Lewis, James A. Neptune's Militia: The Frigate South Carolina during the American Revolution, (Kent, OH: The Kent University Press, 1999.)
Middlebrook, Louis F. The Frigate South Carolina: A Famous Revolutionary War Ship, (Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1929.)
The following post is taken from information gathered from only a few sources, primarily the older work of Louis Middlebrook entitled The Frigate South Carolina: A Famous Revolutionary War Ship. This work contains three rosters of captured American prisoners-of-war that were taken on board the patriot frigate South Carolina on December 21, 1782. The command staff of the three British men-of-war - the HMS Diomede, HMS Quebec, and HMS Astraea - divided the captured Americans amongst their ships' crews and returned to New York City with these prisoners held below decks on their respective ships-of-war. On each British Royal Navy ship-of-war, the individual American prisoners were documented and their names entered on a roster. These rosters are not organized in any explicable manner such as alphabetically or by rank of the captured American. The readership of this blog ought to be able to envision each man being brought before the recording clerk of the British man-of-war and having his name registered without any effort at a type of organization of these men alphabetically or by importance of the captive Americans according to rank. The writer of this blog has taken the "pains" to reorganize the rosters alphabetically for ease of locating a specific individual by name. The results of these three reorganization efforts can be found in the following three posts, all in March 2015:
"'Bound for New York City' - Roster of Captive Americans on board the HMS Diomede - December 21, 1782" and posted on 03/24/2015.
"'Bound for New York City' - Roster of Captive Americans on board the HMS Quebec - December 21, 1782" and posted on 03/25/2015.
"'Bound for New York City' - Roster of Captive Americans on board the HMS Astraea - December 21, 1782" and posted on 03/26/2015.
In sorting out the captive Americans in their custody immediately after the capture of the frigate South Carolina, the British authorities realized there were former troops of the Crown forces among their rebel prisoners-of-war. Not only were there former British and Loyalist troops representing several different Regiments of Foot but, also former German auxiliary troops representing at least three different German-speaking principalities - Hessen-Hanau, Brunswick and Ansbach-Bayreuth. The former British and Loyalist soldiers were fairly evenly spread among the three British men-of-war that carried the captured crew and marines of the frigate South Carolina back to New York City for their dispositions at the hands of the Crown government there. The HMS Diomede carried a single British soldier and a single Loyalist soldier on board as they journeyed back to New York City. The HMS Quebec carried three British soldiers and the HMS Astraea carried two British and two Loyalist soldiers on her return voyage to New York City. But, the item of interest to the writer of this blog is that a single one of these Royal Navy men-of-war, the HMS Quebec, seems to have carried almost all of the former German auxiliary troops back to New York City on board her as she made this return journey. Many of these men whose names appear in the previous posts (as cited below) appear on the roster of captive Americans taken on board the HMS Quebec but, interestingly, not all of them. This fact of the missing former German auxiliary troops has been an item of curiosity and intense interest on the part of the writer of this blog. Indeed, this issue will be returned in the following post with some degree of partial success for the writer of this blog.
(Note: The previous three posts, ultimately dating back to June 2019, in which these specific former German auxiliary soldiers are referred to are as follows:
"...To Make Them a Bit More Real...": Additional Information on the Former Members of the German Auxiliary Troops Who Served on board the Frigate South Carolina - Personnel from Brunswick, Ansbach-Bayreuth, and Hessen-Hanau" and dated "06/13/2019".
"...To Make Them a Bit More Real...": Additional Information on the Former Members of the German Auxiliary Troops Who Served on board the Frigate South Carolina - Personnel from Brunswick, Pt. II" and dated "07/29/2019".
"...To Make Them a Bit More Real...": Additional Information on the Former Members of the German Auxiliary Troops Who Served on board the Frigate South Carolina - Personnel from Ansbach-Bayreuth, Pt. III" and dated "08/29/ 2019".)
Again, this specific post will only focus on the former German auxiliary troops carried into New York City on board the Royal Navy frigate HMS Quebec. For the German principality of Ansbach-Bayreuth, this is very straightforward because only a single individual is cited as possibly being for that locale. He was a member of the Bayreuth contingent, 2nd Company. He is as follows:
Name as Cited on Roster: Name as Cited in Smith's work, Monograph No. 1:
John Deats Johann Gottlieb Dietz
For the former German auxiliary troops from the principality of Brunswick, there are four individuals cited as being from this locale. These men are all musketiers of the Regiment von Reidesel. These men are as follows:
Name as Cited on Roster: Name as Cited in Smith's work, Monograph No. 2:
Christoph Heneke Christoph August Hennecke
Daniel Neil name does not appear
Heinrich Neil name does not appear
Julien Tittle Julien Tittle
For the former German auxiliary troops from the principality of Hessen-Hanau, the majority of the men cited as being captive Americans on board the HMS Quebec come from this specific principality. There are a total of eleven of these men and they are all musketiers of the Regiment ErbPrinz. These men are as follows:
Name as Cited on Roster: Name as Cited in Smith's work, Monograph No. 5:
Caspar Borner Caspar Borner
Paul Goebell Paul Goebell
Nicholaus Horn Nicholaus Horn
Caspar Kitz Caspar Kitz
George Lotz Georg Lotz
Heinrich Mertz Heinrich Mertz
Phillip Muller Phillip Muller
Wilhelm Muller Wilhelm Muller
Heinrich Schillig Henrich Schillig, Sr.
Philip Sterleper Philip Sterleper
Johan Adam Zipf Johann Adam Zipf
There are sixteen men cited here as being captive American troops carried by the Royal Navy frigate HMS Quebec into New York City harbor for incarceration in British prisons as prisoners-of-war. Yet, according to the roster of the HMS Quebec and its accompanying notes, these men, as well as several others besides, all carry an unusual and cryptic notation to one side - "December 23, Headquarters". This may well indicate that the Royal Navy had discovered the former affiliation of these troops and had arrived at the decision to hand them over to German authorities for further investigation on the matter of having deserted their loyalty to their prince in their respective principalities in the German states.
Yet, there are only sixteen men whose names are cited here as being captive American troops, regardless of their previous military or regimental affiliations. Lewis's work, page 89 states that these men were primarily drawn from the the two regiments cited above with a few others being drawn from other regiments - the Regiment von Specht and de Menges's Grenadier Battalion. There were only fifty-one of these men identified. These men cited above account for less than one-third of the German auxiliary troops cited in Lewis's work, section entitled "Appendix: Crew and Marines of the South Carolina", pages 135-170. The writer if this blog has always been intrigued by this glaring discrepancy of numbers and has striven to discern why these discrepancies exist. The following post will hopefully clear up some of these confusions and discrepancies and how they even came into existence.