The Jersey Continentals

The soldiers from New Jersey who served in the Continental Army under General George Washington fought in many of the major engagements in the Northern theater of the Revolutionary War, from the ill-fated invasion of Canada in 1775, through the siege of Yorktown in 1781, and returned home from Newburgh in 1783 with a discharge signed by General Washington himself.

Approximately 4,500 men enlisted in New Jersey’s Continental regiments over the course of the war. By 1818, 696 veterans of the Jersey line survived to file a claim to receive a pension for their Revolutionary service under the newly passed “Act to Provide for Certain Persons Engaged in the Land and Naval Service of the United States, in the Revolutionary War.” If their service was verified by the War Department, they would receive an annuity for the rest of their lives - $96 per year if they served as enlisted soldiers, and $240 if they were commissioned officers. It was a life changing sum of money for men who owned little to nothing and were living on the edge of solvency, or for some, deep in poverty.

The total number of men who served in the New Jersey Continental Line over the course of the Revolutionary War is estimated to be approximately 4,505. In the year 1870, Governor Theodore F. Randolph acknowledged that “a record of Jerseymen who took part in the military service of this country during the Revolutionary War has never been compiled.”  He ordered William Stryker, Adjutant General of the State of New Jersey, to produce such a list. The result was the Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, published in 1872. In the Register, Stryker accounted for approximately 4,505 men who served in the New Jersey Line. By 1818, 696 men, or 15%, of the Jersey Continentals Stryker identified, were alive and applied for a pension under the Act of March 18, 1818. There were an additional 87 men who applied for pensions under the Act of 1818 who were from New Jersey and did not serve in the Jersey Line but other Continental infantry units, such as those of other States like Pennsylvania and Virginia, or other corps like Pulaski’s Legion or Lamb’s Artillery. They were not included in this study.