Andrew and Susannah Carr, 21st Regiment - separated

 "Serjeant Andrew Carr," wrote his widow Susannah, "was taken prisoner along with the army commanded by General Burgoyne in the year 1777 and conveyed to a depot in the state of Virginia in the said United States, where the said Andrew Carr died." She wrote on behalf of their son John, born in 1775, the year before the 21st Regiment of Foot said from Great Britain to Quebec.

Andrew Carr was a native of Kilmore on the Island of Skye, born in 1740. He joined the army at the age of twenty, without having learned a trade beforehand, but he must have been reasonably well-educated for he soon became a sergeant.

The 21st Regiment was sent to Florida in 1765 and remained there until 1770. Many histories of the regiment indicate that the regiment then went to Quebec, overlooking the time that they spent in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York in 1771 and 1772. It was probably in Philadelphia in 1771 that Andrew Carr met and married Susannah Stauss, daughter of an area landowner, who was in her early twenties. When the 21st did go to Quebec, and then back to Great Britain in 1773, Susannah followed her husband in her new life as an army wife.

John Carr was born in 1775, and early the following year the family set sail once again, one of nine regiments bound for Quebec to drive rebellious American military forces out of the province. The campaign was successful, and the 21st Regiment spent the winter of 1776-1777 at St. John's on the Richelieu River between Montreal and Lake Champlain. When the army marched south in June 1777, only two wives were allowed to go with each company on campaign. Susannah and young John stayed behind while Andrew Carr went on the expedition commanded by General John Burgoyne. Their destination was Albany, but the got only as far as Saratoga. Susannah never saw her husband again; he was, as she knew, taken prisoner. The captured soldiers went first to the Boston area, expecting to be sent back to Great Britain, but then were marched to Virginia, then to Pennsylvania, ultimately spending five years in captivity.

In 1782, Susannah's father, still in the Philadelphia area, died. the executor of his estate placed an advertisement in the newspaper seeking information on the whereabouts of Susannah and her three siblings:

WHEREAS BELTHASER STAUS, late of the Northern Liberties of the city of Philadelphia, yeoman, deceased, by his last Will and Testament, ordered his estate to be sold, and the money arising from the sale thereof to be equally divided between his eight children, whereof four are living in and near the city of Philadelphia, and four absent, namely two sons FRANCIS JOSEPH and DANIEL, and two daughters SARAH and SUSANNA. The shares of which said four absent children he ordered to be put out, and continued at interest for the space of seven years, to be claimed by the said children or their legal representatives in person, &c. And of his said last Will and Testament he appointed Zacharias Endres, of the said Northern Liberties, brewer, sole Executor.

Now the said Executor, in compliance with the special directions of the said Testator, given him a few days before his deceased, has thought proper to give this PUBLIC NOTICE, hereby requiring the said four absent children of the Testator, or in case of the death of any of them, the children or guardians of the children of the deceased, to make their claims to their respective shares. The said Executor is informed that the said Francis Joseph Staus is by trade a skinner, and was some time Paymaster of the British troops in East Florida; that the said Daniel Staus was a Captain of a vessel, and an inhabitant of the Island of Providence; that the said Sarah had been married to one Andrew Lytel, and is now a widow, living somewhere in North Carolina; and that the said Susanna was married to one Andrew Kehr, of the 21st regiment of Scotch Fuziliers, who, it is said, is among the prisoners of General Burgoyne’s army, now in Virginia.

All friends and acquaintances of the persons concerned, seeing this advertisement, are desired to inform them thereof. The said Executor will take particular care that the money happening to each child’s share may be recovered upon short notice.

Philad. Sept. 5. ZACHARIAS ENDRES.

[Pennsylvania Gazette, 18 September 1782]

She was not in Virginia with her husband, as the ad suggested, but was still in Canada; and by this time, she had learned that her husband died. Whether she ever got her inheritance is not known. She remarried a discharged German soldier named Conrad Bongard. They settled on 500 acres of land that he was awarded in Ontario and had several children together. It was in 1836 that she wrote her brief petition concerning her first child, John Carr, apparently seeking pension benefits or land based on her deceased first husband's service. She died on February 21, 1846 at the age of 98.

What she never learned was that Andrew Carr did not die in Virginia. He survived the years of captivity and returned to England in 1783 with the remains of the 21st Regiment. On May 21 of that year he went before the pension examining board in Chelsea and was awarded an army pension for his 23 years of service. How long he lived thereafter is not known.

Andrew and Susannah Carr were not the only couple separated by war, neither knowing the other's fate. We'll never know how may others there were.

Learn more about British soldiers in America!