Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment

Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment
Continental Army riflemen skirmishing with enemy troops at the Battle of Saratoga
Active	June 17, 1776 – January 1, 1781: organized June 17, 1776; reorganized January 23, 1779; disbanded January 1, 1781
Country	United States
Branch	Continental Army
Type	Light Infantry Rifle regiment
Size	~420 officers and enlisted men in late 1776, 52 officers and enlisted men in late 1780
Garrison/HQ	Fort Lee Fort Washington Fort Frederick Fort Cumberland Fort Pitt

The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, most commonly known as Rawlings' Regiment in period documents, was organized in June 1776 as a specialized light infantry unit of riflemen in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The American rifle units complemented the predominant, musket-equipped, line infantry forces of the war with their long-range marksmanship capability and were typically deployed with the line infantry as forward skirmishers and flanking elements. Scouting, escort, and outpost duties were also routine. The rifle units' battle formation was not nearly as structured as that of the line infantry units, which employed short-range massed firing in ordered linear formations. The riflemen could therefore respond with more adaptability to changing battle conditions.

The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment consisted of nine companies, four from Maryland and five from Virginia. The two-state composition of the new unit precluded it from being managed through a single state government, and it was therefore directly responsible to national authority as an Extra Continental regiment.

Because most of the newly formed regiment surrendered to British and German forces at the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16, 1776, the service history of the unit's surviving element is complex. Although modern and contemporaneous accounts of the battle convey the impression that it marked the end of the regiment as a combat entity, a significant portion of the unit continued to serve actively in the Continental Army throughout most of the remainder of the war. Elements of the regiment served with George Washington's Main Army and participated in the army's major engagements of late 1776 through 1778. Select members of the regiment were also attached to Col. Daniel Morgan's elite Provisional Rifle Corps at its inception in mid-1777. The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was reorganized in January 1779 and was stationed at Fort Pitt, headquarters of the Continental Army's Western Department, in present-day western Pennsylvania primarily to help in the defense of frontier settlements from raids by British-allied Indian tribes. The unit was disbanded with all other Additional and Extra Continental regiments during the reorganization of the Continental Army in January 1781. It was the longest serving Continental Army rifle unit.

Organization

During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress directed the organization of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment in resolves dated June 17 and 27, 1776. The unit comprised three of the four independent Continental rifle companies that had formed in Maryland and Virginia by decree of Congress in mid-1775, and six new companies—two from Maryland and four from Virginia. The three 1775 companies, among the first of the colonial units to join the newly constituted Continental Army, were raised and initially commanded by Capts. Michael Cresap, Thomas Price, and Hugh Stephenson. The nine-company force became a regiment on the same tables of organization as the 1st Continental Regiment, which was originally the Pennsylvania Rifle Regiment. Unlike this Pennsylvania unit, however, the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was an Extra Continental regiment because of its two-state composition. It was not part of a state line organization but was instead directly accountable to national authority (Congress and the Continental Army). The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment's field officers were drawn from the original three 1775 companies based on their seniority. Hugh Stephenson from Virginia became the colonel, and Marylanders Moses Rawlings of Cresap's company and Otho Holland Williams of Price's company were designated the lieutenant colonel and major, respectively. All company officers were appointed in the summer of 1776, and subsequent recruiting for the unit in the two states extended to the end of the year. Recruiting occurred in Frederick and Harford Counties, Maryland, and Berkeley, Frederick, Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William, and Culpeper Counties, Virginia. The enlisted men of the regiment served for three years or the duration of the war.

Battle of Fort Washington and surviving elements

By early November 1776, the majority of the regiment's officers and enlisted men had joined Washington's Main Army while it was engaged in the battle for New York City during the New York and New Jersey campaign. They were initially stationed at Fort Washington on Manhattan Island and nearby Fort Lee on the opposite side of the Hudson River. On November 16, most of the regiment was captured or killed during the Battle of Fort Washington. The riflemen were defending the northern end of the American position from a much larger force of several thousand Hessian troops. After heavy fighting that lasted most of the day and during which the Hessians suffered many casualties, the riflemen were eventually driven from the outer works into the fort where they and the rest of the outnumbered American garrison surrendered to the combined British and German attack force. Lieutenant Colonel Rawlings was commanding the regiment during the battle because Colonel Stephenson had died of illness in August or September and had not been replaced. About 140 of the regiment's officers and enlisted men—one-third of the unit's total complement of about 420 men—were not present at the battle, however, because they were still completing organization and recruiting. A few enlisted men of the regiment who escaped from their captors within the short chaotic period following the battle augmented this remaining active force, which continued to serve with the Main Army. On December 1, the first day of the army's next regular reporting period following the fall of Fort Washington, Washington provisionally grouped these remnants of the diminished regiment into two composite rifle companies commanded by the unit's highest ranking officers still free—Capts. Alexander Lawson Smith and Gabriel Long. Smith's company comprised all the remaining Marylanders in the regiment, whereas the Virginians of the unit were placed under Long's command.

