Hessian

“ Some regiments did not lose a single man. So, too, with the Anspach troops; their Lieutenant-Colonels von Gall and von Kreuzburg and other officers were surprised at the light-hearted soldiers, who acted as if they were on a pleasure tour. The Prussian General von Gaudi wrote to the Elector that by order of his King he had sent clever recruiting officers to try to tempt the Hessian soldiers to leave and go into the Prussian service, but he did not succeed in getting a single man. Not a Hessian would leave his colors, for under them they were satisfied, got high pay, and were going to America. ”

“ Seume had a very comfortable time in America, thanks to the help of Lieutenant von Münchhausen. He might have become a Hessian officer, and yet he says it was difficult for any one not a nobleman to get a commission. A glance at the Hessian army list shows that this was not true, for a large proportion of the officers were plain citizens, not of noble families. At this very time Frederick of Prussia said publicly that plain citizens had not the proper feeling of honor necessary to make good officers. ”

“ But the Hessians are industrious, and the country flourished in 1781 under the Elector Frederick, a man of kindly nature and the best intentions, and yet many foreigners criticise him unfairly. Why should a Swiss object to a crowned head? The government is as well suited to the country as a republic to Switzerland, and even there no one has more personal freedom than the Hessian citizen. People and country are unusually attractive. No men were ever finer than the Hessian soldiers ”

“ As early as 1760 the Hessian troops took the oath under the Hessian constitution, but the Prussian and Brandenburg people were helplessly bound to the nobility and princes as chattels down to 1808, and it was not until 1848 that the Prussian constitution, as the outcome of a revolution, gave the people the protection which the Hessians had always enjoyed. ”

“ Kapp says that pay for wounded soldiers began in the treaty with Brunswick in 1776, although it was implied in the Hessian treaty at the time of the war of the Spanish Succession that three wounded men counted the same as one dead man, at about 51 thalers at modern rates. It is true that there were such provisions in the earlier Brunswick and Hanau Treaties, but Schlieffen had them struck out of the new Hessian Treaty of 1775. Dead men were replaced by living men and the injured and disabled by well men, while the latter went into the Invalid Corps and were duly cared and provided for. ”

“ One of his tory neighbors, who professed the deepest sympathy for his feelings, procured for him the countersign for the night. He had thus been enabled to elude the vigilance of the sentinel.
When arrived at his mother's dwelling, Mr. Israel found that it was in possession of several soldiers, quartered upon the family. Among them was a savage-looking Hessian, with aspect of itself quite enough to terrify timid women. ”

“ We were among the paid Hessians, whom we ever hated more than the British for coming to fight us in a quarrel that was none of theirs.
The Hessians, even with their intrenchments and cannon, could not stand before us—nor do I think they are as good as we. Perhaps our hatred of these mercenaries swelled our zeal, but their intrenchments were no barrier to us. For a space we fought them hand to hand, knee to knee; then they gave way. I saw their slain commander fall. Some fled, some yielded; others fought on, retreating. ”

“ The soldiers received the high English pay without deduction, often in gold, as is shown by reports, pay lists, and money accounts. The exceptions to the advantage of the war-chest were very rare, and for these the troops gained in a larger proportion at home. The wealth of the Hessian army in America is shown by the fact that in the first three and a half years of the war the common soldiers sent home through the regular channels some 600,000 thalers, and at least two or even three times that amount by mail or other facilities. The idea of a sale of these troops is absurd and ridiculous. ”

“ The Elector to the last day of his life made provision for the disabled soldiers. Such charges are made by Germans who ought to go to the Hessian archives and there find the truth. A fair statement ought to satisfy the modern reader that the great majority of American citizens of our own day have little in common with the perjured Yankees of the Revolution, and are, indeed, descendants of the men who fought against, rather than of those who fought for independence. ”

“ The author is clearly a champion of the lost cause, and seeks to justify it by rewriting the history of Hesse and Prussia of a hundred years before. He aims at elevating the claims of the Hessian electoral family in the eyes of their former subjects and of the rest of the world, and in depreciating the part taken by Prussia both at the time of the American War of Independence and in enlarging its own borders and increasing its power at the expense of the small sovereign states of Germany, whose princes opposed the aggression of Prussia and its claim to control the whole of Germany. ”

“ The Hessians, in particular, being entirely mercenary, and influenced by no feelings of sympathy, plundered, burned, and destroyed every thing that came in their way, without discriminating between friend and foe. ”

“ Prussia clung to her rival federal union. A bone of contention was furnished by the little State of Hesse. The Archduke of Hesse, the most reactionary of German princes, had resumed his rule with the help of his hated Prime Minister, Hassenpflug. Hessians resist despotism The financial budget of this Minister was disapproved by the Hessian Estates. Hassenpflug now dissolved the Assembly and proceeded to levy taxes without its sanction. The people refused to pay. The courts decided against the government. Even the soldiers and their officers declined to lift a finger against the people. ”

“ Their ambition consists in an endeavour to make themselves as tall as their husbands, who are the highest of the high Germans. Yet the fineness of the race makes more deplorable their poverty-stricken aspect, which is evident at once to one who enters a Hessian village from any of the neighbouring states. ”

“ His Parliament was anxious to hasten the payment of the balance due by England, which had only of late quickened its remittances. Without a new English alliance it would be long before the country could recover from the exhaustion of the Seven Years’ War. Prussia had recouped its exhausted treasury by the booty of the Polish division in 1772. England’s offer could not be refused. At that time Hesse was tempted by an offer of a share of the Polish treasure in return for a loan of Hessian troops to Prussia, which it sturdily rejected. ”

