Michael Rudulph, whose surname also appears as Rudolph, came from Cecil County, Maryland, and joined the Continental Army’s mounted service during the Revolution. In April 1778 he entered Henry Lee’s cavalry corps, later known as Lee’s Legion, as a sergeant major. The legion combined cavalry and infantry for reconnaissance, raids, screening, and rapid attacks. Its flexibility required junior officers and noncommissioned leaders who could act decisively while operating at a distance from the main army.

Rudulph advanced through the unit, serving as quartermaster and then lieutenant. He distinguished himself in the surprise attack on Paulus Hook, New Jersey, in August 1779, an operation that struck a fortified British post and withdrew with prisoners before stronger forces could respond. He later campaigned in the South, where Lee’s Legion cooperated with Continental troops and militia in the mobile war against British and Loyalist positions. His service earned promotion and a reputation for unusual daring.

The Charlestown marker preserves a local story from 1778: Rudulph allegedly led men disguised as poultry peddlers aboard a British warship blockading the port and captured it. The episode is colorful and may reflect genuine traditions of deception and small-boat action, but available summaries do not establish every detail as firmly as Rudulph’s documented legion service. It is best presented as a local tradition rather than as an independently confirmed capture of a major man-of-war.

That caution does not diminish the historical setting. Chesapeake communities faced British naval pressure, privateering, and raids, while Patriot forces depended on local knowledge to move men and supplies. Disguise, surprise, and intelligence were common tools in irregular operations. Rudulph’s later record in Lee’s Legion makes the tradition plausible in character even where the exact vessel, force size, and sequence remain uncertain. His cousin John Rudulph also served with distinction, sometimes complicating later retellings.

The marker commemorates both a Cecil County officer and the way local memory attaches national service to a hometown landscape. Rudulph’s documented career links Charlestown to Paulus Hook and the Southern Campaign; the poultry-peddler story adds a vivid but qualified episode of coastal resistance. Read together, they reveal how Revolutionary reputations were built from official promotions, battlefield reports, family tradition, and later commemoration. The site is therefore biographical and memorial rather than the location of a conventionally documented large engagement.

Rudulph’s later life ended in uncertainty after he went abroad in the 1790s and disappeared from clear view. That unresolved fate contributed to his legendary reputation. The marker anchors one part of an adventurous career whose documented achievements and remembered exploits have often become intertwined.