“In Memory of General Perry Benson, Son of James and Hanna Benson, born August 6, 1857. Captain of the Maryland Line, commended for gallantry and twice wounded in battle in the Revolutionary War. Major General of the Maryland Militia in the War of 1812. Died October 2, 1827. His remains were removed from Wheatland 1901.” Benson gravesite.
During the American Revolution Captain Benson served under Major General William Smallwood’s First Maryland Brigade at Harlem Heights, N.Y., (1776); the Carolina campaigns (Battle of Cowpens (1781); Guilford Courthouse (1781) and Hobkirk’s Hill, South Carolina (1781). After the war he accompanied George Washington as a lieutenant colonel to quell the 1784 Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.
On June 22, 1798 he was commissioned a brigadier general and commanded the 12th Brigade, of Caroline, Talbot and Dorchester Counties. During the War of 1812 he commanded the militia at the Battles of St. Michaels on August 10, 26, 1813. General Benson died on October 2, 1827 at the age of 72 years and is buried in the family graveyard at Newcomb, Talbot County.
Sources: Easton Gazette, October 2, 1827; History of Talbot County, Maryland, 1661-186, by Oswald Tilghman, (Baltimore: Regional Pub., Co., 1967), 303-324; “Perry Benson,” by “Revolutionary War Hero’s Grave Found,” Easton Star Democrat, July 23, 1964.
Maryland in the War of 1812 