John U Rees
John U. Rees, a lifelong resident of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, has been writing about common soldiers' experiences in the War for American Independence for over 30 years, on subjects ranging from battle studies, army food, and the soldier’s burden, to army wagons and watercraft, campaign shelters, Continental Army conscription, and women with the army. He has authored over 200 articles, and two books; his first, “They Were Good Soldiers: African Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783" is now available online (sans cover and centerpiece color images). John's second book, co-authored with Don Troiani, is titled "Don Troiani’s Black Soldiers in America’s Wars, 1754-1865" (Essex, Ct., and Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Stackpole Books) and will be out in January 2025. An article list and many complete works are accessible online via https://tinyurl.com/Rees-author-only . An online compendium of articles on African Americans in the Revolutionary era is available at https://tinyurl.com/Afr-Amer-Rev-War ; another on women in armies of the Revolution is online at, https://tinyurl.com/Rev-War-Women . Email at ju_rees@msn.com .
Phone: 2152088778
Address: 2590 N SUGAN RD
Phone: 2152088778
Address: 2590 N SUGAN RD
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1. Hospital Patients by Unit
a. Unknown Unit or Unattached Personnel (Men and Women)
b. Prisoners of War
c. Campbell's Virginia Battalion
d. Gunby's 1st Maryland Battalion
e. Ford's 2nd Maryland Battalion
f. Buford's Virginia Battalion
g. Green's Virginia Battalion
h. 1st Regiment Continental Artillery
i. Regiment of Artillery Artificers
j. Delaware Battalion (light company)
k. Lee's Legion
2. Totals, Wounded and Sick: Perkins Hospital, 9 May 1781 to 9 June 1781
a. Overall Total, Wounded and Sick (Men and Women)
b. Unit Totals, Wounded and Sick Hospital
"Black soldiers have been a constant but ghostly presence in all of America's conflicts from Lexington and Concord onward, ignored by most artists and overlooked, until recently, by most historians. This handsome volume helps bring them back to life. It authoritatively chronicles all that they did and shows us the things they carried and the uniforms they proudly wore." Geoffrey C. Ward Co-author (with Ken Burns) of The Civil War, The War and The Vietnam War
My apologies for the too many errors that slipped through my post-submission edit of the book’s narrative and artwork captions. Most corrections add a missing word, delete unnecessary text, or simply suffice to make the narrative clearer. I did take this opportunity to add a transcription (on page 15) of the 26 February 1776 general order showing General George Washington’s decision to open Continental Army service to all free black men, a refutation of Congress’s January order to reenlist only those who served in 1775 and no others.
All corrections or additions are highlighted in bold print; my hope is to implement the amendments in a second edition, if one is forthcoming.
John Rees, Solebury, Pa., 26 August 2024
1. Preface
2. Transcription
(Including list of mentioned military units)
3. Sick Soldiers Listed by Regiment
(Including list of mentioned military units and identification regiments and company commanders,
plus unit and overall totals)
4. Related Works
______________
1. Preface. This roster lists the sick and injured soldiers of twenty-seven Continental, state, and militia regiments in various hospitals in and near Philadelphia; the lists were “began December 16,1776,” with no end date given.
The hospitals, wards, and sites mentioned are:
“At Shields's, between Front and Second Streets”
“At McElroy's”
“Mr. Livelong's, Norris's alley”
“At Semple's Store, fr't street”
“At Dr. Young's”
“Bettering house, Ward 7”
“Sprout's Store, W. & front S”
“At William Peden's”
“At Brigade Rendezvous”
“At Mr. Hart's”
“At Barret's house”
“At Francis Rogers's”
“At Judge Shields's”
“In Ward 7”
“18 Entry” [?]
“In Arbuckle's Row”
Also noted are two nurses and eight tenders caring for the sick:
Nurse – Peter Bryam (possibly) (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Sam'l Church (PENSION; Durkee, 20th Continental Regiment)
Tender – Ebenezer Cutter (PENSION; Hutchinson, 27th Continental Regiment), Asa Davis (Hazen, 2nd Canadian Regiment), Nath'l Dodge (Hutchinson, 27th Continental Regiment), Jeremy Frier (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Michael Gaghagan (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Rich'd Kennedy (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Wm. Marey (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Joseph Whitecreek (McAllister, Pennsylvania Flying Camp Battalion)
_________________
Women and Children – Eliz. Williams (3rd Virginia), “Thomas Tracy … A wife and two children” (Delaware Bat'n) Sarah Byram (Colo. Richardson).
