Captain William Mordaunt Bell, 2nd Regiment, N.H. Continental Line
William Mordaunt Bell was born February 22, 1758. He was the son of Meshach, Jr. and Mary (Mordaunt) Bell.
William Mordaunt Bell was commissioned as an Ensign in the 8th Continental Infantry September 6, 1776. On November 8, 1776 Ensign Bell was retained as an Ensign in the 2nd Regiment, New Hampshire Continental Line (the successor unit of the 8th Continental Infantry). Ensign Bell was promoted to Second Lieutenant on May 6, 1777. Second Lieutenant Bell became the Regimental Adjutant on August 18, 1777. William Mordaunt Bell was further promoted to First Lieutenant on December 22, 1777.
During the Continental Army’s encampment at Valley Forge, William Mordaunt Bell is listed in Captain John Drew’s Company of the 2nd New Hampshire. He is further marked as “Present” from December 1777 to June 1778.
First Lieutenant Bell was promoted to Captain on November 21, 1782 and served to the close of the war.
Sources: William Mordaunt Bell, Regimental Adjutant of the 2nd Regiment, New Hampshire Continental Line, Orderly book, 27 May-25 July 1779, (New York and Pennsylvania, 1779); Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, (Baltimore, 1914), 415; Albert H. Wright, The Sullivan Expedition of 1779: The Regimental Rosters of Men, (Heritage Books, 2008), 56-57; Selected Wartime Service Records of Captain William Mordaunt Bell.
