Tench Tilghman

Maryland Historical Society

Tilghman was an officer in the Continental Army and aide-de-camp to George Washington during the American Revolution. The eldest son of James (1716-1793) and Anne Francis (1727-?) Tilghman, he was born in Talbot County on December 25, 1744. His father was a lawyer who became secretary of the Pennsylvania land office in 1765. His mother was the daughter of Tench and Elizabeth Turbutt Francis. Tench Francis was attorney general of Pennsylvania and his wife was a member of one of Maryland's wealthy Eastern Shore families.

Tilghman most likely received his early education from the Reverend John Gordon, rector of St. Michael's parish in Talbot County. In 1758, he entered the College, Academy, and Charitable School of Philadelphia (the future University of Pennsylvania) under the sponsorship of his maternal grandfather. He graduated in 1761 and shortly thereafter formed a mercantile partnership with his uncle Tench Francis Jr.

At the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and its American colonies, Tilghman "came to a determination to share the fate of my Country," as he would write to his uncle Matthew Tilghman. In 1775, the Continental Congress appointed him to a commission sent to the Iroquois Confederacy to secure the neutrality of the Six Nations. Tilghman served as the commission's secretary and treasurer, keeping a journal of his activities from August 5 to September 4. He joined a Philadelphia militia unit known as the "Ladies Light Infantry." In 1776, this unit was attached to the "Flying Camp," in essence a pool of reserve troops for the Continental Army. In August 1776, Tilghman joined Washington's staff as an aide-de-camp and secretary, serving in that capacity through the end of the war.

Tilghman was one of Washington's most trusted aides. After the surrender of British general Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in October 1781, Washington chose Tilghman to bring the news of the victory to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. A triple portrait by Charles Willson Peale of Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Tilghman, with the articles of surrender in his hand, at Yorktown hangs in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House.

After the American Revolution, Tilghman returned to mercantile business, forming Tench Tilghman and Company in Baltimore. Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris, the "financier of the Revolution," was a partner. In 1783, Tilghman married his cousin Anna Maria Tilghman (1755-1843), daughter of Matthew and Margaret Lloyd Tilghman. They had two daughters.

Tilghman died on April 18, 1786, probably from hepatitis. From Mount Vernon, Washington wrote to Tilghman's father, "I may venture to assert (that excepting those of his nearest relatives) none could have felt his death with more regret than I did because no one entertained a higher opinion of his worth, or had imbibed sentiments of greater friendship for him than I had done."

Bast, Homer. "Tench Tilghman: Maryland Patriot," Maryland Historical Magazine, 42 (1947): 71-94

Carnes, Mark C., and John A. Garraty, eds. American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. S.v. "Tilghman, Tench," by David Michlovitz.

[Harrison, Samuel]. Memoir of Lieut. Col. Tench Tilghman, Secretary and Aide to Washington, together with an Appendix, Containing Revolutionary Journals and Letters, hitherto Unpublished. Albany: J. Munsell, 1876.

Shreve, L.G. Tench Tilghman: The Life and Times of Washington's Aide-de-Camp. Centreville, Md.: Tidewater Publishers, 1982