Baltimore

Baltimore's Revolutionary War Legacy: From Wartime Capital to Star-Spangled City

Baltimore in 1776 was not yet the bustling seaport it would become, but it was already a town of ambition, commerce, and strategic consequence. Situated on the Patapsco River with access to the Chesapeake Bay, the town served as a vital link between the southern colonies and the northern theater of war. Its contributions to the American Revolution were not confined to a single dramatic battle fought on its streets; rather, Baltimore's significance lay in its role as a seat of wartime governance, a proving ground for some of the Continental Army's most distinguished soldiers, and an economic engine that powered the patriot cause through privateering and supply. The story of Baltimore's revolution stretches from the desperate winter of 1776, when the Continental Congress fled to its streets, through the fiery valor of Maryland troops on distant battlefields, to the construction of the very fortification that would, a generation later, inspire the nation's anthem.

Even before the formal break with Britain, Baltimore was emerging as a hotbed of revolutionary activity. On December 3, 1774, a Baltimore merchant named Mordecai Gist organized the Baltimore Independent Cadets, the first independent military company in Maryland. Some sixty young men — merchants, shipbuilders, and freemen — signed articles of incorporation pledging to "form ourselves into a body or company in order to learn the military discipline," each agreeing to provide himself with a uniform, arms, and ammunition at his own expense. Gist's Cadets would later provide the officer corps and leadership nucleus for the famed Maryland Line. In May 1775, George Washington himself passed through Baltimore en route to the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Upon his arrival, Washington and the other Virginia and North Carolina delegates were met by three companies of local militia and escorted to the Fountain Inn, Baltimore's most prominent hostelry, located at the corner of Light Street and Baltimore Street. He reviewed four local militia companies drawn up on the town common — an early sign that Baltimore's patriot community was both organized and eager for the coming struggle. By July 1775, seven militia companies were under arms in Baltimore, and in the following year, two all-German companies were formed, reflecting the town's diverse immigrant population.

The revolutionary leadership of the town coalesced around a powerful alliance of merchants and artisans. Samuel Purviance Jr., an Irish-born merchant who had emigrated to Baltimore around 1763 with his brother Robert, served as chairman of the Baltimore Committee of Observation and was perhaps the most prominent local patriot organizer. The Purviance brothers were among the largest contributors of supplies to the Continental forces and maintained active correspondence with the Maryland Committee of Safety regarding provisions of salt, guns, and ammunition.

Baltimore's most consequential moment on the national stage came in the dark winter of 1776. In mid-December of that year, with British forces advancing on Philadelphia, the Continental Congress voted to flee south to Baltimore for safety. The Congress first met in Baltimore on December 20, 1776, convening inside the Henry Fite House, a substantial three-and-a-half-story brick tavern built around 1770, which was the largest building in the forty-seven-year-old town. According to the diary of John Adams, the delegates met in a "long chamber with two fireplaces, two large closets and two doors." Henry Fite rented his establishment to the Congress for three months at a cost of sixty pounds. The building's location at the western edge of town on Market Street (later Baltimore Street), between Sharp and Liberty Streets, was chosen deliberately — it sat beyond the possible cannon range of any British Royal Navy ships that might attempt to force passage up the Patapsco River from the Chesapeake Bay. It was within these walls, on December 27, 1776, that the Continental Congress conferred upon General George Washington "extraordinary powers for the conduct of the Revolutionary War," a stirring vote of confidence at a moment when the patriot cause hung in the balance. Warmed by the fireplaces of the Henry Fite House, delegates soon received word of Washington's daring crossing of the Delaware River and his surprise victories at Trenton and Princeton. With the British threat to Philadelphia blunted, the Congress departed Baltimore on February 27, 1777, and reconvened in Philadelphia on March 4. The Henry Fite House — later known as "Congress Hall" and subsequently "Old Congress Hall" — was ultimately destroyed in the Great Baltimore Fire of February 7–8, 1904. Its former site is now occupied by the CFG Bank Arena. The Architect of the Capitol commemorates Baltimore's role as a wartime seat of government in Allyn Cox's Hall of Capitols murals in the U.S. Capitol, which depict the sixteen buildings that housed the Continental and United States Congresses from 1754 to 1865.

