Captain Robert Henry Kirkwood (1756-1791) was one of most competent American field officers of the American Revolution. He fought in almost every major battle including countless skirmishes. Always in the thick of the hardest fighting, like a stone wall, his men often held the line when other regiments folded. Or charged with bayonet at the critical moment when the fate of battle was held by a straw. General Nathanael Greene wrote that “No man deserves better of his country than Capt Kirkwood.” Yet he never rose beyond the rank of captain. Never received the accolades of lesser men. And when the war ended, faded to obscurity. In 1791, age thirty-five, Captain Kirkwood enlisted once more to fight. This time against the Miami Native Americans under Little Turtle in the Ohio Territory. As he had done so many times during the American Revolution, he firmly held the line, until his luck ran out. His position was overwhelmed and was shot, left to be scalped and tortured; his body never recovered. Lighthorse Harry Lee wrote of Captain Kirkwood’s death; “It was the thirty-third time he had risked his life for his country, and he died as he had lived, the brave, metorious, unrewarded, Kirkwood.”
Before the War
Robert Henry Kirkwood (1756-1791) was born to Irish immigrant Robert Kirkwood Sr. and Sarah McDowell in Newark, Delaware. Robert Jr. was one of nine children raised on their family farm; Robert being the only son among eight daughters. Well educated, we are told he had a precocious mind of good moral virtue with a rigid sense of duty. While helping his father with farm chores, he continued his studies at the Newark Academy which later became the University of Delaware. Like many of those in the lower counties of Pennsylvania (called Delaware, its separation became official with the formation of the first Continental Congress), Kirkwood was committed to the growing rebellion from English rule. When the American Revolution erupted in the spring of 1775, Kirkwood had yet to graduate the Academy.
In January, 1776, Congress called for former colonies to raise units based on population for the Continental Army. As the second smallest populated state to Georgia, Delaware’s Committee of Safety complied with a single regiment for service; 1st Delaware Continental Regiment. Kirkwood left school to enlist and was commissioned a 1st Lieutenant on January 17, 1776. The regiment was to be commanded by Irish born Colonel John Haslet. They formed quickly and by April, were near full strength with eight companies. Congress had ordered they be fully armed with newly acquired muskets and bayonets, joining Maryland’s two regiments as the only units to be so equipped. Known for their distinguished uniforms (in an army where most fought in homespun) plus their display of military decorum, they were considered the finest in the American army. The Delaware Blues were ordered north in July, 1776 to join General Washington in New York City.
War in the North
Having arrived in New York in August, 1776, the Delaware regiment was placed in Brigadier General William Alexander, Lord Sterling’s brigade. Colonel Haslet expressed satisfaction with his regiment noting they were “highly complemented on our appearance and dexterity in the military exercises and maneuvers.” Their first test in combat was the Battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776, where the brigade stood firm against British and Hessian forces. So too the enemy would later comment on the regiment. A Hessian officer who fought Stirling’s Brigade at Long Island later remarked that “they [Delaware 1st] were fine, tall-looking fellows, and had extremely good English guns and bayonets.” The Delaware Line distinguished themselves during the fiercest fighting defending the army’s right flank. After British General Howe’s nighttime march through Flushing and his surprise appearance in the American rear, the Delaware 1st was forced to withdraw and join the desperate retreat across the flooded marshes of Gowanus Creek.
The regiment did not participate in the initial British invasion on September 15th and 16th (Battles of Kip’s Bay and Harlem Heights). Their next action occurred on October 22nd. The regiment mounted a nighttime raid on British troops at Mamaroneck, New York. Six days later at the Battle of White Plains, the Delaware regiment played a key role in the stubborn defense of Chatterton’s Hill. None of these actions could be regarded as American victories, but the regiment came out of the campaign with a well-earned reputation for coolness under fire. A delighted Haslet reported that the men in his battalion, which was increasingly regarded as one of the most reliable units in the Continental Army, “have been complimented as the first in the service.”
Toward the end of 1776, most enlistments had ended or were about to expire. Congress ordered a new organization of all Continental Regiments with extensive recruitment. When the Delaware enlistments expired in December, 1776, Kirkwood received his commissioned of the new unit. On December 1st. He immediately left for Delaware to raise his new company and was not present for the battles of Trenton or Princeton. He quickly acquired his company’s strength and marched his men north, arriving in Philadelphia on March 18th.
