Lewis, James A. Neptune's Militia: The Frigate South Carolina during the American Revolution, (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1999.)
Smith, Weldon. "Third Waldeck Regiment (Hessian) in Revolutionary War", (www.wikitree.com, no date given.)
Sutherland, Maxwell. "Case History of a Settlement", (The Dalhousie Review, Volume 41, Number 1, 1961.)
Wright, H. Millard. Nova Scotia Waldeckers: German Mercenaries Who Fought in the American Revolutionary War and Settled in Nova Scotia in 1783, (Halifax, Nova Scotia: H. Millard Wright, 2003.)
(Bibliographical Note: Maxwell Sutherland's article in "The Dalhousie Review" is supported bibliographically by incomplete information. Only the magazine's title and year of the publication of the article are designated. But, Wright's work, Nova Scotia Waldeckers, page 88, states that the article in question is actually Volume 41, Number 1 of the same magazine. In the same vein, Wright's work, Nova Scotia Waldeckers, as available to the public, does not indicate a publishing house or year of publication. A quick check on the internet cleared that up completely. The bibliographical information cited above has been corrected to include these additional pieces of information in both cases.)
At two points in the existence of the frigate South Carolina as a patriot ship-of-war, German troops who had deserted their prisoner-of-war status served on board the patriot frigate. The first set of these were possibly twenty-one members of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment of which twelve have been definitely identified in this overall blog. Their names can be found in the post entitled "'Another Group of German Soldiers on board the Frigate South Carolina' - Additional Information on Other, Previously Unknown Members of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment Who Also Served on board the Frigate South Carolina, Pt. IV -'" and dated 08/20/2015. The second set of German soldiers who served on board the frigate South Carolina were recruited out of the prisoner-of-war camps in Lancaster and Reading, Pennsylvania from among troops who had been captured at the surrender of General Burgoyne's army at Saratoga, New York almost five years earlier. This former group has provided quite a fertile ground for further research and writing. Not only has the writer of this blog tried to research small bits of biographical information on each of the Waldecker men that deserted their prisoner-of-war status in The Havana, Cuba for service on board the frigate South Carolina, but he has also attempted to discern their ultimate fates after the patriot frigate moored in Philadelphia, PA in May 1782.
This last point concerning the ultimate fates of these, at least twelve, Waldeckers has remained somewhat elusive. Only a single name that possibly might be that of a Waldecker appears on any of the three prisoners-of-war rosters of captured personnel from the frigate South Carolina documented by each of the Royal Navy frigates that took the patriot frigate on December 21, 1782. This is a Corporal Christoph Roemer who was carried on board the HMS Quebec into New York harbor after the capture of the frigate South Carolina. He was cited as being "Henry Roymer" and also cited as being a Lieutenant of Marines on board the patriot frigate. This matches up with the amount of his stub indent that he received from the state of South Carolina on September 13, 1783 - 96p/10s/1d. This is generally the correct amount for a commissioned officer of a lieutenant's rank. As stated above, the rest of the Waldecker troops seem to have either been discharged from or deserted the service of the frigate South Carolina after she moored in the harbor of Philadelphia, PA on May 29, 1782.
(Note: The post that closely follows the above information is entitled: "'A Solitary German Soldier on board the Frigate South Carolina': Corporal Christoph Roemer of the 1st (Grenadier) Company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment and Henry Roemer, Lieutenant of Marines - A Case of Possible Confused Identity, Pt. IV" and is dated "06/13/2016". This seems to be the sole member of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment who might have remained on board the frigate after she moored in Philadelphia, PA.)
