Young Stutterheim entered the Prussian infantry at the age of fourteen. King Frederick took him into his retinue, appointed him as a lieutenant-in-chief in May 1757, and sent him to East Prussia on the 6 September, to support the Field Marshal Hans von Lehwaldt, who was standing there against the Russians. After the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf on 30 August, the aging and ill Lehwaldt had asked that the King send him somebody "either to take command of the corps or to assist him." The King sent Stutterheim. At that time (early 1758), the king wrote to Christoph von Dohna, the second in command, who had to replace the old Lehwaldt, to use Stutterheim as a middleman to influence Lehwaldt, but soon Stutterheim managed to irritate the King, Lehwaldt and Dohna. As early as the 4 March, Frederick sent a very unfriendly letter castigating Stutterheim for not sending enough information, and for not acting as he was ordered. The latter accusation was based on the fact that, according to the King's opinion, the Mecklenburg Duchy was not producing enough recruits; this complaint formed the central theme in the King's complaints about Stutterheim's defects for the remainder of the war.