Kirkwood was a resourceful officer of his company, proving his initiative and composure under pressure. The Delaware regiment was present for the American raid on Staten Island on August 22, 1777, the Battle of Brandywine on September 11th, 1777, and Battle of Germantown on October 4, 1777. The following June, the regiment was again on the field at Monmouth in what would be the last of the big battles in the northern theater. Over the succeeding winter, Kirkwood regularly commanded minor patrols that resulted in skirmishes; in what would be called the Forage Wars. Throughout the northern campaigns, Kirkwood emerged with the reputation as a dependable company commander.
Southern Theatre
In 1780, the British shifted the war to the southern colonies. Commander-in-Chief General Henry Clinton invaded Charleston, South Carolina and on May 12, 1780, the entire Southern American Army surrendered; over 5,000 troops including arms and supplies. Washington, aware of impending disaster, in April ordered reinforcements to march south. Fourteen hundred Continental soldiers, the entire Maryland and Delaware line, the cream of his army, departed Morristown, New Jersey on April 16, 1780, in what would prove a grueling trek with little provisions.
The reinforcements were put under the command of Major General Johann DeKalb and divided into two battalions; Brigadier William Smallwood led four regiments of Maryland, and Brigadier Mordecai Gist led three regiments of Maryland and the solo Delaware 1st. The 280 men of Delaware were commanded by Lt. Colonel Joseph Vaughan who led six companies. The able Captain Kirkwood commanded the 2nd Company. By the time Dekalb’s worn out and famished troops reached North Carolina, they were all that was left of the Southern American army.
DeKalb, an able and professional soldier of many European battles, carried on and proceeded as ordered. While picking his way south, he gathered up remnants of Continental units as well as North and South Carolina militiamen. Near the South Carolina border, Major General Horatio Gates rode into camp and took over command of the small army. The hero of Saratoga would soon prove his critics were correct; that the accolades of battle were better worn by far more able field commanders. Though his army was worn out and desperate for food and forage, he marched them headlong towards Camden; this without credible information as to Cornwallis and his army’s location. Upon reaching Camden, he planned, as he had done at Saratoga, to surround himself in a defensive position and wait for his enemy to attack.
Battle of Camden
While nearing Camden, Gates ran headlong into Cornwallis’ army. With no choice but to fight, Gates reluctantly prepared for the Battle of Camden at first light on August 16, 1780. The result was a disastrous loss for the Americans. Many historians write that the cause of defeat was placed on the shoulders of raw militia who fled in disorder at the sight of British steel. Fact is, the militia were not raw, having fought both Tory and British regulars in multiple small and large skirmishes. Also, as Morgan would prove later at Cowpens, they were not used to their strengths as backwoods, wilderness fighters.
Gates bolstered his left line with militia who had no training in 18th century battle line tactics. When charged with bayonets, the American left gave way in a panic, leaving the seasoned Continental veterans to carry on the fight, while fatally injured by total exposure of their left flank. Along with most of the militia who hightailed it to safety was the American commanding general, Horatio Gates, who did not stop running until he was two hundred miles from Camden.
Though nearly surrounded, the Continentals doggedly fought on, paying a heavy price for their bravery. Kirkwood and those of Delaware stood alongside the Marylanders in the thick of the fight. DeKalb had multiple gunshot and stab wounds by the time he collapsed and was dragged to lie beneath a tree; dying three days later in captivity. With men falling all around them, the remnants of the Continental line gave way and men tried to save themselves. General Gist moved off with 100 men in a body and escaped into the swamps. Captain Kirkwood salvaged what men he could and joined Major Anderson and Colonel Otho Williams, leading sixty men in an organized retreat from the carnage. That evening Kirkwood simply referred to the fighting at Camden as being “very Desperate.”
When the remnants of Gates’ command reached Salisbury, North Carolina, around 130 miles north of Camden, the Delaware 1st regiment’s six companies were consolidated into two of ninety-six each; one under Kirkwood and the other under Capt. Peter Jacquet. Kirkwood’s company were among the most experienced regulars in the army and regarded as an elite unit. On October 7, 1780, they were designated light infantry and would play a major role in the upcoming campaign under Gate’s replacement, Major General Nathanael Greene.
Battle of Cowpens
When General Greene arrived to take command of the Southern American Army, he immediately saw that the army as a whole could not subsist in food and forage in the region upon which they were encamped. While facing a superior enemy, he did the unthinkable; he split his force. Brigadier General Daniel Morgan, with a flying corps of approximately 600 Continental and militia, was sent west, around forty miles, to the Broad River and region of present-day Spartanburg, SC. Greene took the rest of his command further east, around 1,200 men, to an area of good forage and where settlers were sympathetic to the American cause. Around 130 miles separated the two. The two Delaware companies, with Kirkwood leading his light infantry, accompanied Morgan’s detachment.
