page_title: John Eager Howard
section_title: Military career
hierarchical_section_title: John Eager Howard / Military career
caption_attribution_description: English: John Eager Howard (1752-1827), heroes of the battle of Cowpens, oil by Charles Willson Peale in 1782, Independence National Historical Park.
context_page_description: John Eager Howard was an American soldier and politician from Maryland. He was elected as governor of the state in 1788, and served three one-year terms. He also was elected to the Continental Congress, the Congress of the United States and the U.S. Senate. In the 1816 presidential election, Howard received 22 electoral votes for vice president on the Federalist Party ticket with Rufus King. The ticket lost in a landslide.
  Howard County, Maryland, is named for him, along with Eager Street and Howard Street in Baltimore.
context_section_description: Commissioned a captain at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Howard rose in 1777 to the rank of colonel in the Maryland Line of the Continental Army, fighting in the Battle of White Plains in New York State in 1776 and in the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey in 1778. He was awarded a silver medal by the Confederation Congress for his leadership at the 1781 Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina, during which he commanded the 2nd Maryland Regiment, Continental Army. In September 1781, he was wounded in a bayonet charge at the Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina. Southern Army commander Maj.Gen. Nathanael Greene wrote that Howard was "as good an officer as the world affords.  He has great ability and the best disposition to promote the service....He deserves a statue of gold."
caption: John Eager Howard in Uniform, painted in 1782 by Charles Willson Peale
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