Few units in the U.S. Army are as fabled as the Dundalk-based 1st Battalion, 175th Infantry Regiment (5th Maryland), better known simply as the 175th Infantry Regiment, of the Maryland Army National Guard.
Formed as the Baltimore Independent Cadets in 1774, the unit helped save George Washington’s army at the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, played a major role in saving Baltimore from British destruction at the Battle of North Point in 1814, hit Omaha Beach on June 7, 1944, and took part in the U.S. war on terror in the mid-2000s. Today, it’s a force of about 600 citizen-soldiers, with armories in Dundalk, Easton, Glen Burnie, Frederick and Silver Spring.
What’s little known today, however, is that many members of the unit split from the Union during the Civil War and took up arms for the South. Historians say most of its foot soldiers — largely working-class Baltimoreans who were, at best, suspicious of the intentions of President Abraham Lincoln — left for Virginia, where they reformed as the 1st Maryland Infantry Regiment (Confederate).
