175th Infantry Regiment (United States)
The 175th Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment of the Maryland Army National Guard. It is one of several National Guard units with colonial roots and campaign credit for the War of 1812.
History
, a young Baltimore merchant, organized a militia company on 3 December 1774. This company was the nucleus of Baltimore's Fifth Regiment which—expanded, modified, and undergoing occasional changes in designation—has enjoyed an uninterrupted history down to the present 175th Infantry, Maryland Army National Guard. The unit is the seventh oldest regiment in the United States.Revolutionary War
By 1774 the people of Maryland had become thoroughly aroused over the troubles around Boston, especially the blockading of the port as the consequence of the "Boston Tea Party." Their reaction to the British actions in October 1774 was to burn tea, and the brig Peggy Stewart in which the tea had arrived, during daylight in Annapolis Harbor. Hostilities having begun, an assembly of delegates from the various counties met in Annapolis in November to discuss measures for armed resistance and to adopt resolutions for defense.In this tense atmosphere, Mordecai Gist of Baltimore organized a company of militia, which assumed the title "The Baltimore Independent Cadets." On 3 December 1774, 58 young men of the town signed an agreement to "form ourselves into a body or company in order to learn the military discipline," and each agreed to provide himself with a uniform consisting of "a coat turnd up with Buff, and trimd with Yellow Mettal, or Gold Buttons, White Stockings & black Cloth half Boots," and to equip himself with arms and ammunition. And so was organized the first uniformed military company in Maryland, the parent from which the Fifth Regiment sprung in the early days of the war just two years later.
The battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill were fought in Massachusetts during the spring of 1775. On 1 January 1776, the Maryland Assembly voted to organize and send its first regiment of soldiers to the Continental Army. This consisted of nine companies, the eighth of which was Gist's "Independent Cadets." Gist became Major in the new regiment and the command of the company passed to Samuel Smith, later to become major general, Mayor of Baltimore, and United States Senator from Maryland. Thus organized, Smallwood's Regiment, so-called after its commander Colonel William Smallwood, left on 10 July 1776 to join General Washington's army. It marched to Philadelphia, and from there was promptly dispatched by John Hancock, President of the Congress, to the "Flying Camp" of the army before New York.
On 27 August 1776 the Continentals fought a large British Army force. Smallwood's men, led by Major Gist, lost nearly half of their number at the Battle of Long Island in an attempt to halt the British advance. The British, under General Howe, flanked the American positions, and General Washington ordered a withdrawal to the mainland. In order to allow the army to escape capture, Smallwood's men were ordered to attack the British forces and hold them long enough to give the American army time to withdraw across Long Island Sound.
During the following weeks, the regiment fought at Harlem Heights, Fort Washington, and White Plains. Several times during these engagements the Marylanders performed missions at the particular direction of General Washington. At this time, on 1 December 1776, enlistments, which the Congress had authorized only to that date, expired throughout the army. Although practically all of the Maryland troops re-enlisted, the losses from the battles around New York, combined with the expired enlistments, made necessary a reorganization of the army. In doing so, General Washington organized all of the Maryland troops into seven regiments of the line in the Maryland Brigade, which collectively became known as the "Maryland Line." Smallwood's regiment was too depleted in numbers to form a regiment to itself but it gave many men and officers, including one of the subsequent wartime commanders, to the Fifth Regiment of the Line, and on 10 December 1776, Colonel William Richardson assumed command of the new regiment.
According to the historian James McSherry, writing of the Maryland Line during the Revolutionary War, "No troops in the continental army had rendered better service, endured more fatigue, or won greater glory than the Maryland Line. In proportion to their number, no body of men suffered more severely. They were the first to use the bayonet against the experienced regulars of the enemy, and that in their earliest battle -- and throughout the succeeding struggles of the war, they were most often called on to lead with that bloody weapon into the ranks of the foe. They seldom shrank from the encounter. At Long Island, a fragment of the battalion shook, with repeated charges, a whole brigade of British regulars. At White Plains, they held the advancing columns at bay. At Harlem Heights they drove the enemy from the ground. At Germantown they swept through the hostile camp, with their fixed bayonets, far in advance of the whole army; and at Cowpens, and at Eutaw, their serried ranks bore down all opposition with unloaded muskets. And at Guilford, and at Camden, though victory did not settle on their banners, they fought with a courage which won the admiration and surprise of their enemies. Everywhere they used the bayonet with terrible effect.
Entering into the war with two strong battalions, they were soon reduced to a single company. Again swelled up to seven regiments, they were again thinned by their losses to a single regiment and before the campaign had well passed they were once more promptly recruited to four full battalions of more than two thousand men. The Marylanders are best described as the shock troops of the Continental Army, usually given the toughest assignments by Gen. George Washington.
