Transcript for 382 Hessians in the American Revolutionary War

Here is our king who is using foreigners to burn our villages and destroy our property and take away our liberty.

Welcome to Ben Franklin's World, Federica Bear. Hi, Liz. I'm so happy to be here.

Yeah, I do remember this wonderful research day at the David Library. I started out with a much more narrow research topic. I was interested in the experiences of the wife of a German general, her name is Federico Riedezel, who published memoirs about her experiences in the war in North America. I was always fascinated with her narrative, and I thought, you know, there is a lot of research that could be done around her contextualizing her experiences. She was a member of the Convention Army, those troops that were captured as a result of the British defeat at Saratoga. So I started out with a pretty focused topic, and then as I was getting deeper into it, I realized two things. First of all, there are a lot of records available that were created by members of the German core that I don't think had really been explored previously. And then, of course, I also realized there really isn't, or there hasn't been a long time and more comprehensive study that really looks at the experiences of this German soldiers between 76 and 83 North America. So the topic got bigger and bigger, and the result years later was the book that just came out last year.

Yeah, absolutely right. I hear this all the time. People have sort of heard of the Hessians or the Germans, but I think people generally don't appreciate the role they played and how many of them went to North America. 30,000 by the early 1780-1781-82, that's about one-third of the regular British Army strength. So that's a really significant number of soldiers, not to mention civilians that also accompanied the Corps. Britain had relied on foreign troops for a long time since the middle of the 70th century. It had fought all of its foreign wars with the help of foreign accelerators. So when Britain decided to turn to German rulers for help, they really didn't do anything unusual. It was accepted practice. Many German, especially larger powers regularly rented out foreign troops. It was accepted and legal to do so. Britain decided fairly early on when it became clear that additional military power was required in North America to put down the rebellion that they would not be able to base the necessary number of troops within Britain or within other parts of the empire. So they basically resorted to again something that done before pay money and hire foreign troops that could be used abroad.

First of all, maybe it's helpful just to remind everyone that Germany as a nation didn't exist. The modern Germany was found in 1871. At that time, the German territories that were talking about all belong to the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was made up of literally hundreds of territories and states and city states of various sizes. So what the king decided to do is to approach rulers of some of these territories directly to ask them whether they will hire out to him, military units. Mentee approached rulers that had, in some cases, already offered troops to him, as early as 774, possibly, definitely in 1775. Some of these rulers had connections to him. For example, the Hereditary Prince of Brownshvikus basically ruled in Brownshvik at the time was married to the oldest sister of King George III. So there are the nasty connections as well that kind of help explain why he's reaching out to the rulers that he reached out to. So he's going to these rulers of these territories and asking them, hey, you did this before, will you once again be willing to support Britain in its effort to put down a unlawful rebellion? I should also mention that he approached other rulers in Germany, who declined. So these six that ended up hiring our troops were not the only ones that were approached by Britain to do that. Before you went to the German rulers Britain actually hoped to hire about 20,000 troops from Russia and the arena declined for various reasons. Britain also tried to hire or use what is known as the Scott's Brigade. That is a Scottish Brigade that had been in touch service for many decades. The United Provinces of the Netherlands after some back and forth finally agreed except for they said they can't be used outside of Europe so that was not particularly helpful. So that's when they started going to the German rulers.

And now my book is called Hesians. Absolutely. So my book is called Hesians because that is a label that has been used since the revolutionary times. The Americans used it to describe all German troops in British service. No matter where exactly they came from. So it is a term that we understand to mean the German soldiers generally. But it is really important to keep in mind that they in fact came from six different territories. The largest number came from the territories of Hess and Kustel and Hess and Hanau, which was separate at the time. So that's why I think that the label Hessian has been used to describe them. But of course, we have also troops from Brownstrike, Waldek, Arnold Zerbst, and Ansbach Bayoid. And if you had described a member of any of these course as a Hessian, I think they would have been offended. It's like, I'm not Hessian, I'm a Brownstriker. For us, it's a useful term, but in my book, I was very careful to only use the term Hessian when I'm actually talking about Hessian Hessians, so to speak. I wanted to be clear that we are talking about soldiers and civilians that are coming in fact for many different territories throughout the Europe.

