A Patriot's Christmas

 A Christmas Message for 2025:

 

The Maryland 400 at the Battle of Brooklyn

 

He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my new name. 

-Revelations 3:7,12

 

Restoring and Defending the Foundations of the New Jerusalem

By Joseph Healy, 2025

The people of God in Old Testament times came out of captivity and slavery in Babylon, came into the land of Israel, and rebuilt the Temple, the city of Jerusalem, and the nation of Israel.  As is recorded in the book of Ezra and the book of Nehamiah:

Thus says Cyrus, King of Persia…Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him!  Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel.  (Ezra 1:2)

[Nehemiah] said to them, “You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned with fire.  Come let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach.”  (Nehemiah 2:17)

Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon.  (Nehemiah 4:17)

In the New Testament times, the people of God too have sought and do seek a country of their own, and a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  And I do not mean The City of God considered in only a spiritual sense, as in that mystical future prophetic age of the Kingdom, but a very real country and nation, in the here and now, built on the precepts of God and His Commandments—a New Jerusalem, a New Israel, as it were, in this present Gospel Age.  And who is to say that this is not to be?  Did not Christ Jesus Himself instruct His disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”?  And did he not command them to “Go…and teach all nations…to obey all that I have commanded you”?

This is precisely what our American Forebearers sought to do:  to establish a Christian Commonwealth, a City set upon a hill, a civil society built upon the principles of the Old and New Testament Scriptures.  They fled the Old World and came into this land they believed to be the land of their inheritance, the Promised Land.  Through many generations they planted, they toiled, they cleared the forests, they tamed the land, they built towns, they endured hardships; and they cultivated and forged their social fabric and their national life.  They also defended their young civilization from hostile native tribes, as well as from the attempts of the Old-World Powers “to exercise an unwarrantable jurisdiction over [them].” 

We have in past years together considered and memorialized the great actions and sacrifices of our American forebearers in the Continental Army, especially at Christmastime.  We remembered the Crucible of Freedom at Valley Forge in 1777, where their winter hardships were frankly unbearable, but they endured.  We documented the Christmas night attack on Trenton, crossing the Delaware in a snowstorm; then they repelled the pursuing enemy at Asunnpink Creek and went on to take Princeton.  But none of these triumphs would have materialized were it not for the Maryland 400 at the Battle of Brooklyn in the Summer of 1776.

 

The British landed the largest expeditionary force in history up to that time on Staten Island, from where they launched the attack on Long Island.  Vastly outnumbering the portion of the Continental Army under Washington’s command, which inadvisedly attempted to engage them, the British forces surrounded them on three sides at the Battle of Brooklyn.  As they were retreating, they were at serious risk of imminently being cut off and encircled.  If Washington could be surrounded, they would be annihilated or forced to surrender, and the short-lived Revolution would be over.  Then came an act of valor justly described as the American Thermopylae (where the small Spartan force defended Greece against the invading Persian mass at the narrow pass).  The First Maryland Regiment attacked the British lines, hurling themselves against them time after time at a bottleneck by the Old Stone House.  Sacrificing themselves almost to a man, they continued the assault, halting the enemy advance.  This allowed precious time for the larger force of patriots led by Washington to withdraw to Brooklyn Heights.  With their backs to the East River, Washington and his officers observed from the heights this heroic action.

 Here is how Chris Formant, author of Saving Washington, describes the scene:

The First Maryland Regiment was deployed to bring up the rear and, sensing imminent disaster, it did the unthinkable.  Rallying his remaining 400 men, Major Mordecai Gist turned them toward the massive British war force.  Believing the British Commanding General was stationed in a stone house at the army’s center, the regiment shocked the overwhelming British war force with an unexpected targeted assault.  The Marylanders attacked the British six times, losing scores of men with each surge, then regrouping and hurling themselves again and again at the dazed Brits, in what can be described as a bloody street brawl.

In the end, only a handful of Marylanders managed to escape; the majority were killed.  The rest were captured or mortally wounded.  Washington was brought to tears as he watched the selfless bravery of his young soldiers.  He was [observed] [wringing his hands, exclaiming,] “Good God!  What brave fellows I must lose this day!”

