From the Battlefields of the Revolution

As remembered through family record and historical reconstruction

I was born on October 16, 1759, in Pennsylvania, and when the call for independence reached the countryside, I found myself among the men of the 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment of the Continental Line, assigned to Company A. We were not soldiers by trade. Most of us were farmers, laborers, and craftsmen who answered the summons not for glory, but from duty and necessity.

The 2nd Pennsylvania Regiment was first raised in 1775 and, when fully formed, numbered roughly seven to eight hundred officers and enlisted men, divided into eight companies. Each company was commanded by a captain, supported by lieutenants and an ensign, with sergeants and corporals maintaining order and discipline among the ranks. Above them stood the regimental officers—a colonel, lieutenant colonel, and major—who carried our orders from the Pennsylvania Line and, ultimately, from General George Washington, commander of the Continental Army.

What follows is not a claim to deeds beyond record, nor a boast of battles won or lost. It is instead a remembrance shaped by what is known of my regiment’s service and the common experience of the men who stood within its ranks. I write only of places where the 2nd Pennsylvania stood, of marches it is known to have made, and of hardships any soldier of that line would have endured in the long struggle for independence. In these pages, I speak not as a hero of history, but as one ordinary man among many, carried forward by events far larger than himself.

Table of Contents

• Chapter I — The Call to Arms, 1775–1776
• Chapter II — The Pennsylvania Line Takes Shape, 1776
• Chapter III — The New York Campaign Begins, 1776
• Chapter IV — Retreat, Resolve, and Survival, 1776
• Chapter V — A Hard Winter and Renewed Purpose, 1776–1777
• Chapter VI — Becoming Soldiers
• Chapter VII — Valley Forge and the Making of the Line, 1777–1778
• Chapter VIII — Tested Beyond Endurance, 1778
• Chapter IX — Holding the Line as the War Wears On, 1778–1780
• Chapter X — What Remained After the War
• Chapter XI — From Soldier to Settler, and What Followed
• Appendix — Historical Methodology and Author’s Note

"John Jacob Kieffer, among the first emigrants to Milton township, was born October 16, 1759, in the Provisdiction of Zweibricken, Europe. His great-great-grandfather, De Wald Kieffer, was a native of Paris, and of wealthy and noble ancestry. He was the fifth child and oldest son of Michael Kieffer and left Europe with his parents on April 15, 1773. They first settled in Bedford County, PA., and lived there for about eight years, then crossed the Allegheny mountains and settled in Somerset County. Here, on September 2, 1787, he married Anna Eva Fritaz, by whom he had nine children, viz: Michael, Margaret, Elizabeth, Adam, Mary, Jacob, Susanna, Joseph, and Eva, who were all born in Somerset County, PA. In the spring of 1815 he, with his family, immigrated to Wayne County, Ohio, and settled upon the northeast quarter of section 35 of Milton township, there being but few settlers in advance of him. he died there February 23, 1828. His wife died September 29, 1843, aged 75 years."

• "History of Wayne County, Ohio: From the Days of the Pioneers and First Settlers to the Present Time" - by Benjamin Douglass