Jeshurun Leach

Quick Facts

Date of Birth:

1760

Place of Death:

Stillwater, NY

Date of Death:

September 28, 1777

Jeshurun Leach (born 1760) of Middleborough, Massachusetts, was the youngest child born into a large extended family which adamantly supported the American Revolution. At age 16, Jeshurun followed his older brothers into the service and opted to join Colonel Thomas Marshall’s Regiment raised for the defense of Boston, in which he served for half a year until the regiment was disbanded in December.

The teenaged soldier was determined to continue the fight for the American cause, and in April 1777 he enlisted as a private soldier in Captain Eddy’s company of Colonel Gamaliel Bradford’s (14^th) Massachusetts Regiment for a three-year term. Some of Jeshurun’s Middleborough Leach family cousins who, like him, also sported Biblically-themed names, joined the company as well: 21-year-old Micah (who served in the war since the very beginning) and 16-year-old Zenas.

The cousins proceeded to Fort Ticonderoga that spring and participated in the summertime retreat during the 1777 British invasion from Canada. By mid-September, the Leaches were ready and waiting to fight against the British at Bemus Heights, located just miles north of Stillwater, New York. For his part, Jeshurun was drafted into the Northern Army’s newly-formed Corps of Light Infantry under the command of Major Dearborn.

The British made their move on September 19 and the Battle of Freeman’s Farm (First Battle of Saratoga) commenced. Although Bradford’s Regiment was not deployed to the fight, the Corps of Light Infantry was – it suffered the second highest number of casualties of any American unit that day.

Jeshurun was counted amongst the wounded and brought back to the Bemus Heights camp, where he was probably admitted to the army’s Flying Hospital. The teenaged soldier died nine days later, on September 28.