“ Carefully did the fleet tack during the night because the water was becoming ever more shallow. On the next morning, the 12th of August, an English squadron of 24 vessels was seen from the ocean and this, after a few hours, united with the fleet, following the mutual greeting by means of a definite number of shots. Among the new arrivals was also Major General von Mirbach with the troops which also belonged to the first Hessian Division, and which did not take to the transport ships at Bremerlehe until four weeks after the embarkation of Heister, and then had waited for a favorable wind. ”

“ A letter which has frequently been published, purporting to be written at this time by a Prince of Hesse-Cassel to a Baron Hohendorf, or Hogendorff, commanding Hessian troops in America, is a clumsy forgery.—Kapp's “Soldatenhandel,” 2d ed. pp. 199-201 and 255. ↑ The only dissenting voice is that of Ewald, who excuses Rall, and lays the blame on the officer of chasseurs (Grothausen) who should have discovered the enemy. Ewald also blames Donop for having been decoyed from Bordentown to Mount Holly, and out of supporting distance of Trenton, by false reports. ”

“ The Germans and Hessians.—Their Arrival at Cambridge and wretched Appearance.—Kindness of the People.
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pieces of ordnance. There were four thousand six hundred and forty-seven muskets, and six thousand dozens of cartridges, besides shot, carcasses, cases, shells, &c. Among the English prisoners were six members of Parliament. *
Cotemporary writers represent the appearance of the poor German and Hessian troops as extremely miserable and ludicrous. They deserved commiseration, but they received none. They came not here voluntarily to fight our people ”

“ The Hessians have long distinguished themselves by bravery and military spirit, which leads to hardiness, patience, and contentment with little. Among the North Germans, those who live on the sea-coasts seem to me the rudest and most different from the South Germans ”

“ The German historian Schlosser, with equal indifference to the truth, charges the Elector with putting in his own pocket the money earned with blood and wounds and life by the brave Hessians in the Seven Years’ War, and that given as compensation for the injury done his country and its capital, making no return to the poor sufferers, and that the American war produced still worse results,—neither the English pay nor the money for wounds received by the soldiers enriched anybody but the Prince. ”

“ It may not be without interest to students of history to have a brief summary and statement of the defence of the Hessians and their princes, who ever since our Revolutionary War have been the subjects of obloquy and treated with lofty scorn and contempt. ”

“ The Seven Years’ War had enlisted England’s rich help in men and money. A powerful army of one hundred thousand men, composed of English soldiers, of twenty-four thousand Hessians, of Hanoverians and Brunswickers, enabled Frederick of Prussia to continue a resistance which otherwise he could not have maintained for two years. The North German states were not Prussian vassals, but allies of England for a hundred years, on the basis of common political aims. ”

“ The Hessians.—The bitter partisan feeling during the war has led to a widespread misrepresentation of the share which the Germans took in the Revolutionary War. The employment by England of some thousands of mercenaries recruited in Anspach and Hessia against the American colonies has been extended to include all Germany, regardless of the fact that there was no more ardent supporter of the cause of the colonists in Europe than the King of Prussia. The Hessians were sold to Great Britain at so much per head by their ruler. ”

“ The Hessians, under command of two officers who had probably caught sight of the Russians before we did, put themselves in order of defence.
At this moment we saw a Grenadier of the line pass near to us, running to take rank among the Hessians; we prepared to do the same, but Daubenton, hampered by Mouton, wished to put him in the waggon. We had not time, however, for the cavalry came at a gallop alongside the Hessians. There they halted, signing to them to lay down their arms. A musket-shot was the reply; it was that of the French Grenadier, followed by a general discharge from the Hessians. ”

“ THE HESSIANS. The British Government, during the course of the war, procured some foreign troops from one of the German Principalities upon the Rhine, mostly from Hesse-Hamburg. This foreign legion was under the command of General Baron de Reidesel, of their own country. It would seem from the testimony of their descendants in Marysburgh, that the British Government employed the men from the Government of the principality, and that the men did not voluntarily enter the service, but were impressed. These Hessians were drilled before leaving their country. ”

“ The terrors of invasion are things which now-a-days imagination can scarcely compass. But then, it was rugged reality. The unbridled passions of a mercenary soldiery, compounded not only of the brutal element that forms the vigor of every army, but of the ferocity of Hessians, hired and paid for violence and rapine, were let loose on the land. ”

“ He was sent to take Fort Mercer. Donop started on the 21st of October, 1777, with three battalions of grenadiers, a regiment of infantry, four companies of chasseurs, and twelve mounted chasseurs, all Hessians, eight field-pieces belonging to the regiments, and two English howitzers. He is said to have asked for more artillery, and to have been told in reply that if he could not trust himself to attack the fort, the English would take it. “Tell your general,” replied Donop to the officer that brought him the message, “that Germans are not afraid to face death.” ”

“ Hesse, and later Brandenburg Prussia, made service compulsory, and thus, in the years that followed the Thirty Years’ War, filled their armies with their own subjects. Still, voluntary enlistments continued and do so still. But no country cared for the enlisted man and for his protection from acts of violence at the hands of officers as Hesse-Cassel did, and yet no country has been so much blamed for its dealing with its soldiers. Personally, the Elector was opposed to all enlistments, both at home and from outside, and he tried hard to limit it after the close of the Seven Years’ War. ”

“ In Hesse, to the west of us, where the Landgrave William had been the first of all German Princes to throw in his lot with the Swedes and defy the Emperor, it awoke such a shout of jubilation and vengeance as crossed even the Werra; while from the Saxon lands to the east of us, which this victory saved from spoliation, and punishment, came an answering cry of thankfulness and joy. Even in Heritzburg it stirred our blood. It roused new thoughts and new ambitions. We were Protestants; we were of the north. Those who had fought and won were our brethren. ”