This caused a dilemma for British General Cornwallis. He still intended to launch a winter campaign into North Carolina, but could not do so while a strong force of rebels threatened his left flank and the important outposts further south and west; particularly the fort at Ninety-Six. He decided to go after Morgan’s command. A large detachment of quick moving light troops and cavalry would pick up Morgan’s sent and pursue him, driving the rebels before them. Cornwallis would march his army north from Winnsboro in hopes of trapping Morgan’s detachment between the two British forces. He picked his favorite pit bull to command the detachment of light troops; Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton, known for his aggressive pursuit and headlong assaults.
On the evening of January 16th, General Morgan knew he could no longer evade Tarleton’s persistent pursuit. Morgan, desirous of gathering in as many volunteer militiamen as he could, chose the well-known Cowpens location (where for decades cattle were driven to fatten up prior to slaughter) to align his men for battle. On the morning of the 17th, with the Broad River to his back, Morgan’s men, well rested and fed, waited for the tired and hungry British to approach.
As Morgan ordered, the militia softened up the British lines before a quick retreat to the Continental line where they would remain in reserve. Of particular importance were 150 riflemen posted to the front who targeted British officers; leaving fewer officers in command during the later crucial point of battle. When the British came up against the wall of veteran Continental soldiers, Kirkwood’s company played a critical role. They stood their ground and traded volleys with the 7th Regiment of Foot. When a mistake in orders resulted in the Continentals retreating, Kirkwood’s men complied with precision while under fire. When ordered to turn and fire, they did so with devastating accuracy before joining in the legendary bayonet charge that resulting in a complete rout and destruction of Tarleton’s light infantry.
American Sergeant Major William Seymour later wrote in his diary that “all the officers and men behaved with uncommon and undaunted bravery, but more especially the brave Captain Kirkwood and his company, who that day did wonders, rushing on the enemy.” He continued, “they then thought to surround our right flank, to prevent which Captain Kirkwood with his company wheeled to the right and attacked their left flank so vigorously that they were soon repulsed, our men advancing on them so very rapidly that they were soon gave way.” As to killed and wounded, Seymour wrote, “Our loss in the action were one Lieutenant wounded, and one Sergeant and 35 killed and wounded of which fourteen were of Captain Kirkwood’s company of the Delaware regiment.” Kirkwood’s company suffered fully 25% of all American casualties that day.
Guilford Courthouse and the Rest of the Southern Campaign
After the debacle at Cowpens, Cornwallis invaded North Carolina and began a long and exhausting pursuit of Greene’s army. On March 15, 1781, Greene felt confident that he could bring Cornwallis to battle at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina. Like at Cowpens, the Americans were aligned in three lines with the hardened Continentals last and militia out front to soften the British as they approached. When the armies clashed, Kirkwood and his men held a vital position on the right flank on the second line. They too like militia were ordered to fire upon the British before retreating to join the 1st Maryland Battalion on the third line under Colonel Ortho Williams. They did so and when the 33rd Regiment of Foot under Colonel James Webster charged, the grim-faced men in buff and blue opened up at 100 feet with a devastating volley. The battle raged on with some of the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting of the war before General Greene withdrew his army in good order.
Greene had accomplished his goal, injuring Cornwallis’ army beyond repair while keeping his army intact; their health in good order and commitment to the cause firm. After sustaining large casualty numbers of irreplaceable regular soldiers, Cornwallis withdrew his wrecked army to the coast and ultimately north into Virginia where he would seal his fate at Yorktown. Greene’s army remained in the south and marched into South Carolina to attack backcountry forts and outposts still garrisoned by British soldiers and Tory militia. Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon was left in command of southern British forces that stretched from Ninety-Six to the far west, to Camden, to the coast at Charleston. Though Cornwallis marched north, Rawdon’s combined forces still outnumbered Greene’s more than two to one.
Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon was headquartered in Camden, South Carolina. With him was a force of regular and veteran loyalist partisan corps that nearly equaled Greene’s. One month after Guilford Courthouse, on April 25, 1781, Greene’s army clashed with Rawdon’s force outside of Camden at the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill. Though basically a draw when Greene withdrew his troops, Greene later credited Kirkwood’s light infantry with helping to avert an American disaster. The company had been stationed as support for the advanced pickets and with the order to withdraw, fought a stubborn delaying action. Greene wrote that Kirkwood’s light infantry “lay in our front, and as the Enemy advanced he was soon engaged with them, and both he and his Corps behaved with great gallantry.”