That was very challenging. So I mentioned that Britain had hired German troops on many occasions previously, but one big difference is they had never been used outside of Europe. So this is the first time. That's also one reason I think why in Parliament, there is significant opposition to what the king is doing, hiring these foreign mercenaries as critics call them to fight with essentially civil war against fellow British subjects. The German rulers concluded these subsidy treaties basically because they needed money. You can look at the soldiers as a very valuable commodity on the European market. I have men available. You can hire them. You pay me money to do that. It was not challenging for these rulers to fill the officer corps. There were plenty of officers or veterans, all of the other German territories, by the way, who were requested to be included. They were looking to advance their military careers. So that was not that difficult, but it was challenging to base the troops. None of these rulers had these units or these regiments ready to go. That's important to keep in mind. It's not that they have thousands of men and we can just ship them off to America. What they had to do is take existing regiments or men on furlough and garrison units and so forth and use that sort of as a foundation and then fill up the regiments to the required strength. And they did this through, I'm generalizing a little bit, but typically involvement lists or local officials would have a list of young men who would technically be eligible to serve. They would call them in for inspection and measure their height and see if they're fit for service and then potentially send them off to the collecting depot to be enlisted in the court for America. All of the territories that certain kind of criteria. So you wanted these young men to be of a certain height. You wanted them, of course, be fit for a military campaign in North America. Ideally, they did not have families or dependence that depended on them. Ideally, there were not a particular value to the local economy. So there could be what we call the Spensible. Territory would be fine if they left. All of the Territories also had certain criteria that, in theory, LEDs would make them ineligible. For example, maybe an only son was about to inherit the family property, college students. Apprentices, certain types of professions or occupations are supposed to not be included in these troops because they were needed at home. In practice, that was difficult to implement because they just weren't enough eligible or dispensable men available. So ultimately, men were sent to America that on paper, these two that remained at home. These are militarized territories. I think it is not exactly surprising for families to get the call, you know, your son or you need to come and report for a service. But again, going to America and fighting on a foreign war is definitely something that a lot of these individuals and families were very unhappy about. There was resistance. Some engines didn't show up or they left the territory when the recruiting parties came around. Parents hit sons in the basement or whatever. So there's a lot of evidence of people not just saying, oh well, let us have to do this because we wanted to do it. There's resistance to this practice.

Yes, another thing to remember when this is starting, when they're doing these things, they don't know that the war is going to last as long as it did. So, Brownschweig, for example, the Duke of multiple occasions said, no one can be forced to go to America. I only want volunteers. As the war progresses and they need to send reinforcement and be placements, you know, when they're suffering significant losses to disease and combat but also captivity, it becomes harder and harder to stick to these principles. So there's no doubt that there were individuals who were in fact impressed who did go against the will. And again, who would have been more useful to use that term at home in their communities with their families.

So that's in the treaties that let's take the example of Valdek, the smallest territory, went it out, maybe a total of 1,200 men over the course of the war. But the original treaty says, we're going to make available for British service one regiment. It becomes known as a third Valdek regiment. And that has I think was 670 men and then we have some staff and artillery and all that. That unit will be made intact with its own officers, its own staff, its own musicians, servants, all of that throughout the entire war. They will fight alongside British, but these individuals are not somehow distributed across veterans or divided up or anything like that unless, of course, they are captured, which happens to many of them. They're very proudly where their own uniforms. They're very proudly identify as members of particular veterans and particular territories. They retain their own chain of command. However, important to keep in mind, the overall commander, no matter where they are on campaign or in garrison, whatever, would always be a British officer. So we have only one or two moments, essentially in the war, where a German officer will be in charge. So German officers always have to be port, essentially, to a British commander. But other than that, the units are intact, a serve alongside British, and also, of course, provincial and other kind of more irregular forces.

Oh yes, oh yes. I think many, it's not most of these people know very little about North America. You have basically no understanding what the imperial struggle or the war is about. But even the land and the people, the landscape, the continent, you will be surprised how little accurate information is available by the mid-1770s and German speaking Europe. Of course tens of thousands of Germans had immigrated to North America They had for the most put not come from the territories that are sending troops abroad so that's one reason why the information is probably limited But it also just didn't necessarily reach rule regions where many of these soldiers are coming from so they're coming to North America and they are writing about what they see their letters and diaries, and sometimes just private records in many cases material that was sent back to Europe to be published or shared amongst the quaintances. It's a huge body of information. I didn't really expect that when I started my research. These people were definitely curious. And the fact that they're describing America in such great detail by America, I mean, the British colonies in Canada also, I think, serves as evidence that a lot of what they saw was new to them and was important enough to be court and writing. One note about sources, a lot of these records penned by officers and civilian members of the Corps, for example, chaplains, surgeons, those kind of individuals, we have relatively few written records from the rank and file, so to speak. So it's always something to keep in mind. Officers are more likely to be educated, more likely to be literate, more likely to have a desire and a time to record their experiences. So we have huge amount of information and the initial impressions, I should say, are very, very positive. The first German troops then in Canada, and then that same summer, 76, a couple of the major divisions of Hessians and also Wildecker's land in New York. And there are very impressed with what they find. The landscape, the farms, they're impressed with what they describe as very high standard of living. In their minds, you know, even the humble white American lives in a nicer house than a wealthy man and Hessian. So they're really, really impressed with what they see there. They are going to be less impressed with regions like Georgia or as Florida, mainly because of the climate. The initial impressions are very favorable.