The regiment's two composite companies served with the Main Army during its retreat across New Jersey in late 1776, in the ensuing Battles of Trenton and Princeton in Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer's brigade, and in the early 1777 skirmishing in northern New Jersey, a period termed the Forage War. While in winter quarters at Morristown during the winter and spring of 1777, the two-company force and other riflemen from Pennsylvania and Virginia Line regiments supported detached elements of line infantry units in front-line positions and conducted patrols in northern New Jersey, primarily to keep the enemy's aggressive foraging activities in check. Because the two units under Captains Smith and Long provided an experienced, if small, force, Washington also used them to bolster the new 11th Virginia Regiment commanded by Col. Daniel Morgan after its arrival at Morristown in early April by formally attaching them to this Virginia regiment. Washington's decision to join the two composite companies with the 11th Virginia Regiment was based on Morgan's earlier direct association with the original three independent Continental rifle companies of 1775 that formed the core element of Rawlings' regiment. Inasmuch as the attachment of one military unit to another was technically a temporary arrangement, however, the permanent unit of Smith's and Long's composite companies remained the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment. The first muster rolls of the two companies taken after the Battle of Fort Washington, both dated May 16, 1777, were compiled by the army staff as a result of the attachment process and show that the units comprised about 110 officers and enlisted men on active duty in the spring of 1777. The rolls also document that the units had lost a number of men over the winter months following the battle, primarily through desertion and a few deaths due to illness or wounds.

Attachment to Morgan's Provisional Rifle Corps

The success of these rifle units during the skirmishing period, coupled with the arrival of large numbers of new army recruits, led Washington to create additional provisional rifle companies. He placed them under the command of Daniel Morgan in early June 1777, calling the unit the Provisional Rifle Corps, although it was most commonly known as Morgan's Rifle Corps in period documents. Morgan then simultaneously led the 11th Virginia Regiment, his permanent unit, and this provisional unit. Thirty-five officers and enlisted men in Smith's and Long's composite companies, as well as others selected from their regular musket regiments, were detached from their permanent units to form this elite regiment-sized force. The men from the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment all served in one of the Rifle Corps' eight companies, Capt. Gabriel Long's Provisional Rifle Company; with the exception of a single man, all other members of the company came from the 11th Virginia Regiment. Like Morgan, Long was now technically in command of two Continental Army units, one permanent and one provisional. Long served in the Rifle Corps until his resignation in May 1779, at which time command of his company passed to Marylander Lt. Elijah Evans, also one of the original officers of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment. Evans returned to Rawlings' regiment, his permanent unit, when his detached duty in the Rifle Corps ended with its formal disbanding in early November 1779. The Rifle Corps is most notable for the major role it played in the Battles of Saratoga.

Most members of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, however, were not chosen for the Rifle Corps and remained with the Main Army. The Marylanders in Smith's composite company served with the 11th Virginia Regiment in the 3rd Virginia Brigade at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown, as well as at the Battle of Monmouth after they were administratively attached to the 4th Maryland Regiment of the 2nd Maryland Brigade at the end of the 1777 campaign season. The Virginians in Long's composite company remained attached to the 11th Virginia Regiment and fought at the same engagements in 1777 and 1778. Lt. (later Capt.) Philip Slaughter was the acting commander of the company during Long's nearly two-year attachment to the Rifle Corps and its permanent commander after Long's resignation.

Fort Frederick and reorganization

Soon after Lt. Col. Moses Rawlings, a Marylander, was exchanged from British captivity in late December 1777 or January 1778, the Board of War, at the request of the Maryland state government, assigned him command of the prisoner-of-war camp at Fort Frederick, Maryland, and its state militia guard. The elements of the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment in the field continued to be led by the company commanders until recruiting could bring the regiment up to greater strength. Maj. Otho Holland Williams, exchanged on January 16, 1778 (likely with Rawlings), had been promoted to colonel of the 6th Maryland Regiment in December 1776 while a prisoner of war; he took command of this unit upon his release. The position of major in the reduced Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment was never refilled.

In the late spring of 1778, Rawlings began marshaling his regiment, including returning prisoners of war and new recruits, to reestablish its full complement. His efforts met with only limited success, however, despite Washington's request to Maryland governor Thomas Johnson in late December 1777 in anticipation of Rawlings' imminent exchange "that the most early and vigorous measures will be adopted, not only to make [Rawlings'] Regiment more respectable, but compleat [sic]." Moreover, in early October 1778 Congress permitted Rawlings and his officers to recruit outside Maryland, with each new enlistee being officially entitled to the enlistment bonus and clothing allowance of his own state's line organization. Implementation of this unusual ruling, however, added few men to the unit, reflecting the Continental Army's increasing difficulty in recruiting by this time of the war. The few existing recruiting records for the unit indicate that by the end of 1778, Rawlings' force of Continental regulars at Fort Frederick probably included no more than 30 to 40 new enlistees.