AMERICAN REVOLUTION.  Moses Rawlings (1745-1809) was a Continental Army officer who commanded the Maryland Independent Rifle Company.  He is well-known for his actions at the Battle of Fort Washington.  Rawlings’ regiment of only 274 men, stood their ground and repulsed six charges of Hessian troops numbering above 5,000, allowing George Washington and the other units to escape the fort before defeat.  He was wounded in the leg and held prisoner until Washington negotiated his release.  Rawlings later served as a delegate for the state of Maryland that voted in favor of ratifying the United States Constitution in 1788.

RARE 1781 COPY OF THE HISTORY OF OUR BLESSED LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST FROM THE LIBRARY OF MOSES RAWLINGS, WHO LED THE MARYLAND INDEPENDENT RIFLE COMPANY AT THE BATTLE OF FORT WASHINGTON

Rare copy of Ebenezer Thomson and William Charles Price’s The History of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: With the Lives of the Holy Apostles and Their Successors for Three Hundred Years After the Crucifixion (London: Printed for John Fielding, 1781) from the library of Moses Rawlings.  Contains three ownership signatures attached to the front board and on the front pastedown endpaper and front flyleaf: “Col. Moses Rawlings,” “Col. Moses Rawlings,” and “Col. Moses Rawlings of the Maryland Riflemen, Rev. War. 1776.”  Likely purchased and read by Rawlings following the Siege of Yorktown, when Rawlings was appointed the Maryland State Commissary of Prisoners at Frederick Town, home to Fort Frederick.

CONTAINS THREE OWNERSHIP SIGNATURES: “COL. MOSES RAWLINGS OF THE MARYLAND RIFLEMAN, REV. WAR. 1776.”

Contains 476 pages, along with an enumeration and index sections, measures 9.75 by 7.75 inches, and in very good condition with rubbing to the boards and staining and soiling to the pages.