1. Tench Tilghman was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
16 Facts About Tench Tilghman
1. 2.
Tench Tilghman served as an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel.
3.
Tench Tilghman paid a high price, facing tragedies including a split with Loyalist members of his family, and illness and an early death from disease contracted during the American Revolutionary War.
4.
Tench Tilghman's mother was Anne Francis Tilghman; his father was a lawyer and noted Loyalist.
5.
Tench Tilghman was the eldest of six brothers and four sisters.
6.
Tench Tilghman likely attended a plantation school, and subsequently was schooled by John Gordon, rector of St Michael's Parish.
7.
Tench Tilghman was named to the commission to the Six Nations and tribes towards the north.
8.
How Tench Tilghman came to join Washington's staff is a mystery, but the Washington family and Tench Tilghman family had familial connections.
9.
Tench Tilghman served Washington as secretary until the end of the war, mostly without pay.
10.
Tench Tilghman became the first among his eleven siblings to join the Revolutionary cause.
11.
Tench Tilghman accordingly sent them out generally as follows, that the Garrisons should be prisoners of war, the German and British soldiers to be sent to England and Germany.
12.
The National Park Service writes that Tench Tilghman was even sick during his ride from Yorktown to Philadelphia "with chills and fever" and that he left the army in 1783 with failing health.
13.
Washington's regard for Tench Tilghman can be inferred from their joint portrait with Lafayette by Charles Wilson Peale.
14.
Tench Tilghman is buried in a historic cemetery in Oxford, Maryland.
15.
Adjacent to his grave, the Tench Tilghman Monument is a spire.
16.
Tench Tilghman is the namesake of a Baltimore City recreation center and a Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Bethesda, Maryland.