Don Troiani and John U. Rees, Don Troiani’s Black Soldiers in America’s Wars, 1754-1865 (Essex, Ct., and Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2025)
__________
Due to restrictions on the size of the book’s narrative I was unable to discuss as much as I would have preferred on several subjects. One example was black service with German corps. The resources I used for the general information in the caption “1781–1782, Drummer, Hessen-Hanau Artillery Company” – George Jones article “The Black Hessians” and Friederike Baer’s book Hessian – remain the best secondary sources available, but for this addendum I have turned to several primary sources and works based on them.
One of the aims in my work on men of color is, as much as is possible, to provide the names of those often-unidentified soldiers and military laborers. The focus of this monograph is a single German regiment and one that spent most of its time in a southern garrison. Three record groups have been used in this narrow study: a collection of regimental returns and records covering the period from January 1780 to July 1783; the online compiled list of Hessian soldiers who served in America (HETRINA); and the 1783 Book of Negroes, a record of all the people of African descent who were evacuated from New York city at war’s end.
The first section of this chapter reveals the names of “Negro” soldiers gleaned from the January 1780 to July 1783 records of the Regiment von Wissenbach/Regiment von Knoblauch. The second section gives a more complete accounting of black soldiers from the same regiment, collected via a search in the online site Hessian Troops in America (HETRINA), while the third section shows the names of the black men of the Knoblauch regiment who emigrated to Germany in 1783. The final included resource is a roster of one-hundred-and-twenty-eight black soldiers who served with sixteen Hessian units in America.
https://www.academia.edu/125865236/_Small_Things_Forgotten_Soldiers_and_Reading_During_the_War_of_the_American_Revolution_)
Among the wonderful details I discovered in mining Boyle's compiled advertisements are soldiers with speech affects, men who were known for playing the fiddle or violin, a man known for his singing and dancing, and an Irish soldier with "his face good [sic] deal bruised by fighting on St. Patrick’[s] Day last."
Some of the deserter advertisements are small vignettes, even short stories or at least the basis for one; this is one of those minor tales. Not much, but still, it brings us close to the entertaining conversations, or babble, that erupted among comrades and mess groups. First, the entire notice, in which every man is given some measure of a narrow biography, akin to the “backstory” an actor might give to a character he or she is portraying. Most interesting, those personal depictions show the writer’s close knowledge and observance of each deserter, something certainly not evident in most such notices.
One exception was "a Book, Concerning Barnett Davenport." That work was a bit more lurid ...
The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, located at Anderson House at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, between 21st and 22nd streets in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
The Stockbridge Indigenous community was created in part because of incursions by white settlers in the Massachusetts Bay colony and the loss of tribal population. Usually called a Mohican (Muhheakun’nuk) town, the Stockbridge band also contained members of the Housatonic, Wappinger, Tunxis, Nipmuc, and other Hudson River peoples. In the seventeenth century the Mohican numbered some 4,000 members; by 1700 they had been reduced to about 500 via epidemics of European diseases and warfare with the neighboring Mohawks.
Stockbridge began with a grant of 23,040 acres, 1/60th (2,304 acres) of which was set aside for Sergeant and four English families. In 1763 the Indigenous residents still held 75 percent of the land, most in common ownership, but through sales and transferals for debt by 1774 they “had become ghettoized on about twelve hundred acres.” By that date the town’s Indian population numbered about 300 men, women, and children. (Calloway, 90)
Stockbridge Indians served with British forces during the conflicts of the 1750s and 60s; Wappinger men also served, moving their families to Stockbridge for protection while they were away. Upon returning home they found that the New York landlords seized lands claimed by the Wappinger nation, leading most of their members to join the Stockbridge community. In 1762 Wappinger chief Daniel Nimham filed a formal complaint against the wealthy Hudson Valley manor lords, but his suit was thrown out of court in 1765. In 1766 Nimham sailed to London to present his case to the Lords of Trade and they ordered New York authorities to revisit the matter. Lacking the support of Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Nimham’s case was again dismissed. As Colin Calloway notes, “Nimham and his people had real grievances … and real reasons for fighting against the crown.” Around the same time Mohican leader John Konkapot notified Massachusetts authorities that white Stockbridge inhabitant Elijah Williams “and a party he has made in Town are endeavouring not only To get all the power but all our Lands too into their hands.” An investigating committee was appointed who found that the original town board make-up “of three Indian and two English selectmen had now changed to two and three” and that in light of the continuing loss of Indigenous town land and governing control “that unless some special care be taken to guard the Indian Interest, they will in a short time become a very insignificant people.” (Calloway, 89)
The appended study contains the names of 149 females, 47 males, and two whose gender is unknown; the various accounts deal with work done in Williamsburg, Virginia, Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, and Morristown, New Jersey. The included men either provided goods the women also made or provided, received those goods, or were linked to one of the females on the list. The last section containing accounts of goods made, record those provided by nine consortiums of men and women listed on the same receipt.
