175th Infantry Regiment (United States)  The 175th Infantry Regiment ("Fifth Maryland") is an infantry regiment of the Maryland Army National Guard. It is one of several National Guard units with colonial roots and campaign credit for the War of 1812. Mordecai Gist, a young Baltimore merchant, organized a militia company on 3 December 1774. This company was the nucleus of Baltimore's Fifth Regiment which—expanded, modified, and undergoing occasional changes in designation—has enjoyed an uninterrupted history down to the present 175th Infantry (Fifth Maryland), Maryland Army National Guard. The unit is the seventh oldest regiment in the United States. By 1774 the people of Maryland had become thoroughly aroused over the troubles around Boston, especially the blockading of the port as the consequence of the "Boston Tea Party." Their reaction to the British actions in October 1774 was to burn tea, and the brig Peggy Stewart in which the tea had arrived, during daylight in Annapolis Harbor. Hostilities having begun, an assembly of delegates from the various counties met in Annapolis in November to discuss measures for armed resistance and to adopt resolutions for defense. In this tense atmosphere, Mordecai Gist of Baltimore organized a company of militia, which assumed the title "The Baltimore Independent Cadets." On 3 December 1774, 58 young men of the town signed an agreement to "form ourselves into a body or company in order to learn the military discipline," and each agreed to provide himself with a uniform consisting of "a coat turnd up with Buff, and trimd with Yellow Mettal, or Gold Buttons, White Stockings & black Cloth half Boots," and to equip himself with arms and ammunition. And so was organized the first uniformed military company in Maryland, the parent from which the Fifth Regiment sprung in the early days of the war just two years later. The battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill were fought in Massachusetts during the spring of 1775. On 1 January 1776, the Maryland Assembly voted to organize and send its first regiment of soldiers to the Continental Army. This consisted of nine companies, the eighth of which was Gist's "Independent Cadets." Gist became Major in the new regiment and the command of the company passed to Samuel Smith, later to become major general, Mayor of Baltimore, and United States Senator from Maryland. Thus organized, Smallwood's Regiment, so-called after its commander Colonel William Smallwood, left on 10 July 1776 to join General Washington's army. It marched to Philadelphia, and from there was promptly dispatched by John Hancock, President of the Congress, to the "Flying Camp" of the army before New York.