 Smallwood's regiment was too depleted in numbers to form a regiment to itself but it gave many men and officers, including one of the subsequent wartime commanders, to the Fifth Regiment of the Line, and on 10 December 1776, Colonel William Richardson assumed command of the new regiment.According to the historian James McSherry, writing of the Maryland Line during the Revolutionary War, "No troops in the continental army had rendered better service, endured more fatigue, or won greater glory than the Maryland Line.In proportion to their number, no body of men suffered more severely.