Meanwhile, Baltimore's sons were making their mark on distant battlefields. In January 1776, the Maryland Provincial Convention established the Maryland Line as a regiment of uniformed regulars, with Colonel William Smallwood appointed to command the battalion. Three companies from Baltimore and six from Annapolis were combined to form the unit. What distinguished the Maryland troops from other colonial levies was the time they spent drilling before joining the ranks of the Continental Army. At the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776 — the first large-scale engagement of the war — the Maryland Line faced its baptism of fire. With Colonel Smallwood absent that day, Major Mordecai Gist, the same Baltimore merchant who had organized the Independent Cadets less than two years before, took command. When British forces under General Cornwallis threatened to annihilate Washington's army, Lord Stirling ordered Gist and a contingent of approximately 260 to 270 Marylanders to mount a desperate rear-guard assault against over 2,000 British troops entrenched in and around the Vechte-Cortelyou House (the "Old Stone House"). The Marylanders launched at least two direct charges into withering fire. Some 256 were killed, wounded, or captured, but their sacrifice bought critical time for the rest of Washington's forces to retreat to Brooklyn Heights and, ultimately, to escape across the East River to Manhattan. Washington reportedly watched the carnage from a nearby hilltop and cried out, "Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose!" These men became known to history as the "Maryland 400" — though the actual number who fought was somewhat fewer — and their stand is the reason Maryland bears the nickname "The Old Line State." According to the National Park Service, "the sacrifice of the 'Maryland 400' ... quite possibly saved the Revolutionary War."

Among the Baltimore-area officers who distinguished themselves in the Maryland Line was John Eager Howard, born on June 4, 1752, at "The Forest" plantation in Baltimore County. Commissioned a captain in the 2nd Maryland Battalion of the Flying Camp in July 1776, Howard fought at White Plains before rising to major in the 4th Maryland Regiment, where his troops performed superbly at the Battle of Germantown in October 1777. Promoted to lieutenant colonel in the 5th Maryland Regiment in 1778, Howard commanded the Continental infantry at the pivotal Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, where his timely counterattack helped shatter Banastre Tarleton's British force and turned the tide of the war in the South. General Nathanael Greene wrote of Howard: "Colonel Howard is as good an officer as the world afforded, and deserves a statue of gold." Congress honored Howard for his actions at Cowpens with a silver medal, which he received in 1790. After the war, Howard served as governor of Maryland from 1788 to 1791 and as a United States Senator from 1796 to 1803. He developed property in Baltimore, donated land for Mount Vernon Place and the Washington Monument, and three Baltimore streets — John, Eager, and Howard — bear his name today.

Another Baltimorean of enduring significance was James McHenry, a Scots-Irish immigrant born in County Antrim, Ireland, around 1753, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1771 and whose family settled in Baltimore, where his father and brother established the import firm Daniel McHenry & Son. McHenry studied medicine under Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia and served as a military surgeon early in the war, receiving his commission with the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion in August 1776. Captured by the British at Fort Washington in November 1776 and paroled, he returned to active duty at Valley Forge in March 1778, where Washington selected him as an assistant secretary on his personal staff. McHenry served on Washington's staff and later transferred to Lafayette's staff in August 1780, remaining through the Yorktown campaign. After the war, McHenry settled permanently in Baltimore, served in the Maryland Senate and the Continental Congress, and in 1787 signed the United States Constitution as a Maryland delegate. Appointed Secretary of War in 1796 by President Washington, McHenry oversaw the construction of coastal fortifications, including the new fort at Whetstone Point in Baltimore Harbor. That fort was named Fort McHenry in his honor in 1798 — the very bastion that would, sixteen years later, withstand a twenty-five-hour British bombardment and inspire Francis Scott Key to compose "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Baltimore also produced one of the Continental Navy's most celebrated officers: Joshua Barney, born in Baltimore on July 6, 1759. Barney entered naval service at the age of sixteen and, as master's mate of the sloop Hornet, took part in Commodore Hopkins's raid on Nassau in the Bahamas in February 1776. Over the course of the Revolution, Barney participated in thirty-five naval engagements, was captured and imprisoned multiple times — including a stint in Old Mill Prison in England from which he escaped in 1781 — and in 1782, as captain of the Pennsylvania ship Hyder Ally, achieved one of the war's most celebrated naval victories by capturing the British warship General Monk at the mouth of the Delaware River. Barney's daring exploits established a tradition of maritime valor that would define Baltimore through the War of 1812 and beyond.

The port of Baltimore itself served as an engine of the patriot war effort. Baltimore became a leading entry port for war materials imported from Europe and the West Indies, as well as an exporter of provisions to Continental forces north and south. Baltimore was among the principal home ports for American privateers during the Revolution, alongside Boston, Philadelphia, and Providence. The Continental Congress formalized the privateering commissioning process with an act on March 23, 1776, and over the course of the war issued approximately 1,700 letters of marque. The fast schooners built in Baltimore's shipyards — the