Throughout the summer months of 1781, Kirkwood’s veteran company of quick moving light infantry were in regular support of dragoons under the command of colonels William Washington and Lighthorse Harry Lee. Both colonels valued Kirkwood’s competency and Lee, in particular, formed a close working relationship with the light infantry captain. On June 18th, at the Siege of Ninety-Six, Kirkwood’s company of light infantry were under the command of Lt. Col Henry Lee. Kirkwood and his men participated in the failed storming of the Star-Fort; however, they succeeded in capturing a smaller stockade or redoubt during a hard-fought diversionary attack.
On September 8, 1781, at the Battle of Eutaw Springs, Kirkwood’s men were in the thick of the fight in what would be the last major battle in the southern theatre as well as one of the bloodiest battle of the entire war. The battle turned for the Americans when Greene’s troops drove in the British lines. When the attack began to falter, Greene ordered his reserves forward; Colonel Washington’s dragoons and Kirkwood’s light infantry. However, according to Colonel Otho Holland Williams of the 1st Maryland, Washington’s dragoons attacked prematurely. They ran headlong into British troops under the command of Major John Marjoribanks and were mowed down and badly chewed up. During the intense fighting, Washington was wounded and captured. While the remnants of the cavalry withdrew, Kirkwood’s light infantry charged the British line as Colonel Williams related “with his bayonets.” As a result, the Delaware company drove Marjoribanks’ men back, allowing time for Greene to manage a withdrawal. Some texts and internet articles state that Kirkwood was wounded at this battle; however, no primary source records Kirkwood as one of the American casualties.
The following month after Eutaw Springs, in October, 1781, Kirkwood fell ill, but continued as company commander. On January 1, 1782, Kirkwood, who had only briefly seen his home in six years, was granted a furlough. By the following year, the Delaware troops still under Kirkwood’s command had followed him north. One detachment was stationed in Philadelphia, and the other in Newark, Delaware. What was left of the Delaware regiment would see out the war in garrison duty. Though having remained a captain for the war’s duration, the highly skilled and able commander was finally commissioned a Brevet Major on September 30, 1783.
After the War
After the war, Kirkwood settled in Newark, Delaware, and tried his hand at “mercantile pursuits,” with limited success. He had married Sarah England (1765-1787 or 1788) of New Castle, Delaware in 1782 while stationed with his company in Delaware. The couple had three children, one dying in infancy around 1787; Joseph Kirkwood (1784-1856) and Mary Kirkwood Whitely Boyer (1785-1851). When the war ended, often veterans had yet to be paid for all their years of service; Kirkwood one of them. Many accepted far less than value cash for their nation’s promissory notes, only to learn afterwards the unscrupulous investors (many bankers and politicians) knew that ultimately the government would honor the notes’ full value. Kirkwood would later be granted promised land for his service.
Apparently disillusioned in his attempts at supporting a family in Delaware, in 1787, Kirkwood purchased 260 acres in Jefferson County, Ohio; along the Ohio River and mouth of Wheeling Creek, across the river from present day Wheeling, West Virginia. The following year, Ohio granted him additional land in Belmont County. By 1788, his wife Sarah had died at age 23 leaving him a widower with two small children. We can assume he left his children in the care of relatives when the young widower headed west. He built a log structure in the blockhouse style of many early pioneers to the Ohio Valley region. We can assume over the next few years Kirkwood cleared his land for farming. In the short span he helped establish Canton, Ohio which in 1804 became Bridgeport, Ohio. The Ohio Territorial Governor General Arthur St. Clair (his reputation tarnished for having turned Fort Ticonderoga to the British during General Burgoyne’s invasion) appointed Kirkwood justice of the peace for Washington County.
Last Battle and Death
When relations with Ohio Territorial Native Americans worsened, Kirkwood was commissioned a captain with the newly raised 2nd United States Regiment; March 4, 1791. Once more a captain, Kirkwood was tasked with helping to construct a line of forts throughout the territory. On May 2nd, Kirkwood’s blockhouse home was attacked; however, the captain was no home, on assignment. On November 4, 1791, having survived without a scratch, thirty-two major actions during the American Revolution, Captain Kirkwood’s luck ran out. St. Clair’s army, described as an untrained mob of raw recruits, was to rendezvous at Cincinnati before heading north into the Miami Native American territory at the headwaters of the Maumee River. On November 4th, the Indian Confederacy under Shawnee Chief Little Turtle struck St. Clair’s encampment at the headwaters of the Wabash River. Having bedded down late in the night after a long day’s trek, St Clair and his officers did not set proper pickets and defenses; opening themselves up for disaster.