Gleaned from:
“Gave Mary McVeigh Nurse at the small Pox Hospital in Vine street --- 2/6 to buy sugar”
Transcribed Report Book of the Committee of Safety, 31 December 1776 to 17 March 1777
(This account book contains the names of female nurses in Philadelphia military hospitals, as well as some names of women attached to military units.)
Available at, https://www.academia.edu/116479667/_Gave_Mary_McVeigh_Nurse_at_the_small_Pox_Hospital_in_Vine_street_2_6_to_buy_sugar_Transcribed_Report_Book_of_the_Committee_of_Safety_31_December_1776_to_17_March_1777
1. Hospital Patients by Unit
a. Unknown Unit or Unattached Personnel (Men and Women)
b. Prisoners of War
c. Campbell's Virginia Battalion
d. Gunby's 1st Maryland Battalion
e. Ford's 2nd Maryland Battalion
f. Buford's Virginia Battalion
g. Green's Virginia Battalion
h. 1st Regiment Continental Artillery
i. Regiment of Artillery Artificers
j. Delaware Battalion (light company)
k. Lee's Legion
2. Totals, Wounded and Sick: Perkins Hospital, 9 May 1781 to 9 June 1781
a. Overall Total, Wounded and Sick (Men and Women)
b. Unit Totals, Wounded and Sick Hospital
"Black soldiers have been a constant but ghostly presence in all of America's conflicts from Lexington and Concord onward, ignored by most artists and overlooked, until recently, by most historians. This handsome volume helps bring them back to life. It authoritatively chronicles all that they did and shows us the things they carried and the uniforms they proudly wore." Geoffrey C. Ward Co-author (with Ken Burns) of The Civil War, The War and The Vietnam War
My apologies for the too many errors that slipped through my post-submission edit of the book’s narrative and artwork captions. Most corrections add a missing word, delete unnecessary text, or simply suffice to make the narrative clearer. I did take this opportunity to add a transcription (on page 15) of the 26 February 1776 general order showing General George Washington’s decision to open Continental Army service to all free black men, a refutation of Congress’s January order to reenlist only those who served in 1775 and no others.
All corrections or additions are highlighted in bold print; my hope is to implement the amendments in a second edition, if one is forthcoming.
John Rees, Solebury, Pa., 26 August 2024
1. Preface
2. Transcription
(Including list of mentioned military units)
3. Sick Soldiers Listed by Regiment
(Including list of mentioned military units and identification regiments and company commanders,
plus unit and overall totals)
4. Related Works
______________
1. Preface. This roster lists the sick and injured soldiers of twenty-seven Continental, state, and militia regiments in various hospitals in and near Philadelphia; the lists were “began December 16,1776,” with no end date given.
The hospitals, wards, and sites mentioned are:
“At Shields's, between Front and Second Streets”
“At McElroy's”
“Mr. Livelong's, Norris's alley”
“At Semple's Store, fr't street”
“At Dr. Young's”
“Bettering house, Ward 7”
“Sprout's Store, W. & front S”
“At William Peden's”
“At Brigade Rendezvous”
“At Mr. Hart's”
“At Barret's house”
“At Francis Rogers's”
“At Judge Shields's”
“In Ward 7”
“18 Entry” [?]