This heroic action bought the Patriot Army precious time and a little breathing room, but they were backed up against the East River.  The British Navy was moving to hem them in.  If the Redcoats would have continued to advance with their overwhelming numbers, defeat and surrender were inevitable.  But in a Providential sequence of events, that was not to be.  General Howe, the British Commander, in a twist of poor judgment, called off the attack until morning, thinking the fleet would have maneuvered into place off the shore behind the Americans by then.  But a storm with contrary winds prevented the British ships from entering the East River.  This was Washington’s chance for the Great Escape.  With the assistance of John Glover’s Marble headers, expert oarsmen from the coast of Maine and New England, and the auspicious availability of the Durham boats, small commercial boats used locally, they ferried the Army in small batches across the river all night long. 

As dawn approached, there was yet about half the troops still ashore, when astoundingly a heavy fog suddenly settled over the river.  The evacuation continued, boatload by boatload, until the last boatload of soldiers, with Washington in it, departed.  Then suddenly the fog lifted.  The enemy, in shock, rushed to the shore and fired, but they were out of range.  This great deliverance was wrought by God’s miraculous PROVIDENCE, and the essential sacrifice of the Maryland 400, led by Colonel William Alexander (aka “Lord Stirling”) and Major Mordecai Gist.

What would motivate young men to such heroism, to throw away their lives, wasting them for such a cause?   The young men of the First Maryland Regiment were not highly trained, battle tested soldiers.  The were recruits from a cross section of Maryland Society.  As author Chris Formant describes in his research:

The young volunteers were a cross section of the colony of Maryland: wealthy merchants’ sons, dockworkers, school kids and free and enslaved black youth. Of the original 1,200-man regiment, only four had formal military training. Early in the war, Washington had a difficult time keeping enlistees from running off when they heard the first shots of battle, let alone maintaining discipline as a fighting unit. To think that the devotion of these untrained and untested Maryland kids could drive them beyond their personal fears is hard to imagine.

I remembered being taught in school that the American Revolution was sparked by the tax burden imposed on the colonists, which particularly infuriated the merchant class. Merchants underwrote each colony’s militias and state regiments, essentially financing the revolt.

But teenagers wouldn’t sacrifice themselves for taxes. Research conducted by the Maryland State Archivist suggests that peer pressure, a sense of adventure, and growing anti-British sentiment played a role in why the young men enlisted. Mordecai Gist, who led the Maryland 400, even named his two sons Independent and States. But there’s evidence that they were also driven by an even more profound motivation. In many religious circles, the New World was code for the New Jerusalem. The concept that America was special, and that they were chosen by God to create and defend a new type of country, was incessantly preached. They were God’s children, not the King’s, and they were lectured to reject corrupt and immoral leaders. This drumbeat was heard and deeply absorbed by these young men. The boys of the Maryland 400 believed they were fighting with a divine purpose.

So yes, it’s true. They believed the American Colonies were the New Jerusalem, the new land of Israel or Canaan, the Zion of the New World.  The knew and believed they were God’s chosen people and this land and the free society they were building was the inheritance God had given them; and they would defend it to the death!

John Quincy Adams, who was a boy during the Revolution and our 6^th President, insisted that America’s Declaration of independence joined in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government and the principles of Christianity.  He said that we should celebrate the birth of the nation in like manner as we celebrate the birth of the Savior, because he explains, the United States was built on the “foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth”, e.g., to set the captives free.  Thus, he declared over a century before there was any modern State of Israel, that when the United States was born the words of the prophet Isaiah were fulfilled:

Can a land be born in one day?  Can a nation be brought forth all at once?  As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her sons.  (Isaiah 66:8)

Josiah Quincy was a Preacher in Boston during the days leading up to the Revolution whose sermons were frequently printed in the Boston Gazette.  He declared, “In defense of our civil and religious rights, with the God of armies on our side, we fear not the hour of trial; though the hosts of our enemies should cover the fields like locusts, yet the sword of the Lord and Gideon shall prevail.”  Later, he exhorted, “If an army should be sent to reduce us to slavery, we will put our lives in our hands and cry to the Judge of all the earth…Behold—how they come to cast us out of this possession which Thou hast given us to inherit.  Help us, Lord, our God, for we rest on Thee, and in Thy Name, we go against this multitude.”

A prominent leader in New York, William Livingston, challenged his fellow citizens, “Courage, Americans…the finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons.  The savages of the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idolaters and slaves.  The land we possess is the gift of heaven to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity…the day dawns in which the foundation of this mighty empire is to be laid, by the establishment of a regular American constitution.”

William Prescott of Pepperell, Massachusetts, wrote the men of Boston, which was under occupation by the British, “We think if we submit to these regulations, all is gone.  Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, and transmit them to their posterity.  Their children have waded through seas of difficulty, to leave us free and happy in the enjoyment of English privileges [American rights].  Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed?... Let us be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.  And may He, of infinite mercy, grant us deliverance out of all our troubles.”