Even before the first Germans arrived in North America, the American Patriots, as we call them, used Britain's decision to send foreign quote unquote mercenaries to North America as a tool to write up the people to encourage calls for resistance and ultimately once they arrive, motivate men to take up arms. It becomes a very useful argument, again, for resistance against British tyranny. Here is our king who is using foreigners to burn our villages and destroy our property and take away our liberty. This is already happening in the spring of 76. Of course, then in July we have the declaration of independence and it is one of the lines in the Declaration of Penance. He is now sending foreign mercenaries, doesn't mention the German spy name, but it's obviously one of the grievances. So it is used in that way and it will be used in that way throughout the first campaign in the fall of 76. When you researching these American descriptions of British and fashion particularly atrocities against the civilian population or against the vanquished enemy, those kind of things. It's very difficult to know for sure what is true, what is exaggerated, what is fantasy, because there are using this to motivate people to fight against these invaders. So that's all through 76. At the same time, and that's an interesting sort of flip side, the Congress, in particular, is also very interested in enticing German soldiers to desert. So within days of German soldiers arrival in New York, the first broad sites are circulated with congressional offers of land and liberty to any Hessian soldier who puts down arms and basically leaves the forces and settles somewhere in North America. So there is two sides. On the one hand, the Hessian is sort of a monster, ruthless brutal mercenaries, and we have to defend ourselves and our women and children from this invader. But at the same time, he's also a victim of a tyrannical ruler who's selling him for money to a foreign king who is a tyrant shouldn't we welcome these poor people into our communities. So it is an interesting sort of two ways of looking at the reception.

It's true. So these German soldiers come to North America and again, very impressed with what they see. Don't really understand what the war is about. Certainly wonder why a people that is doing so well would rise up against their king. Like, what is their problem? The king has obviously treated them very well. What are they complaining about? This talk of liberty seems very abstract when you see how these people are actually living. So there is some suspicion. I think that's important to keep in mind. There's some suspicion about what this rebellion is really about. There are some German officers to speculate that it's really a handful of American men in Congress or in high positions in the army that are doing this for selfish reasons who are essentially manipulating to people to rise up against an indulgent king. So that's important to keep in mind. In other words, for the Germans, even though it looks great in America, they're not entirely sure what it would be like to live there. So your young man, you recruited into an international regiment. You come here, you're wearing you uniform. You are loyal to your ruler. You have loyalty to the officers to defend your men and your units. And you know, too, that desertion can carry a significant punishment. So it would be very challenging, I think, for many people to actually take that serious step. You also don't know how you would be treated in North America. Would you really be welcomed into the communities and have a farm and all of that? That's not the given at all to these people. So these appealed to dessert from the Congress. I think are not as successful as Congress was hoping. Ultimately, we know, of course, that over the course of the war, a good number of German soldiers deserted, but many of them basically had been prisoners of war for extended periods of time. They had lived and worked in communities and at some point decided, you know, I basically want to stay here.

