Advocates for Harvard ROTC . Telephone: (978) 443-9532 11 Munnings Drive E-mail:
[email protected] Sudbury, MA. 01776 19 November 2018 From: Captain Paul E. Mawn USN (Ret.) H–1963 To: Advocates for Harvard ROTC Subject: Harvard alumni veterans of the American Revolutionary War Harvard sons as well as recently daughters have served with distinction in the United States military from the American Revolution to the current struggle for our national security and freedom in the World Wide War against Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism. Based on available records, 899 Harvard men served on active military duty during American Revolution. However diversity seems to have always been a characteristic in Cambridge since 22% of these Harvard combatants (i.e. 199) were Tories serving in the British Army or local Loyalist regiments fighting fellow Americans and one was a traitor to the Continental Army. As a work in progress, the Advocates have to date identified below 222 Harvard alumni who fought for independence from the then mighty British Empire, which represents a meaningful sample of almost 33% of the total 700 war veterans from Harvard in the Continental armed forces. As to be expected, 80% of these Crimson veterans were from Massachusetts with 9% from New Hampshire, 7 % from Connecticut and 4% from elsewhere. Furthermore, 91% of the below group were soldiers serving in state militias or the Continental Army. Of the other Continental veterans, 5 served in the Navy (including 3 surgeons),, 13 aboard Continental Privateer ships plus one alumnus who was Killed in Action and served as one of the 131 total Continental Marine Corps officers (note: a few years after the start of the War for Independence, the Continental Forces had only 65 Navy ships but almost 1,700 Privateers sailing under a Letter of Marque from the Continental Congress vs.