Pensioner: Peter Fetherham, 17th Regiment of Foot

The role of German regiments in service of the British government is well-covered in the literature, but a lesser known aspect of British regiments in the American Revolution is that many of the 'British' soldiers were actually German. Soon after the war began, the established size of British regiments in America was increased by almost 50%, requiring an additional 18 men for each of a regiment's 10 companies. Getting so many new men, while also keeping up with normal recruiting needs, was a tall order that was fulfilled using several methods. In addition to increased recruiting, men were drafted from regiments remaining in Great Britain (a practice that was commonly used to fill regiments headed overseas; to satisfy the augmentation, greater numbers of men were drafted). A further step was to have an agent recruit men in Germany.

The result was that nearly every regiment in America received a number of German recruits, most of whom arrived in American in October 1776. Some regiments received as few as five, while others received over 100. I've written an article that tells the story of the 40 German recruits in the 22nd Regiment. The 17th Regiment of Foot also received 40 German recruits, among whom was a eighteen-year-old named Peter Federheim from Grünstadt, southeast of Frankfurt. He had no trade to speak of, but at 5 foot 9 1/2 inches he was a very desirable size for a soldier.

Unlike the 22nd Regiment which distributed the German recruits evenly among the eight battalion companies (which always received recruits because only experienced men were sent to the flank companies), the 17th Regiment put all of the Germans into Lt.-Colonel Mawhood's company. This may have been simply to keep them together because of their language; perhaps one of the company officers spoke German. Regardless, muster rolls and a surviving orderly book confirm that 17 German recruits joined the company on 23 October, immediately after embarking in New York. Another five joined on 18 November, and another 9 on 27 December. We speculate that the stragglers had remained in New York to recoup their health after the voyage (they had originally embarked on transports in German in mid-May, then sailed to England before proceeding to America; they may have remained on board transports for the entire time from May to October). This is, however, only a guess. We cannot yet account for the other nine recruits that had been directed to the 17th.

No fewer than 10 of the German recruits in the 17th Regiment deserted by the end of June 1778, and others probably did so before the war ended. Peter Federheim, however, assimilated to his new career. In the muster rolls we see his name change from Federham to Fetherham, and he remained in the regiment through the end of the war including time among the prisoners of war captured at Stony Point in 1779 (we do not have ready access to the muster rolls that would reveal whether he was again captured at Yorktown). At the end of the war, when many Germans in British regiments took discharges and land grants in Nova Scotia, Fetherham continued in the army. He was appointed corporal and then serjeant, finally taking his discharge while in garrison on the Isle of Wight in July 1802 at the age of 44.

While his discharge lists his place of birth as "Greenstadt" in the "county of Manheim, Empire of Germany," this seasoned soldier signed his name "P Fetherham, Serjeant, 2d Battn 17th Regiment" showing that he had fully adopted the anglicization of his name. He made other annotations on the document with excellent penmanship. During his 26 years of service he had learned to learned to speak, read and write the English language fluently, allowing him to succeed as a British serjeant. The discharge document describes him as having brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion, and indicates that he was discharged due to a reduction in size of the army rather than for any health reasons. From the Isle of Wight he went to London where the board at Chelsea Hospital granted him an out pension. This man who had come into the army during an augmentation finished his long service due to a reduction, and was appropriately rewarded for his accomplishments.

Learn more about British soldiers in America