I represent Dietrich Theodor Frede. I was a private on a six-year enlistment in the 4th Company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment. I was born January 13, 1757 in Grossenberg, Pyrmont Province. My parents were Johann Konrad and Anna Margarete Frede. I was Evangelical (which, in this context, means “Protestant”), and I stood 5′ 3 and 1/4″ tall – just slightly below average for the men of my regiment. I was a shoemaker by trade. The 3rd Waldeck was hired by the British from Waldeck Prince Frederick Karl Augustus to assist them in fighting the American rebels in the Revolutionary War. We reached North America in 1776. I was wounded in the attack on Ft. Washington (Manhattan) on November 16, 1776. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. After the surrender, we were sent by the Spanish to New York, on our honor not to fight against the Spanish again until we were exchanged. We lived in encampments at New Town on Long Island. I was transferred to the 2nd company in June 1782 and the Waldeckers resumed duty in July. A year later, in July of 1783, I and the Waldeck Regiment, 418 men and women and 13 children, left New York to return to Europe.
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