I represent Jakob Henrich Graebe. I was a sergeant in the 3rd Company of the 3rd Waldeck Regiment. I was born in 1741 in Rhoden, Waldeck Province. I was Evangelical (which, in this context, means “Protestant”), and I was married with one child. I enlisted with the Waldeck 2nd Regiment 23 JUN 1763. 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. After two years of heavy action we were sent to Pensacola, along with the provincial loyalist forces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. I was wounded by friendly fire from Ft. George on 12 APR 1781. 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. The Waldeckers resumed duty in July 1782. 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. At some point I transferred to the 5th Battalion, from which I retired as a sergeant. I died of consumption [tuberculosis] on January 16, 1810 at age 69, survived by my wife and two adult children.
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