William Smallwood (1732 – February 14, 1792) was an American planter, soldier and politician from Charles County, Maryland.

Washington bestowed on the regiment a future state nickname, "Old Line State", in reference to the extreme sacrifice of the Maryland 400 to hold the line at the Old Stone House against a vastly superior force of British and Hessian troops while suffering massive casualties, roughly 70 percent of whom were killed in action.

[10] Shortly thereafter, Smallwood led what remained of his regiment to fight "alongside soldiers from Connecticut, Delaware, and New York" in the Battle of White Plains, when he was twice wounded but "prevented the destruction of the entire Continental Army".

Smallwood briefly commanded the militia forces of North Carolina in late 1780 and early 1781 before returning to Maryland, staying there for the remainder of the war.

He resigned from the Continental Army in 1783 and later that year was elected to serve as the first president of the newly established Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland.

[14][15] Smallwood was elected to Congress in 1784, but before he could take his seat, the Legislature chose him to succeed William Paca as Governor of Maryland.

[17] When he died in 1792, his estate, known as Mattawoman, including his home the Retreat, passed to his sister Eleanor who married Colonel William Grayson of Virginia.

[19] Local historical signs in Calvert, Maryland, note that General Smallwood occupied the "East Nottingham Friends House" at the intersections of Calvert Road and Brick Meetinghouse Road (near the intersection of 272 and 273) about 6 miles east of Rising Sun, Maryland.

[22] The portrait of George Washington resigning his commission inside the Maryland State House in 1783, which hangs in the US Capitol Rotunda, features Smallwood.