 

What FORFATHERS were they referring to?

Thomas Jefferson alludes to his ancestors and compatriots in one breath as WE: “We have reminded them (the British) from time to time of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.”

Our American forefathers were the off scourge of Europe: the poor, the laboring classes, farmers, mechanics, some middle-class merchants.  But they were not the landed nobility or the aristocrats.  They were religious dissenters, Bible-reading Christians who resisted the tyranny over their consciences of the state-run established churches.  They were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, German Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, French Huguenots, Anglicans, Quakers, Baptists, and yes, even some Catholics and a handful of Jews (and, not to overlooked, some free and many enslaved blacks); but the real seeds of liberty were sown and germinated in New England by the English Puritans and Separatists—we call the Pilgrims.

When the Puritans departed from England aboard the Arbella, their minister, John Cotton commissioned them from 2 Samuel 7:10.

Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; neither will the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime.

He exhorted them as the Lord’s chosen people to keep covenant with Him, and to be fruitful and multiply in this New Canaan in the western wilderness, saying, “What [God] has planted, He will maintain.”

John Winthrop, their leader, upon their arrival in America, put forth their vision of a covenant with God and a covenant with each other:

We must delight in each other, make one another’s condition our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in this work, as members of the same body.  So, we shall keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace… We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when he shall make us a praise and glory, that men of succeeding plantations shall say, “The Lord make us like that of New England.”  For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill…

And finally, that brings us to the Pilgrims.  A decade earlier the Pilgrims laid the first foundation stone, the cornerstone of the New Jerusalem.  Their chief minister, John Robinson, who stayed behind, sent them off with this commission:

Now as the people of God in old time were called out of Babylon civil, the place of their bodily bondage, and were to come to Jerusalem, and there to build the Lord’s temple, or tabernacle… so are the people of God now to go out of Babylon spiritual to Jerusalem…and to build themselves as lively stones into a spiritual house, or temple, for the Lord to dwell in…for we are the sons and daughters of Abraham by faith.

He told them not only to be committed to each other as a church body, but to become a body politic, and dutifully establish civil government.  Following his orders, when they arrived in the New World, the Pilgrims forged the Mayflower Compact and gave us the first American constitution and forerunner to the Constitution of our Republic.

They arrived late in the year.  So how did the first Christmas season go for these American ancestors of ours?

Their first Christmas in America they enjoyed freezing hands (cold enough to make difficult holding an axe with which they had to chop wood to erect a common house for shelter), meager rations, general sickness including scurvy, fever, consumption, and pneumonia. Six of them died in December. In January, many lay sick in the common house when the roof caught fire and burned. The building was spared, but much of their needed clothing was consumed. Eight more died that month. In February, they were dying at a rate of 2, sometimes 3, per day; and at one point there remained only 5 men well enough to care for all the sick, and attend to the other duties as well--cleaning, cooking, chopping wood, and manning the palisade. Seventeen more died. In all that winter 47 died—nearly half their original number. But they didn't knuckle under and they didn't go back!

Such was the first Christmas of our fore bearers in America (the next year would test them severely once again when they would be reduced to a ration of 5 kernels of corn per day), and such was the resolve of those who laid the foundation of American liberty. Their aim was that "the churches of God revert to their ancient purity and recover their primitive order, liberty, and beauty." (William Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation) And in this simplicity of devotion to the Savior--preaching, teaching, singing, and free praying--they were faithful, even in their distress. For to them the Christ of Bethlehem was a very real Savior, for Whom they would risk everything, including their lives, and upon Whom they would depend for everything, including their survival. And in this He was faithful to provide!

 

So, in conclusion my fellow patriots, this Christmas let us not merely remember and appreciate from where we have come as a people, but as one people, in all our many iterations of the Christian faith and diverse ethnic backgrounds, may we renew the covenant between us, and with the God of our fathers; and let us resolve that we will, like the Maryland 400 and all patriots that have gone before us, expend ourselves in rebuilding and defending the New Jerusalem, our American Republic, and making it GREAT and RIGHTEOUS again.  

In their spirit, let us vanquish every enemy, those foreign and especially those domestic.  And let us go forth to this great WORK, holding a tool with which to build in one hand and a sword with which to fight in the other!

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA!

Joe Healy is President of Ohio Patriot's Alliance