Maryland Loyalists Battalion
| Maryland Loyalists Battalion | |
|---|---|
Pensacola, West Florida | |
| Engagements | |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Lieutenant-Colonel James Chalmers |
The Maryland Loyalists Battalion, also known as the First Battalion of Maryland Loyalists, was a Loyalist infantry unit which served on the side of the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. Raised in 1777 by Loyalist officer James Chalmers, the unit, consisting of one battalion, was organizationally part of the British Provincial Corps and saw action at the 1778 Battle of Monmouth and the 1781 Siege of Pensacola. It was disbanded in 1783 in the wake of the Patriot victory in the war.
Background
As with other colonies in
Service
The unit was composed primarily of colonists from the
The Maryland Loyalists saw limited action in 1778 at the
After the war, the soldiers of the battalion, along with many other American loyalists, were transported by the British government as refugees to Nova Scotia. In the fall of 1783, a ship carrying the exiled battalion was shipwrecked off the Nova Scotia coast. The survivors made up the first British American citizens of the new Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Notable soldiers
See also
- Maryland in the American Revolution
- Spain in the American Revolutionary War
Citations
- ^ Yentsch p.270
References
- Andrews, Matthew Page, History of Maryland, Doubleday Doran & Co, New York, (1929)
- Yentsch, Anne E, p.55, A Chesapeake Family and their Slaves: a Study in Historical Archaeology, Cambridge University Press (1994) Retrieved Jan 28, 2010
- Maryland Loyalists in the American Revolution by M. Christopher New. Tidewater Publishers; Centreville, MD, 1996.