“In Arbuckle's Row”
Also noted are two nurses and eight tenders caring for the sick:
Nurse – Peter Bryam (possibly) (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Sam'l Church (PENSION; Durkee, 20th Continental Regiment)
Tender – Ebenezer Cutter (PENSION; Hutchinson, 27th Continental Regiment), Asa Davis (Hazen, 2nd Canadian Regiment), Nath'l Dodge (Hutchinson, 27th Continental Regiment), Jeremy Frier (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Michael Gaghagan (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Rich'd Kennedy (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Wm. Marey (Weeden, 3rd Virginia), Joseph Whitecreek (McAllister, Pennsylvania Flying Camp Battalion)
_________________
Women and Children – Eliz. Williams (3rd Virginia), “Thomas Tracy … A wife and two children” (Delaware Bat'n) Sarah Byram (Colo. Richardson).
Don Troiani and John U. Rees, Don Troiani’s Black Soldiers in America’s Wars, 1754-1865 (Essex, Ct., and Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 2025)
__________
Due to restrictions on the size of the book’s narrative I was unable to discuss as much as I would have preferred on several subjects. One example was black service with German corps. The resources I used for the general information in the caption “1781–1782, Drummer, Hessen-Hanau Artillery Company” – George Jones article “The Black Hessians” and Friederike Baer’s book Hessian – remain the best secondary sources available, but for this addendum I have turned to several primary sources and works based on them.
One of the aims in my work on men of color is, as much as is possible, to provide the names of those often-unidentified soldiers and military laborers. The focus of this monograph is a single German regiment and one that spent most of its time in a southern garrison. Three record groups have been used in this narrow study: a collection of regimental returns and records covering the period from January 1780 to July 1783; the online compiled list of Hessian soldiers who served in America (HETRINA); and the 1783 Book of Negroes, a record of all the people of African descent who were evacuated from New York city at war’s end.
The first section of this chapter reveals the names of “Negro” soldiers gleaned from the January 1780 to July 1783 records of the Regiment von Wissenbach/Regiment von Knoblauch. The second section gives a more complete accounting of black soldiers from the same regiment, collected via a search in the online site Hessian Troops in America (HETRINA), while the third section shows the names of the black men of the Knoblauch regiment who emigrated to Germany in 1783. The final included resource is a roster of one-hundred-and-twenty-eight black soldiers who served with sixteen Hessian units in America.
https://www.academia.edu/125865236/_Small_Things_Forgotten_Soldiers_and_Reading_During_the_War_of_the_American_Revolution_)
Among the wonderful details I discovered in mining Boyle's compiled advertisements are soldiers with speech affects, men who were known for playing the fiddle or violin, a man known for his singing and dancing, and an Irish soldier with "his face good [sic] deal bruised by fighting on St. Patrick’[s] Day last."
Some of the deserter advertisements are small vignettes, even short stories or at least the basis for one; this is one of those minor tales. Not much, but still, it brings us close to the entertaining conversations, or babble, that erupted among comrades and mess groups. First, the entire notice, in which every man is given some measure of a narrow biography, akin to the “backstory” an actor might give to a character he or she is portraying. Most interesting, those personal depictions show the writer’s close knowledge and observance of each deserter, something certainly not evident in most such notices.
One exception was "a Book, Concerning Barnett Davenport." That work was a bit more lurid ...
The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati, located at Anderson House at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, between 21st and 22nd streets in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
The Stockbridge Indigenous community was created in part because of incursions by white settlers in the Massachusetts Bay colony and the loss of tribal population. Usually called a Mohican (Muhheakun’nuk) town, the Stockbridge band also contained members of the Housatonic, Wappinger, Tunxis, Nipmuc, and other Hudson River peoples. In the seventeenth century the Mohican numbered some 4,000 members; by 1700 they had been reduced to about 500 via epidemics of European diseases and warfare with the neighboring Mohawks.
