Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment - Battle of Fort Washington and Surviving Elements

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.