But, it has been brought to the attention of the writer of this blog that some members of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment received a quite different offer of a potential future here in the New World as they were preparing to return to Waldeck and the other German states at the end of the American Revolution. These men were offered land grants in Canada by British command officials in charge of the evacuation process in New York City. Sutherland's article, "Case History of a Settlement", page 65, states:
"Among the Loyalists and disbanded troops who thronged the environs of New York in 1783 was a small group of discharged soldiers and officers from various German regiments hired by Great Britain during the American Revolution. These natives of Hesse, Anhalt-Zerbst, Brunswick, Waldeck, and Ansbach-Bayreuth shared little in common with the human tide that flooded into the last British stronghold except their ultimate destination. Some were to find their way into Canada by overland route from New York, but the majority, caught up in the prevailing enthusiasm of the Loyalists, intended to take passage to Nova Scotia, where they were to settle at Halifax, Shelburne, and near Annapolis Royal.
In so doing they had a good deal of encouragement. The British offer of lands and provisions had originally been intended as a reimbursement for services rendered, a reward for loyalty to the cause; but as the hope arose of salvaging something from the seven years' chaos, the offer was tacitly broadened to include British regulars and ancillary troops. This generous interpretation was mainly the work of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Guy Carleton, one of that growing group of officials who looked upon the northern provinces as the New Canaan wherein the wreckage of the Revolution would be rebuilt into another empire for Britain... When these same men were disbanded soldiers wishing to settle together, they received his interest as well as his support.".
This introduction to the subject of British land grants located in Nova Scotia to their German auxiliary troops who had served in North America continues as follows:
"In July [1783] he [Carleton] charged Governor [John] Parr of Nova Scotia to find lands for twenty-six soldiers of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment who were embarked on July 30 [1783] from New York. On August 6, an Ansbach Captain named Christian de Molitor, representing a motley collection of privates and officers from various German regiments, applied for passage to Annapolis Royal and permission to settle with the Waldeckers. Carleton forwarded a detailed list to Parr, noting that many of the petitioners were 'valuable tradesmen and ...farmers.'
Many of the privates in both groups were, as a matter of fact, tradesmen and farmers, who had been forcibly removed form their fields and shops by princes who, in Burke's contemptuous phrase, 'snuffed the cadaverous taint of lucrative war'. A good proportion were farmers, carpenters, and shoemakers; some were woodcutters and gamekeepers, and a sprinkling had come from the mill and smithy. Most of the officers and a few of the men had families, brought over from Germany or acquired during the inevitable fraternization of war.".
The text continues:
"By the early summer of 1784 it appeared as if Carleton's estimate of the 'tradesmen and farmers' was more than justified. 'The Germans settled at Bear River' noted an observer from the Muster Office, 'have made great improvements, there in not one of them who has not planted a crop of some kind or other'.".
Yet, the environmental rigors of the far northern frontier, as well as the realities of life as a new settler in a primitive and relatively undeveloped region, began to take its toll on the German settlers of the Bear River in Nova Scotia. And, take its toll it did as can be seen from the following passage in Sutherland's article, "Case History of a Settlement", page 67:
"Four years after the influx there were only thirty-five families left in the German district. By 1791 the number had been reduced to twenty-one. The small middle settlement between the Waldeckers and de Moltier's company had been practically vacated and surrendered to the Loyalists, thus dividing what had hitherto been a unified German settlement and destroying its distinctive character. All of the commissioned officers were gone, having left their embryonic farms for some less strenuous occupation. With the exception of two carpenters, the tradesmen had disappeared.
Backwoods life, with its inexorable weeding-out process, had reduced the ranks of a small, stubborn coterie who would make their contributions as a part of larger community and gradually be absorbed by it. The auspicious start had been a flash in the pan, an outburst of transient enthusiasm that was killed by the withdrawal of government provisions in 1788.".
The writer of this overall blog finds it fascinating that there exists similarities between the Waldeckers who accepted British Crown land grants along the Bear River in Nova Scotia and the members of the same Waldeck Regiment who deserted their prisoner of war status in The Havana, Cuba for service on board the frigate South Carolina. These similarities might be rather tenuous at best but, exist nonetheless. They demonstrate the resourcefulness as well as the stubborn desire for a better level of life and living among the common folk of Europe as they experienced it here in the Americas.