Few events in American history have been studied as much as the War for Independence. Advocates of the Whig interpretation of the American Revolution argue that the colonists rose in a unified mass movement to throw off the yoke of British tyranny. (1) This, however, was not the case. The War for Independence was America's first civil war. Not only was there fighting between American colonists and British forces, there was also conflict between Patriots and those colonists who wished to remain under British rule. As John Adams observed, the American Revolution was fought by one-third of the population against another third to benefit the remaining third. (2)

With the exception of New York, (3) such divided loyalties are best illustrated in Maryland. During the war, the revolutionary government in Annapolis often faced political dissension and feared an armed rebellion by citizens who remained loyal to the British Crown. One of the most strife-torn areas in Maryland was its Eastern Shore, a large peninsula that lies between the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. Approximately 180 miles long and 60 miles wide, it includes parts of Maryland, Virginia, and all of Delaware. The area is inundated with innumerable rivers, creeks, and inlets, making it a center for trade, ship building, and smuggling. Enjoying access to fertile land, Eastern Shore farmers had long repudiated tobacco farming in favor of producing grains, vegetables, fruits, and other cash crops. Consequently, the Eastern Shore, as local historian Charles Truitt describes it, became the "breadbasket of the Revolution." (4)

During the American Revolution, the Eastern Shore proved to be an area of great strategic and economic importance to the war effort. The Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean were of vital significance to the colonies, not only for trade, but also for communication and supply lines between Philadelphia and the Southern colonies. Maryland ship captains kept the colonies supplied with vital materials from Europe and the Caribbean, and privateers were recruited from the area to attack British commerce. These factors, coupled with the fact that Eastern Shore farmers supplied Washington's Continental Army with essential foodstuffs throughout the war, demonstrate the strategic and economic importance of the region to the Patriot cause. If the British or their Loyalist surrogates could have separated Maryland's Eastern Shore from the Patriot movement by cutting off the flow of supplies and restricting communications that crossed the region, they might have improved their chances of suppressing the rebellion.

To maintain its authority on the Eastern Shore, the extra-legal state government of Maryland adopted restrictive laws and quartered troops there to restrain Loyalist sentiment in the region. Despite these measures, the Annapolis government never exercised complete control over Eastern Shore Loyalists. Consequently, Eastern Shoremen hampered Maryland's war-making capabilities throughout the American Revolution. Nevertheless, constant harassment from the Annapolis government prevented these Loyalists from ever gaining military or political control over the Eastern Shore.

This paper examines the nature of loyalism on Maryland's Eastern Shore, identifying three distinct groups labeled as Loyalists, or the...