On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress appointed two immigrants from Germany — John Gaspar Stadler and Lt. Felix Lewis Massenbach — as Engineers for the Southern Department reporting to Major General Charles Lee. John Gaspar Stadler had come to America before 1758 and was farming in Spotsylvania County, Virginia at the time of his appointment. He would participate in the Battle of Gwynn’s Island and in the construction of fortifications in Virginia until October 1777 when he resigned from Virginia service because of unpaid salary and returned to his farm. Felix Lewis Massenbach was a young German nobleman who had recently immigrated to join the Continental Army and had been commissioned in a Maryland artillery regiment but then rode south with General Lee to work on the defenses of Charles Town, South Carolina. Massenbach would die in service in Charles Town in August 1777.

Sources: Journals of the Continental Congress at 241; Felder at 221; Wrike, Peter Jennings, The Governors’ Island, Gwynn’s Island, Virginia: Gwynn’s Island Museum (1993) at 141; https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-15-02-0037; https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000011/pdf/am11–148.pdf; https://leefamilyarchive.org/history-papers-letters-transcripts-gw-delegates-div0276/; https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc2900/sc2908/000001/000011/pdf/am11–148.pdf