At least two of their colonels, Williams and Howard, were considered as the best officers of their grade in the army. Gunby, Hall, Smith, Stone, and Ramsey, and the lamented Ford, who dies gallantly at the head of his regiment, were equal to any others in the whole continental service."
Whiskey Rebellion
Shortly after the Revolutionary War, the regiment was reorganized in Baltimore by its former officers, and in 1794, it responded to President Washington's call for troops to put down the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania by marching from Baltimore to Cumberland. The prompt assemblage of troops under General "Light Horse Harry" Lee caused the uprising to collapse without bloodshed.War of 1812
Baltimore Town remained calm until the outbreak of the War of 1812. The Fifth Regiment had grown into a strong and well trained organization, and as the principal military group in the town, it promptly marched to Bladensburg when news of the British approach to Washington arrived. But here again the experience was similar to that of Smallwood's men at Long Island in 1776. When the British attack began, the hastily assembled raw American militia retreated and the Fifth was left to oppose the British with only Commodore Barney's artillery in support. But the 5th Regiment held its ground until it was swept back by superior British forces.Not many days later, a British fleet appeared off Baltimore and the Fifth immediately took its place in the defense works. Early on the morning of 12 September 1814, British troops under General Robert Ross attacked the lines held by the Fifth Regiment. Following their landing near Sparrows Point, the British advanced up the Patapsco Neck between Jones Creek and Back River. The Fifth Regiment met the British Army in a heated meeting engagement along the line formed by the Bread and Cheese Creek. Early in the battle, Ross was killed not far in front of the position held by the Independent Blues Company of the regiment. The regiment, outnumbered, slowly fell back to the earthen defenses established across Hampstead Hill. The Battle of North Point along with the formidable defenses around Baltimore convinced British Colonel Arthur Brooke to withdraw and instead bombard Fort McHenry. When the bombardment failed to lead to the fort's capitulation or evacuation by American forces, the British withdrew from the Chesapeake. The 175th Infantry is one of only nineteen Army National Guard units with campaign credit for the War of 1812.
Civil War
By 1861, the divergent sympathies of a border state had divided the members of the regiment. While most of them supported the Southern cause, and succeeded in making their way out of Baltimore when it passed under Union military control in April 1861, others served in the Union Army. In June, 1861, the Southern sympathizers organized the First Maryland Infantry, CSA, at Harpers Ferry and became part of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's Corps which fought the first Battle of Manassas. During the Valley Campaign in 1862, the town of Front Royal, Virginia was defended by Federal troops from Maryland. Upon receiving this information, General Jackson ordered, "Maryland to the Front," to lead the attack. In this action the First Maryland Infantry defeated the First Maryland Infantry at the Battle of Front Royal. They followed that victory with a rout of the Pennsylvania Bucktail Rifles at Harrisonburg on 6 June 1862, earning from Major General Ewell the honor of carrying a "buck tail" on their colors.Early in 1863, upon expiration of original enlistments, the First Maryland Infantry was disbanded and the Second Maryland Infantry was organized under Colonel James R. Herbert, who became Colonel of the Fifth Regiment when it was reorganized after the war. The Second Maryland fought at the battles of Malvern Hill, Winchester, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, the Siege of Petersburg, and surrendered 63 officers and men with General Lee at Appomattox.
After the end of hostilities, the Maryland State Legislature adopted a Militia Act which until, its repeal in 1867, rendered ineligible for military service in Maryland all those who had served the Confederacy. Consequently, it was not until the latter year that the regiment could be reorganized because most of its former members had served in the Southern army. When it was reorganized on 10 May 1867, former members and new ones enlisted and in about two months it had reassembled a complete organization. In February 1868, the ladies of Baltimore presented a blue and gold silk flag which they had embroidered by hand. This flag had been started before the war and was concealed during the occupation of the city by Federal troops, and the work upon it completed after the return to peace. The distinctive grey full dress uniform of the regiment, patterned after uniforms worn by several of the constituent companies before the war, as far back as 1812, was adopted at this period.
From this time until the Spanish–American War, the regiment, with but two exceptions, was at peace. The exceptions were: first, the violent Baltimore railroad strike of 1877; and, second, in 1894, when it was called into service of the state during labor disturbances among the coal miners in Western Maryland. Aside from these duties, the regiment visited nearly all the cities on the Eastern seaboard on public occasions. In 1876, it participated in the organization of the "Centennial Legion" at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia that year.