Edward J. Lowell

“ Colonel von Heeringen clearly considers it far more honorable to fight in other people's quarrels than in one's own. A man who had once been a mercenary could be more readily forgiven for being a rebel. “My Lord Stirling himself is only an échappé de famille, and does not pass for a lord in England. He looks as much like my Lord Granby as one egg does like another. General Putnam is a butcher by profession. I imagine him to be like Butcher Fischer at Rinteln. The rebels desert in great numbers, and it is nothing to see colonels, lieutenant-colonels, and majors come in with whole troops of men. ”

“ The ships of war came within range of the shore and pointed their cannon at the beach. At eight in the morning the whole coast swarmed with boats. At half-past eight the admiral hoisted the red flag, and in a moment all the boats reached the shore. The English and Scotch, with the artillery, were first disembarked, and then the brigade of Colonel von Donop (the only Hessians there) . Not a soul opposed our landing. This was the second blunder of the rebels since I have been in America. ”

“ On my way home I met a great many Indians, in their war dress and carrying guns. I asked where they were going, and they shouted ‘War! War!’ which meant that they were going to battle; and this quite overcame me. I had hardly recovered when I heard skirmishing, and then the firing became heavier and heavier, until at last the noise was frightful. It was a terrible cannonade, and I was more dead than alive. About three in the afternoon, instead of my guests coming to dinner, they brought me one of them, poor General Fraser, on a stretcher, mortally wounded. ”

“ Cordial feelings had grown up in the course of three years between the Hessians and the inhabitants of Newport. General Prescott feared that some of his soldiers might wish to stay behind, and gave orders that on the day when the troops were to embark all the houses should be closed and no one, especially no woman, should be seen at a window. With bands playing and flying colors the regiments marched through the empty streets and took their places in the boats which carried them to the ships. The hostile occupation of Rhode Island was ended. ”

“ Leslie, who commanded at Princeton, had sent word that Washington was preparing to cross the Delaware, but Rall gave no serious heed. He only ordered his own regiment, which was “of the day,” to stay in its quarters. There was, indeed, ground for his feeling of security. It was known to him that no large force of Americans was left in his part of New Jersey. Washington's army lay beyond the Delaware, a ragged, half-armed mob of poor devils, who had lately been driven from state to state and from river to river. ”

“ Much of the suffering of the voyage was doubtless inevitable, and many of the recruits were already inured to hardship. But much of what they underwent was the result of wanton carelessness or grasping avarice. What shall we say of the British Quartermaster's Department, which sent these men to sea without proper food or drink? What of the Duke of Brunswick, who despatched his subjects to Canada without shoes and stockings that would hold together, and without overcoats? Men have often borne such hardships cheerfully for a cause that they understood and loved. ”

“ The protest expressed the sense which the House entertained of the danger and disgrace of the treaties, which acknowledged to all Europe that Great Britain was unable, either from want of men, or disinclination to this service, to furnish a competent number of natural-born subjects to make the first campaign. It was a melancholy consideration that the drawing off the national troops (though feeble for the unhappy purpose on which they were employed) would yet leave Great Britain naked and exposed to the assaults and invasion of powerful neighboring and foreign nations. ”

“ I cannot help saying that it is a beautiful, pleasant, and level country, and New York, although the part nearest the sea is burned down, one of the finest and most pleasing seaports that I have yet seen. For the houses are not only all built in English fashion, regular and handsome, and most of them like palaces, but are also all papered and very expensively furnished. ”

“ The negro can take the field in the place of his master, and so you do not see a regiment in which there are not a large number of blacks; and there are well-grown, strong, and sturdy fellows among them. There are, also, many families of free blacks here, who occupy good houses, have means, and live entirely in the style of the other inhabitants. It looks funny enough when Miss Negress pulls up her woolly hair over a cushion, puts a little shade-hat on her head, wraps herself in her mantle, and shuffles along the road in this finery, with a slave negress waddling behind her. ”

“ My husband was often minded to send me to the Americans, in order to get me out of danger. I represented to him that it would be worse than all that I now had to suffer, to be with people whom I should have to meet with forbearance while my husband was fighting against them. He, therefore, promised me that I should continue to follow the army. Yet I often became anxious in the night lest he might have marched away, and crept out of my cellar to look, and when I had seen the soldiers lying about the fires in the cold night, I could sleep more quietly. ”

“ Perhaps the standards were thought to belong to the Duke of Brunswick, and not to the king, who had only hired them along with their defenders; or, perhaps, Riedesel was not careful of Burgoyne's honor.
After laying down their arms, the Brunswickers passed through the American camp, where the conquering army was drawn up to receive them. Not a regiment was properly uniformed, but every man was in the clothes he wore in the fields, at church, or at the ale-house. But they stood like soldiers, in good order, and with a military appearance very striking to the German officers. ”

“ When he sent twelve thousand men to America he diminished the taxes of his remaining subjects, and though these were sad and down-trodden, though they mourned their sons and brothers sent to fight in a strange quarrel beyond the sea, we may linger for a moment regretfully over Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, for he dealt in good wares, he showed some personal dignity, and he was one of the least disreputable of the princes who sent mercenaries to America. ”

“ In support of the opinion of those who believe that the fire was set by the Whigs, is the undoubted fact that several leading Americans had advised burning New York, and that the plan had even been proposed by Washington to Congress, [2] which rejected it. On the other hand, panic and fury, stories of incendiarism, and acts of violence are almost invariable accompaniments of a great conflagration. Statements made at such a time should always be taken with the greatest caution. ”

