hunting rifles or makeshift weapons. And while many Americans marched in the leather or homespun clothing they wore every day, Marylanders of this company wore “a Uniform Suit of Cloathes turn’d up with Buff, and trim’d with Yellow Metal, or Gold Buttons, White Stockings and Black Cloth half Boote.” Emboldened by their example, numerous independent companies formed across Maryland for the defense of the state.

  Shortly after the signing of the company’s articles of incorporation, training began. Drilling occupied the bulk of each day. Cadets learned how to march and create battle formations. They also practiced loading and firing their muskets as a group and possibly engaged in target practice. Gist’s men had their own drillmaster, a cadet named Richard Cary. Cary had previously served as a member of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Boston, which was commanded by John Hancock.2 Cary’s high-quality training and the company’s expensive equipment set Maryland’s troops apart from those of other colonies as war unfolded and turned them into, arguably, the first elite infantry unit in the Continental Army.

  2. Formed in 1637, the artillery company was one of the first citizen militias in the colonies. It still exists today, serving
primarily as an honor guard for the governor of Massachusetts, and is the one of the oldest chartered military organizations in North America.

  Voluntary enlistment in these independent companies violated British imperial law. Doing so represented open defiance of Crown rule and constituted an act of treason potentially punishable by death. The sixty Patriots who first signed the articles of incorporation for the Baltimore Independent Cadets were effectively signing their own death warrants. That threat was quite real. When the British had put down an insurrection in Ireland around the same time, a judge decreed to the captured revolutionaries, “You are to be drawn on hurdles to the place of execution, where you are to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for while you are still living your bodies are to be taken down, your bowels torn out and burned before your faces, your heads then cut off, and your bodies divided each into four quarters.”

  Elite warriors throughout history have believed that willpower and determination can overcome all odds. This thoughtful, independent company of men ardently embraced their ideals, making a purposeful decision to sacrifice their fortunes, their livelihood, and possibly their lives for the promise of an idea with the risk of an unknown future. Gist, like many Patriots, believed that his men’s fervor would help them overcome the much larger, better-equipped, and highly trained British army.

  Gist was not alone in his belief. Among Gist’s papers is a letter addressed to the Baltimore Independent Company. Full of classical allusions, the letter was signed by an admirer of the company who called himself Agamemnon,3 the name of the Greek king who united his country­men to fight against the Trojans. After asking that his letter be read aloud to the group, he refers to Xerxes’s army of Immortals and compares the Marylanders to the Spartans who stood against a much larger force at the Battle of Thermopylae. The letter explains, “About three hundred men who’s hearts were warmed with patriotism, [held off] an Army of Twenty thousand.” The letter writer believed that Gist’s men, like the Spartans and other elite units throughout history, could play a crucial role in shaping the future of the new nation.

  3. The original letter used the Latin spelling of Agamemnon.

  The comparison would prove eerily accurate. In a little over a year, Washington would call upon the Marylanders to make an epic stand of their own against overwhelming odds.

  Chapter 2

  Smallwood’s Battalion

  and the Birth of an Army

  On May 5, 1775, swept up in revolutionary fervor, the Baltimore Independent Company traveled to the outskirts of Baltimore, where delegates to the Continental Congress were due to pass through the city on their way to Philadelphia. The honor guard waited in eager anticipation. Their patience was rewarded when George Washington and several other delegates—soon to be heroes of the Revolution—rode into town.

  The Marylanders eagerly accompanied these dignitaries to the lavish Fountain Inn, located near present-day Light Street and Redwood Street, which boasted excellent wine cellars, twenty-four bedrooms, and six mahogany-finished grand parlors. On the inn’s grounds, the cadets lined up in formation and discharged their muskets into the air three times in salute of the cavalcade. The pomp and ceremony continued through the next day when Washington, then a colonel, reviewed the troops on the town common. He expressed “satisfaction in the appearance and behavior of the officers and men.” Mordecai Gist’s Independent Company then led the way to the courthouse, where the city fathers entertained the dignitaries in style. During the proceedings, the delegates offered a toast: “May the town of Baltimore flourish and the noble spirits of the inhabitants continue till ministerial tyranny be at an end.” The defenders of Maryland were about to take their first steps as defenders of a larger cause.

  After their brief stay in Baltimore, the southern delegates arrived in Philadelphia, where the Second Continental Congress convened on May 10, 1775. On the 19th of the previous month, the Patriots had fired the “shot heard round the world” at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It was the start of open conflict between the colonists and their mother country.