In a brutal battle that lasted three hours, the American army was devastated in what would prove to be the worst American defeat of the nation’s long Native American wars. It is believed that 630 and as many as 950 were killed in the ensuing rout in which all who fell into native hands were killed or tortured. During the battle, Kirkwood had done as he had always done, cheering his men and holding the line. However, when enveloped by attacking natives, his unit was cut to pieces and a wounded Kirkwood was helped to the rear and laid under a tree. When the American line collapsed and men ran to save themselves, the wounded were left to their fate. According to Capt. Jacob Slough, he ran up to Kirkwood and offered to carry him off, but mortally wounded, Kirkwood declined. With Native Americans closing fast, Kirkwood, as reported by Sough asked to be shot saying “God knows how they will treat me.” Slough stated he could not do as Kirkwood asked and later wrote “I shook him by the hand and left him to his fate.”
Kirkwood’s body was never found, assumed among the captured wounded who were scalped, mutilated, and dismembered. Burial parties who returned the following year reported that bones of the dead were so thick, they had to be scrapped away prior to setting up tents. Two years after the battle that is simply called St. Claire’s Defeat, and at the site where so many had been killed, General ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne had ordered Fort Recovery be built. It is believed around 600 sets of bones were ultimately gathered and interned in mass graves in which Kirkwood’s remains may have been included.
Word of Kirkwood’s fate was lamented upon by several of his colleagues of the American Revolution. Sergeant William Seymour of the Delaware regiment described Kirkwood in his journal as a man “whose heroic valour and undaunted bravery must needs be recorded in history till after ages.” Guilford Dudley, a lowly private who fought alongside Kirkwood described the captain in his pension application, stating he was “a brave and experienced officer, who had fought in every considerable battle…with great and unsullied reputation.” But the finest eulogy was reserved for the commander of Continental dragoons, Lt. Colonel Henry ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee who wrote that “he died as he had lived, the brave, meritorious, unrewarded Kirkwood.”
In 1912, a memorial and monument was completed to those who fought and died at the Fort Recovery battle site. It was dedicated on July 1, 1913. At the base of the 100-foot-tall obelisk are mass graves of the fallen. Medallions are placed on the stone around the base for the 32 officers who also died that day. Kirkwood’s cenotaph is included among these medallions.
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RESOURCE
Babits, Lawrence E. A Devil of a Whipping, The Battle of Cowpens. 1998: The University of North Carolina Press, Chappel Hill, North Carolina.
Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. 1997: John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY.
Clark, Ellen McCallister & Schulz, Emily L wrote the texts. “Delaware in the American Revolution.” Exhibition from the Library and Museum Collections of the Society of the Cincinnati. 2002: Publ. by Anderson House, Washington, DC.
Commager, Henry Steele & Morris, Richard B. editors. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as Told by its Participants: 2002 Edition: Castle Books, Edison, New Jersey.
Crawford, Alan Pell. This Fierce People, The Untold Story of America’s Revolution in the South. 2024: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Dawson, Henry B. Battles of the United States by Sea and Land…in Two Volumes. 1858: Johnson, Fry, and Company, New York, NY.
Fleming, Thomas J. Downright Fighting: The Story of Cowpens. 2023: National Park Service, Washington DC.
Kirkwood, Captain Robert & Turner, Joseph Brown editor. The Journal and Order Book of Captain Robert Kirkwood of the Delaware Regiment of the Continental Line. 1970: Associated Faculty Press Inc.
Seymour, William. “Journal of the Southern Expedition, 1780-1783, by Wiliam Seymour, Sergeant-Major of the Delaware Regiment.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 1883: pp 286-298, 377-394. Online
Shepard, Joshua. “Forgotten Warrior The Brave and Meritorious Robert Kirkwood” Feb. 23, 2018. Journal of the American Revolution.
Williams, Otho Holland. Brigade and Regimental Orders, September 13, 1780 – O.H. Williams Commanding. Manuscripts Collection, Maryland Historical Society
Ward, Christopher L. The Delaware Continentals, 1776-1783. 1941: The Historical Society of Delaware pages 8-9 and 17.
Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. 1952: MacMillan, New York, NY. 2021: Reissue by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY.