Philip Moses Russell was born in Portsmouth England, son of an immigrant from Oberfell in the Rhineland. A merchant, Russell made his way to the United States as a young man, settling in Philadelphia.

With the outbreak of the Revolution, he enlisted with the American forces as a surgeon’s mate, an assistant to the regiments’ medical officer, although he does not appear to have had any medical training. He served at the Battle of Brandywine and served under the direct command of George Washington at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-1778. Russell grew sick and suffered a loss of hearing and vision, leaving the service in 1780. Years later his son Moses recalled a letter to his father from Washington that would later burn in a fire. Washington wrote, according to Moses Russell that Philip had served, “with honor to himself and his country and he [Wsashington] with pleasure bore testimony to his assiduous attention to the sick and wounded, as well as his cool and collected deportment in battle.”

Russell returned to Philadelphia where, in 1780 he married Esther Mordecai, daughter of Mordecai Moses Mordecai. They had ten children.