I represent Wilhelm Keppel. I was a lieutenant in the 4th Company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment. I was born in 1755 in Gelnhausen, Hanau. My religion was Reformed (which is Calvinist Protestantism), and I was single. I spoke only German. I had a year of previous service in the Hessian army and two years’ service in the 1st Waldeck Regiment in Holland. 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. I was a 1st lieutenant with the 2nd company when I sailed with the regiment to America in 1776. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. In December 1779 I was transferred to the 4th company. After the surrender in May 1781, 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. The Waldeckers resumed duty in July 1782, and I was transferred to the 5th company in August. 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.
Sources: 54