Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War

In Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, Friederike Baer provides a detailed examination of the role German mercenaries played in the American War for Independence. She concentrates on the experiences of the German auxiliaries that previous monographs have overlooked, telling their story through their diaries, order books, and correspondence.Baer begins by exploring Britain’s decision to hire soldiers from six principalities in the Holy Roman Empire (Anhalt-Zerbst, Ansbach-Bayreuth, Braunschweig, Hessen-Hanau, Hessen-Kassel, and Waldeck) to augment British troops in their fight against the rebelling colonists. At least 30,000 German troops served in North America, a number that, by the end of the war was more than one-third of British forces. Britain had relied on auxiliary troops from the continent in previous conflicts, most recently the Seven Years’ War, so hiring foreigners to fight with its army was not unique. Colonists, in fact, expected Britain to do that. At first, some princes were reluctant to provide soldiers if they were not fighting on the continent, and they also had concerns about the diplomatic implications of a perceived military alliance with Britain.The German volunteers thought the war would be over in a year or two, and families sometimes accompanied the troops—perhaps an indication that they intended to use their military service in North America to migrate without indentured servitude. The transatlantic crossing challenged the soldiers, with scurvy the most common ailment. After the Continental Army’s victory at the Battle of Trenton, it became obvious to the Hessians that the conflict between the Americans and the British would not be a quick one, and Burgoyne’s defeat at the Battles of Saratoga merely reinforced that view.Baer is especially effective when relating the challenges German auxiliaries faced during the conflict. British officers such as Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe saw themselves as superior to the German officers and had negative opinions of the German troops. German soldiers, meanwhile, saw the Revolution as a civil war between the colonists and the British Empire and were not always comfortable attacking civilians. Americans, in contrast, considered the British to be inciting the German troops to commit violence against them and treated the German prisoners after Trenton and Saratoga better than British prisoners because they perceived them to be involuntary volunteers. At the same time, German soldiers viewed German Americans with suspicion and as inferior.By the end of the war in 1781, German auxiliaries had been involved in all campaigns and had been subject to the whims of British commanders whose tactics they often questioned. Disease afflicted the soldiers not just during the voyage to North America but also in camps and when the British deployed them in the South. The Waldeck regiment deployed to West Florida, for example, had a particularly challenging time, as roughly thirty percent died of disease and many others became Spanish prisoners or deserted. Approximately one-fourth of the Hessians died during the war mostly due to disease or accident. Seventy-five percent of the survivors returned to Germany after the war; the rest remained in the United States and settled among other Germans in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. They either deserted during the war, following the propaganda disseminated by the Continental Congress in German to encourage desertion, or chose not to return to their principality after the war. Baer notes that it is almost impossible to determine what happened to these former Hessians as they blended in with the local population.For scholars of Pennsylvania history, four chapters are of particular interest. Chapter 8 relates to captivity following the Battle of Trenton and focuses on the prisoner of war camps in Lancaster and the Lebanon Valley. Particularly interesting in this chapter is the use of the Moravian church buildings (parsonage and chapel) at Hebron to house prisoners, perhaps as punishment for the pacifist Moravians who did not support the War for Independence. Chapter 9 examines the British Army’s activity in the Delaware Valley in the late summer and fall of 1777, noting that the Hessians had some difficulties at first because of their unfamiliarity with the terrain (and the British apparently did not share that information with the Hessian officers). This chapter describes the military activity in the area and the British occupation of Philadelphia during the winter of 1777–78 and focuses on the challenges Hessians faced in acquiring sufficient supplies to feed and clothe the troops. Chapter 10 begins by recounting the departure from Philadelphia in spring 1778 before moving on to Rhode Island and New York. Finally, chapter 13 explains captivity after Yorktown, examining what happened to the Hessian prisoners of war captured after that battle and previous ones and the process by which the Hessian troops either returned to their units and to the continent or remained in Pennsylvania. It also discusses what the people in communities that housed German prisoners, such as Reading, thought about these mercenaries.Overall, Friederike Baer has written an extremely gripping account of the adventures of German auxiliaries during the American Revolution. She has thoroughly documented her sources, with considerable use of manuscript collections at archives in the United States, France, and Germany in addition to published diaries and order books written by Hessian troops in America and their family members. By using the writings of the Hessians themselves, most notably Friederike Riedesel (wife of Hessian General Friedrich Adolf Freiherr von Riedesel) and Braunschweig surgeon Julius Friedrich Wasmus, Baer has personalized their experiences and crafted a volume that is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the American Revolution.