About Samuel Gerock’s Papers

Samuel Gerock kept the papers and wallet now included in this interactive feature as a testament to his service as a soldier in the Revolutionary War. When he brought them to the courthouse in New Bern, North Carolina, in 1818 to apply for his veterans pension from the federal government, the papers and wallet helped him solidify his claim for financial assistance.

Gerock’s decision to store his wartime papers in the folds of a wallet made from a drumhead played by one of his comrades in 1776 and 1777 was both practical and symbolic. Gerock neatly folded the letters – which still bear those creases – so that they could be contained in the wallet and kept together, rather than scattered (image below). Together, the wallet and papers serve as mementos of Gerock’s youthful days fighting on behalf of the United States in battles both famous and little-known. These mementos aided Gerock’s recollection those events and the troops he served alongside. And, as they did in 1818, the papers helped Gerock prove that he was there in the 10 Crucial Days of 1776 and 1777 and contributed to the survival of the American Revolution when its future looked bleak.

The content of Gerock’s papers is particularly revealing about the experiences of a junior officer in the Continental Army during some of the most trying days of the Revolutionary War. The papers include correspondence with his superior officers, bureaucratic notes from his brief time as the quartermaster of the German Regiment, a pay document from the state of Maryland, and an annotated pocket almanac. One letter sheds light on the controversy surrounding the disgraced commander of the German Regiment, Colonel Nicholas Haussegger, following the Battle of Princeton. The almanac is particularly interesting because Gerock wrote about his movements during the winter and spring of 1776 and 1777 within the tiny booklet. He also noted criticisms of the battlefield performance of his superior officer, Captain George Keeports, who, from Gerock’s perspective, cost the lives of a few of his comrades. Gerock’s frustrations with Keeports provide an example of some of the struggles that the Continental Army faced as it tried to grow into a more professional fighting force. Additionally, Gerock’s sketch of the Battle of Spanktown within the almanac (shown below) is the only known depiction of this little-known battle in New Jersey.

John Louis Taylor, the Chief Justice of North Carolina, witnessed Gerock present the wallet and his papers at the courthouse in New Bern in 1818. Taylor remarked:

“He has laid before me sundry papers, bearing the evident stamp of authenticity, which are in themselves sufficient to enforce a like conviction. He has shown me an interleaved almanack of the year 1777, in the blank leaves of which, he kept a diary and recorded the services he performed, and the affairs in which he was engaged,- also several letters addressed to him as Lieutenant of the company by Captain Keeports, and several receipts recognizing him in his military capacity, signed by the Colonel of the Regiment Nicholas Hausegger.”

This testimony, paired with the fact that these documents survive, is rare and historically valuable. It helps to reveal the various ways Revolutionary War veterans proved their service, such as oral testimony, support from former comrades, and showing artifacts they used during the war, in order to receive financial assistance.

Gerock died on Sept. 8, 1833. It is unclear how often he showed these papers to his family members and friends as he discussed his participation in the Revolutionary War. The wallet and papers ended up in the possession of Gerock’s son Charles (1807-1891), who lived his life in North Carolina. Charles Gerock’s descendants held onto the wallet containing the papers and passed it down from generation to generation. The papers seem to have never left North Carolina until two of Samuel Gerock’s great-great-great grandchildren donated the wallet and papers to the Museum of the American Revolution in 2023. Gerock’s papers are now preserved for future generations to learn from and explore.

A Note on Transcriptions

Each document in this interactive feature is accompanied by two transcriptions. We want to show you how historians work to decipher old documents and the choices we make when converting them for today’s readers.

The “raw transcription” is a verbatim copy of everything that appears in the document, including formatting, large spaces to indicate sentence breaks, spelling, punctuation, and annotations. In some cases, capitalization was unclear and so has been transcribed here as seemed the most likely case. In others, carrotted insertions are noted in the original document. These words have been silently transcribed into their insertion points.

The “modernized transcription” makes minimal changes to formatting and writing to make the letters as accessible to modern readers as possible. We have included both versions so that readers can use whichever one they prefer and see which changes we made.

Sources

Catts, Wade, Matthew Harris, and Robert A. Selig. Battle of Princeton Mapping Project: Report of Military Terrain Analysis and Battle Narrative. 2010. https://pbs1777.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2010-09_MilnerReport.pdf  

Fischer, David Hackett. Washington’s Crossing. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Resch, John. Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.

Retzer, Henry J. The German Regiment of Maryland and Pennsylvania in the Continental Army, 1776-1781. Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, Inc., 2006.