I represent Wilhelm von Hanxleden. I was a private in the 3rd company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment, and the son of the regimental commander. I was born in 1746 in Gershausen, Waldeck Province and my religion was Evangelical (which, in this case, means “Protestant”). The 3rd Waldeck Regiment was hired by the British from Waldeck Prince Frederick Karl Augustus to assist them in fighting the American rebels in the Revolutionary War. I sailed for North America with the regiment in 1776 as a cadet, along with my father. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. I became a private around April 1779. In early January 1781, a few months after the Spanish had captured Mobile, General Campbell sent a group of Waldeckers, Maryland and Pennsylvania Loyalists, and indigenous warriors to The Village (on the eastern shore near the head of Mobile Bay) in an attempted counterattack against the Spanish. The attack ended in defeat and we retreated back to Pensacola. The attempt was not without loss of life, including my father’s. I was released from the regiment at Pensacola on April 25, 1781and apparently returned to Germany.
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