I represent William Stafford. I was a Surgeon’s Mate in the Maryland Loyalists Regiment. This regiment was raised in 1777. We saw action at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778 before being sent later that year to West Florida to defend Pensacola and Mobile against the Spanish. In New York in November, 1778, the former Surgeon’s Mate resigned, and the Surgeon died the next month. This left the Maryland Loyalists without a surgeon of any kind. Brig. Gen. John Campbell appointed me to the position of Surgeon’s Mate (there is no evidence I enlisted in the Maryland Loyalists; I may have been with another British regular regiment when the need arose) I am found on some records as “Surgeon to the Maryland Loyalist Regiment,” so it’s clear that I was thought of that way, whatever my rank. Those of us who survived until the surrender of Pensacola were sent to New York with the rest of the prisoners of war. I served in the Maryland Loyalists until the end of the Revolutionary War when the regiment was disbanded and most of us went to Nova Scotia to seek refuge and try to start our lives over. Unfortunately, I was on the Martha, and old transport with quite a few of my Maryland Loyalist comrades on board. The ship struck a rock and sank, leaving me and four other survivors clinging to deck pieces in the freezing water for two days and nights. I made it, thankfully, but I lost literally everything I owned and was ill afterward for some time. I eventually rejoined the service and continued to serve as a military surgeon until my death in Malta in 1816.
Sources: 66, 129, 131, 139