I represent Karl Mueller, Sr. I was a 2nd lieutenant in the 4th Company, 3rd Waldeck Regiment. I was born in 1761 in Thalitter, Darmstadt. I was Evangelical (which, in this context, 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. We reached North America in 1776, when I was a corporal. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. I was promoted to ensign on April 15, 1779. 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 of 1782, at which time I was transferred to the 3rd company. 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. I continued in military service. In 1802, I sailed to the Cape of Good Hope as a lieutenant colonelin the 5th Waldeck Battalion, in Dutch service. Upon the death of the colonel, I, assumed command of the regiment. In June 1806 I was taken prisoner by the English forces in South Africa – possibly the same ones I help defend against the Spanish? Such is war.
Sources: 26, 54