Yes, they realize pretty quickly that they had to make significant adjustments. One good example is the experience of the troops in Canada, partly because of the terrain and the climate, but when they get there in a late summer of 76, Quebec really, that's where most of them will end up. They realize pretty quickly that they're not going to be able to fight in this sort of traditional 18th century European style, which is very regular with an order of batai and very linear and all of that kind of stuff. And they're being trained right away. For example, to maintain order, but at the same time, are able to make independent decisions to take advantage of the natural landscape to hide behind rocks or trees or whatever in this quote unquote wilderness. They also learned how to row boats, which was new to many of these soldiers, Quebec, not just the St. Lawrence River with its rapids, but there is many waterways that they had to constantly travel down or traverse. So learning to row these batoes they were called was something that all the soldiers had to do. So they have to get used to the weather, they have to get used to gear. So that's part of the adjustment. But yeah, they also have to adjust to fighting against an enemy who is engaged in sort of a regular or guerrilla kind of warfare. You don't know when you're sending a patrol through the woods, whether you might encounter the enemy at some point. These German soldiers also often struggle to distinguish friend from foe. That's something in a kind of civil war like conditions that is always very challenging. But how do they know when they encounter someone, whether that person is a rebel or a loyalist? And then finally, the language barrier is a major issue. Very few Germans know English at the time. It's not taught at the military academies. So there are a handful of German soldiers that had fought in Britain or had been in British service before, probably picked up some English. Handful of forward-looking soldiers. who teach themselves or with the help of maybe the sailors and crew on the vessels on the transatlantic voyage, try to pick it up as quickly as possible, but we see complaints about an inability, not just to understand the Americans, but to understand British soldiers in commanding officers. We see complaints about that throughout the entire war. That's very frustrating for many of the men.

Oh, absolutely. I think those two populations are topics that get a lot of attention in some of these diaries and letters. About Native Americans, the soldiers in Canada and the soldiers that were in West Florida pay a most attention to them. And it's not surprising because that's where Native Americans really were in greater numbers than in other parts in the British colonies. And that's where German soldiers fought alongside Native American allies and also against Native American enemies. Generally speaking, in the descriptions of Native Americans, it's embevolent. Again, on the one hand, especially in Canada, they describe as sort of a simpler, pure, more virtuous people, untouched by quote unquote civilization. And some of the Germans really admire that. They really feel like this is a nature. It's like a Russo in view. This is nature and its infancy on soldier rights. And he is very admiring. But there's the flip side too. And that is because they are quote unquote seen as simpler. They're also often described as more animal-like and therefore more violent, more unpredictable and the experience with scalping. That gets a lot of attention and German records and Germans are just absolutely shocked by the practice of scalping and the violence that in their minds is perpetuated by Native Americans against other people, including potentially allies. In other words, they're often very fearful of Native Americans because they don't really know whether they can be trusted. When it comes to enslaved people of slavery in general, anyone who wrote about it is absolutely critical of the institutional slavery. And that is an example where there are confused to the Americans people are fighting for liberty and yet they're enslaving others to do their work for them. There's a chaplain as name is Becker with a Hessian core who writes in a letter back home to Custell and Germany. He writes literally if there was a people in North America who should be fighting for their freedom, it would be black people. So there is that tension that is described black people as being exploited, treated very badly by white people and their feel pity, I think, for them. Over the course of the war, hundreds of black men, women and children would attach themselves to German military units. Their presence in German encampments was a common sight. Black men are actively recruited as musicians, particularly drummers. But they're also servants and generally helping a different world around the camp. We have a couple of instances of black men serving as privates, but that's unusual. We have black children that end up in camps. In some cases are sent to Germany, doing the war as quote unquote gifts to members of the court, for example. And we know for fact, they're probably more that at least 200 black men women and children went with a German court to Germany in 1783 and settled there.

No, they're not. Yeah, absolutely right. Most famous Trenton, Saratoga, Yorktown. That's where they show up most often in historical studies as well to this day. And yes, these are very important battles and they're also all major American victories for various reasons. and they included large numbers of Germans, but we have to think about the Battle of Rhode Island Brandywine Redbank, Monmouth, Charleston, Savannah, Gulf of Courthouse, Pensacola, to name only a few, all of these involved large numbers of German soldiers and some of them were significant British victories. Trump is important and there's no denying it. I think it's much more important to the Americans than it is to the British or the Germans because it does come at Christmas 1776 at a very crucial time in the war. I think as many of you listeners probably know, the campaign had not gone very well for the Americans in the fall of 76. The terms of enlistments were supposed to be up for many of the men under Washington at the end of the year. Morales very low. So this daring crossing of the ice covered Delaware and then the attack on a garrison basically three German regiments in winter quarters in the town of Trenton and New Jersey. That was a major feat. So as to surprise it, well, I say surprise attack. There had been rumors in the German camp that the Americans were planning something, but the commander by all accounts didn't take that seriously. And then I think there was generally agreement that Washington wouldn't dare cross the river in the middle of winter. But, of course, he did. At the time, there were maybe 1400 German troops stationed there. There were other German troops in other post-deck-bordentown, for example, in different carousels in New Jersey. Washington attacked, as troops attacked, battle didn't last that long. It was snowing approximately 1,000 of these troops ended up as American prisoners of war. So it's a victory under George Washington, which is important. Again, at a time when morale was low, it's humiliating for the British. It's definitely embarrassing for the Germans, but I think from a German perspective, it wasn't quite as devastating as Americans would like to think. First of all, capturing a thousand tensions is bad, but the number of losses is very small. I think it's fewer than 20. So that's one thing. But Germans also are able to construct a narrative that preserves their honor, so to speak. The commander of the Hessians, his name is Yohan Rael. He was mortally wounded and died. And in an investigation it took place a few years later that looked into the conduct of the German troops at Trenton, essentially pinned the blame on Rael. The surviving officers basically agreed that he was to blame for this unfortunate affair as they're called it. It's easy to do when the guy's dead couldn't defend himself. There was no doubt that the soldiers themselves had acted honorably. Again, Christmas, surprise attack, snowstorm, can then function right. In other words, they were tricked almost by the Americans that resulted into the defeat. So journals at the time and sort of the narrative becomes like, yeah, they're lost, but it's not their fault. It's a number of circumstances that explain that.