“ After I had been taken prisoner at Yorktown, and had made the acquaintance of several French officers, a French general, then chief of the Deux Ponts Regiment, [3] asked me quite in confidence whether the Hessians were not very discontented with the English service, as it was very hard that these troops should always be employed in the most doubtful battles; that they should often be wantonly sacrificed; that they should always have the worst quarters assigned to them; that they should receive the worst provisions; that they should be improperly paid and allowed to suffer want of all sorts. ”

“ While Washington's army at Valley Forge was suffering from want of almost all the necessaries of life, the British in Philadelphia had what they needed, and spent the winter in rest, health, and gayety. They were not crowded; many houses of absent rebels being used for barracks, and some of the soldiers being quartered on the inhabitants that remained in town. The service was light. Sir William Howe, who had already asked to be recalled, was gay and easy-going. The city did not seem very full of soldiers. The Americans only so far succeeded in cutting off provisions as to make them very dear. ”

“ General Sullivan had landed on Rhode Island with a rebel army. The British and German soldiers were crowded like sheep in the town. They were worn out with continual toil, for ever since the appearance of the French fleet every available man had been busy in the intrenchments. Four frigates and two smaller vessels were burned, and one frigate and another vessel sunk, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. There was great anxiety in Newport, but on the 9th of August came relief. An English fleet of thirty-six sail, under Lord Howe, appeared off Point Judith. ”

“ It has no force when applied to a prince who, in accordance with a policy that was hereditary in his dynasty, let out his troops to the highest bidder. As to the second argument, it is true that public morality in the matter of the employment of mercenaries was and is deplorably loose. A nation engaged in a great struggle can hardly be expected not to take help where it can find it. The individual soldier of fortune has long been looked on with too much indulgence. ”

“ The Americans fought on this day with great valor, and had the advantage of superior numbers, but were without a competent general. Neither Gates nor Lincoln appeared on the field. Benedict Arnold, who had no proper command, fought with his usual reckless courage, but had not the talent of a strategist. He was severely wounded in the capture of Breymann's redoubt. It would have been fortunate for him had the wound proved mortal.
Nothing was left for Burgoyne's army but to retreat. ”

“ Colonel von Donop drew up his little army. His right flank rested on the river, near which he had placed his eight three-pounders and two howitzers. These were supported by a battalion of grenadiers and by chasseurs, who were to defend the flank and rear against troops disembarking from the shipping in the Delaware. The Hessian line extended the larger part of the way round the fort on the land side, the attack being made simultaneously from north and south. In front of every battalion stood an officer commanding sappers and one hundred men with fascines, hastily made in the woods. ”

“ This may be the case with one or another of them, but, on the whole, nature is not so extravagant with her favors. Allow me to say it, these people did not choose military service as a refuge, as the nobility generally does, nor as a house of correction for an ill-bred son who would not learn anything at the academies, as is often the case among the middle classes, but they chose this profession with the firm resolution of being zealous in every way, of serving their country usefully, and of pushing themselves forward by their merits. ”

“ Moreover, kindly nature had made all the men standing in the ranks so slender, so handsome, so sinewy, that it was a pleasure to look at them, and we all wondered at the sight of so well-made a people. . . . In truth, English America surpasses most parts of Europe in the size and beauty of its men.”
But few of the officers in Gates's army wore uniforms, and those few wore them according to their own fancy, of any sort of cloth that came to hand. Wigs large and small, wigs black, white, and gray, adorned or deformed their heads. ”

“ My astonishment increases when I remember in ancient history the wise and general aversion of our ancestors to wasting German blood for the defence of foreign rights, which even became a law in the German state. ”

“ You should have seen how lovers were torn asunder with sabre strokes, and old graybeards stood still in their despair, and at last threw their very crutches after the young fellows who were starting for the New World. ”

“ Towards nightfall, Riedesel, with seven companies of German infanfry and two cannon, advanced to Burgoyne's assistance, and attacked the right flank of the Americans, pouring in grape-shot. The English rallied and charged, and the Americans fell back, carrying off their wounded, and about one hundred prisoners. They had lost about three hundred and twenty men in the battle, and the British not far from twice that number. ”

“ On the highest point of New York Island, where a hill rises two hundred and thirty-eight feet above the level of the Hudson, the Americans had built a five-sided earthwork and called it Fort Washington. ”

“ On the other side, Lord John Cavendish reprobated the measure in all its parts, Britain was to be disgraced in the eyes of all Europe. He objected to the terms of the treaties, particular by particular, and pointed out that a body of twelve thousand foreigners was to be introduced into the dominions of the British crown, under no control of either king or parliament; for the express terms of the treaty were “that this body of troops shall remain under the orders of the general to whom his Most Serene Highness [the Landgrave] shall have intrusted the command.” ”

“ Neither among the English nor among the Germans was desertion so prevalent as among the Americans. But in saying this, one great difference must be noted. The British or German soldier could only desert to the enemy. The American militiaman generally returned to his home. The Revolutionary militia were, in some important respects, more like the clans of Scotch Highlanders in the civil wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than like modern soldiers. ”

“ This is an unbecoming trait in the character of a prince who sets himself up as a teacher of rulers. Such conduct is caused by nothing but dirty selfishness. I pity the poor Hessians who end their lives unhappily and uselessly in America. ”