Delaware Continentals

DELAWARE CONTINENTALS. On 9 December 1775, Congress assigned Delaware a quota of one regiment to raise for the Continental army in 1776. Organized on 19 January 1776 under Colonel John Haslet, an Ulster-born physician from Kent County, this was the only regiment furnished by Delaware during the war. The regiment was well trained by its adjutant, a former British captain, and well uniformed in blue coats faced and lined with red, white waistcoats, buckskin breeches, white woolen stockings, black gaiters, and peaked black hats that were smaller versions of British grenadier hats. After obtaining "lately imported" English muskets from Philadelphia in July, it marched in August to join Washington's army at New York City. Among "the best uniformed and equipped [regiments] in the army of 1776," it was also one of the few armed with bayonets (Lefferts, p. 26).

The regiment fought for the first time at Long Island on 27 August 1776 and saw hard service with the main army over the next two years in brigades with Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia regiments. Major Thomas McDonough was wounded at Long Island and did not return. Lieutenant Colonel Gunning Bedford was wounded at White Plains on 28 October 1776 and left the regiment in January 1777. Haslet himself was killed at Princeton on 3 January 1777. David Hall, a lawyer from Lewes, succeeded Haslet and was seriously wounded at Germantown on 4 October 1777. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Pope, who had been wounded at Mamaroneck on 21 October 1776, led the regiment until he resigned on 13 December 1779. Having recouped some of its strength by recruiting, especially at Wilmington over the winter of 1777–1778, the regiment was transferred on 5 April 1780 to the Southern Department along with the Maryland Line. It marched south under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Vaughan and Major John Patten and suffered heavily at Camden under Horatio Gates on 16 August 1780. There both field officers were taken prisoner; they remained on parole to the end of the war.

Camden reduced the regiment to two ninety-six-man companies under Captains Robert Kirkwood and Peter Jaquett. Both units fought with distinction during the remainder of Nathanael Greene's southern campaign, usually with the remnants of the Maryland Line. Back in Delaware by early 1783, the companies were furloughed at Christiana Bridge on 17 January. The regiment was formally disbanded on 15 November.

SEE ALSO Camden Campaign; Haslet, John; Jaquett, Peter; Kirkwood, Robert H.; Long Island, New York, Battle of; Princeton, New Jersey.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Enoch. Personal Recollections of Captain Enoch Anderson, an Officer of the Delaware Regiments in the Revolutionary War. Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1896.

Lefferts, Charles. Uniforms of the American, British, French, and German Armies in the War of the American Revolution, 1775–1783. Edited by Alexander J. Wall. New York: New-York Historical Society, 1926.

Ward, Christopher. The Delaware Continentals, 1776–1783. Wilmington: Historical Society of Delaware, 1941.

                            revised by Harold E. Selesky