Stockbridge began with a grant of 23,040 acres, 1/60th (2,304 acres) of which was set aside for Sergeant and four English families. In 1763 the Indigenous residents still held 75 percent of the land, most in common ownership, but through sales and transferals for debt by 1774 they “had become ghettoized on about twelve hundred acres.” By that date the town’s Indian population numbered about 300 men, women, and children. (Calloway, 90)
Stockbridge Indians served with British forces during the conflicts of the 1750s and 60s; Wappinger men also served, moving their families to Stockbridge for protection while they were away. Upon returning home they found that the New York landlords seized lands claimed by the Wappinger nation, leading most of their members to join the Stockbridge community. In 1762 Wappinger chief Daniel Nimham filed a formal complaint against the wealthy Hudson Valley manor lords, but his suit was thrown out of court in 1765. In 1766 Nimham sailed to London to present his case to the Lords of Trade and they ordered New York authorities to revisit the matter. Lacking the support of Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Nimham’s case was again dismissed. As Colin Calloway notes, “Nimham and his people had real grievances … and real reasons for fighting against the crown.” Around the same time Mohican leader John Konkapot notified Massachusetts authorities that white Stockbridge inhabitant Elijah Williams “and a party he has made in Town are endeavouring not only To get all the power but all our Lands too into their hands.” An investigating committee was appointed who found that the original town board make-up “of three Indian and two English selectmen had now changed to two and three” and that in light of the continuing loss of Indigenous town land and governing control “that unless some special care be taken to guard the Indian Interest, they will in a short time become a very insignificant people.” (Calloway, 89)
The appended study contains the names of 149 females, 47 males, and two whose gender is unknown; the various accounts deal with work done in Williamsburg, Virginia, Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania, and Morristown, New Jersey. The included men either provided goods the women also made or provided, received those goods, or were linked to one of the females on the list. The last section containing accounts of goods made, record those provided by nine consortiums of men and women listed on the same receipt.
Gleaned from:
“Gave Mary McVeigh Nurse at the small Pox Hospital in Vine street --- 2/6 to buy sugar”
Transcribed Report Book of the Committee of Safety, 31 December 1776 to 17 March 1777
(This account book contains the names of female nurses in Philadelphia military hospitals, as well as some names of women attached to military units.)
Available at, https://www.academia.edu/116479667/_Gave_Mary_McVeigh_Nurse_at_the_small_Pox_Hospital_in_Vine_street_2_6_to_buy_sugar_Transcribed_Report_Book_of_the_Committee_of_Safety_31_December_1776_to_17_March_1777
Saturday 25 June 2016 (main event) - 11 mile march from Englishtown to Freehold, and then back to Perrine Ridge, following the route of Varnum's Brigade at the Battle of Monmouth. Sunday, 26 June 2016 - Approx. 2 miles march from Perrine Ridge to Combs Hill, then living history for the public until circa 2 PM.
Also on Saturday, at the Craig House, local civilians (householders and refugees), and militia will interact with the public and discuss the British occupation, impact of the war, daily life, and other matters.
Itinerary for Saturday march:
1. Begin march at Tavern at Englishtown
2. Tennant Meeting
3. Causeway/Bridge over morass (discuss early morning skirmish, New Jersey militia and British light horse)
4. Craig House
5. Furthest point of advance by Varnum and Scott (also discuss furthest point of advance by Wayne and Butler)
6. Point of Woods
7. Hedgerow
8. Causeway over morass (discuss pell mell advance of Clinton with Grenadiers)
9. Reach Perrine Ridge at around 1 PM
10. Action at the Sutphin Orchard
11. Parsonage Farm attack
‘They were good soldiers.’: African Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783
John U. Rees
https://tinyurl.com/Helion-Rees
Hundreds of women followed the Continental Army, some African American. The best description of a woman of color known to have accompanied the troops is as follows:
[New Jersey Gazette, 28 October 1778]
Fifty Dollars Reward.
Ran away on the evening of the 7th inst. from Trenton ferry, a likely Mulatto slave, named Sarah, but since calls herself Rachael; She took her son with her, a Mulatto boy named Bob, about six years old, has a remarkable fair complexion, with flaxen hair: She is a lusty wench, about 34 years of age, big with child; had on a striped linsey petticoat, linen jacket, flat shoes, a large white cloth cloak, and a blanket, but may change her dress, as she has other cloathes with her. She was lately apprehended in the first Maryland regiment, where she pretends to have a husband, with whom she has been the principal part of this campaign, and passed herself as a free woman. Whoever apprehends said woman and boy, and will secure them in any gaol, so that their master may get them again, shall receive the above reward, by applying to Mr. Blair M’Clenachan, of Philadephia, Capt. Benjamin Brooks, of the third Maryland regiment, at camp, or to Mr. James Sterret, in Baltimore. Mordecai Gist [colonel, 3rd Maryland Regiment].