  The siege of Boston followed these initial clashes. Massachusetts militia and other American troops, furnishing their own clothing, equipment, and arms, blockaded all land routes out of Boston, trapping the British garrison there despite the fact that no American army existed and none of the colonies had declared independence. Instead, in Washington’s own words, there was “a mixed multitude of people . . . under very little order or government. . . . Confusion and disorder reigned in every department.”

  In June, the Second Continental Congress made a momentous decision. In spite of the fear that an army could someday be used against its own people, Congress established a military force and commissioned Washington as the “General and Commander in Chief of the Army of the United Colonies.” Eventually, resolutions from Congress called it the “Continental Army” or “American Army.”

  A second-generation Virginian born to moderately prosperous planters, Washington had been educated in the colonies and had become a surveyor before serving with distinction during the French and Indian War. Rising to the rank of colonel and regimental commander in Virginia’s provincial forces, he gained the military and political skills he later needed as the leader of a fledgling American army. Six-foot-two and handsome with a commanding presence and countenance, Washington was one of the best riders in the colonies and possessed enormous physical strength. His inheritance of the plantation at Mount Vernon, along with real estate holdings of his wife, Martha Custis, made him a wealthy man. That status thrust him into the upper echelons of colonial society. With his contacts, temperament, and martial record, Washington seemed to be an excellent choice for the role of commander in chief. But he was far from the only option.

  Washington’s chief rivals for the position included two veterans of the French and Indian War: Horatio Gates and Charles Lee. Lee had considerable experience fighting overseas in various European wars, and Gates had distinguished himself fighting in North America. But perhaps Washington’s most serious rival was the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, who had never been in battle and whose only military experience was commanding parade ground maneuvers for the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the same unit to which Richard Cary belonged.

  John Adams noted that Washington had two invaluable leadership skills: “He possessed the gift of silence and had great command.” As the most crucial officer of the Revolution, Washington had to transform citizens from all walks of American life and all thirteen colonies, including the Marylanders, from undisciplined neophytes into soldiers. Eventually, the commander in chief formed a special relationship with the elite fighting soldiers of Maryland, one of the few units to fight in both the North and the South, men who would hold the army together in the darkest hours of the Revolution.

  After establishing that Washington would lead the colonial army, the penniless Continental Congress set about raising that army. In a series of resolutions, the Congress recommended that each of the thirteen colonies establish a battalion4 “at the expense of the Continent.” Maryland answered this call in a unique way: a battalion with a core cadre of officers and NCOs from the independent cadets at its heart. Smallwood’s Battalion was born.

  4. Even though a battalion is typically about a third the size of a regiment, the size and strength varied by unit, and “battalion” could also mean any subdivision of a regiment. The military of the time often used the terms “battalion” and “regiment” interchangeably.

  In December 1775 the Maryland Convention, Maryland’s Patriot government during the early part of the Revolution, resolved to raise an army of 1,444 troops “in the pay and for the defense” of Maryland. The following month, the government finalized its plan, determining that the force would consist “of a battalion of 9 companies, 7 independent companies, [and] 2 companies of artillery.” Each company consisted of at least sixt
y-eight privates, and some included as many as one hundred. All the men were to be volunteers, described as “young hearty robust men, who are tied by birth or family connection or property to this country; and are well practiced in the use of firearms.”

  Answering the call of the Second Continental Congress to enlist regulars for a Continental Army, Maryland created a force unique in the thirteen colonies because it was neither militia nor Continental; instead, it was a state-funded (from taxes levied from Marylanders and later the seizure of Loyalist property) defense force created to protect Maryland from the British and from the internal threat of Americans loyal to the Crown.

  These volunteer regulars enlisted for a year and earned wages paid by Maryland for their service. Privates initially received five and a third dollars; sergeants eight dollars; and the highest-paid member of the unit, the colonel, fifty dollars. These wages, even when they were paid, were barely enough for any member of the force to scrape by. Many of them never received their full wages, which were docked to pay for uniforms. Some soldiers in good standing later received a land bounty.

  Smallwood’s Battalion also had a tiny contingent of musicians, specifically drummers and fifers. In the eighteenth century men could hardly hear shouted commands over the roar of cannon and muskets, so they learned to follow orders given by the beat of a drum. Each army had scores of drum signals, and men who drilled to them instantly followed these commands. Fifers and drummers also played marching music, popular tunes that the men sang along to. Slowly, these drills and martial music welded men together as they formed a sense of unity.