First of all, as you suggest it, but I do want to emphasize this that, yes, Yorktown, we know now, basically ends the war, but it didn't really end the war at the time. So there were shipments of several thousand German recruits that were sent to North America after Yorktown. And it's important to keep that in mind. It's not that suddenly the worst over and we no longer need these troops. Britain was preparing for additional campaigns. And the German rulers, by the way, when we're at finally beaches, that a peace treaty had been concluded or is in the works were very disappointed that the men that had been recruited for 1783 would no longer be needed. When Yorkton happened, also there are thousands of troops in New York and Canada, and also still occupying Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. There we main there into 1782. So again, this doesn't remind her that for these people, the war is not over. They are in doing pretty much what they had been doing before Yorktown. They continue to do that. When the war is finally over, basically thousands of soldiers remained prisoners of war, they're basically released and instructed to go back mostly to New York. In some cases, to Canada, if they're brown swigers, then preparation for embarkment to go back to Europe. And most of them do that, but some don't. Some will, especially if they've been in captivity for a while, maybe lived and worked in local communities, maybe married an American woman. Some of them will decide to stay behind and they just don't report back. And there's no indication that officers at that point tried very hard to retrieve them, so to speak. In some cases, Willis welcomed that certain individual stay behind men who would in their minds be essentially burdens or costly to maintain at home because maybe they had been injured or maybe they had been put to begin with or maybe they had committed some sort of crime. These people were all encouraged to stay back home. In some cases, they were literally denied passage back to Europe. Most territories did not allow individuals to just stay behind without permission. So some people again did it anyway. Others request permission. In some cases, permission was denied. If you were valuable to the military or your local community, you were basically requested to please report back home. Some soldiers took advantage of British offers for land grants in Canada and they settled there, especially in Quebec, but also in Nova Scotia and other provinces up there. I did not see any evidence that the experiences of the German soldiers motivated or planted any ideas for any kind of rebellion or revolutionary uprising resistance, if that's what you mean. I think they remained skeptical, what was really happening in America. I think these people, they were products of systems with a ruler. They're loyal to that ruler. Bebellion against that kind of system to them was just not. an option. I don't think they could conceive of it. And I would also say that the Bellian in the minds of many people back then was equated with disorder and liberty is not necessarily good thing to much freedom can lead to a lack of morals. You get German soldiers right about it and those terms as well. So I don't think it really planted any ideas and people's head. Only thing that I would mention is that I think Britain's hiring of German exiliaries in the war, a set of the beginning of the end of what some people have called the soldier trait, because it does raise questions about using foreign soldiers against your own subjects and in this case on another continent. German soldiers would be hired out until the 18 teens, so it doesn't end overnight, but it did be a significant opposition. Enough opposition to really make people wonder, is this really sustainable? Is this practice compatible with the Enlightenment and the rise of the nation states?

Aside from helping to determine the outcome of individual battles or military encounters, I think that helped prolong the war, Again, Britain's ability to draw on this resource is meant by, with the equipment, by the way, I think really help them to keep fighting for longer than they would have been able to do. Assuming that they would not have at some point resorted to raising more men at home, but I don't think they would have been able to do that. So that's one consequence. The other thing to consider, and I mentioned this earlier, is that Britain's use of these foreigners did provide the American rebels or patriots with ammunition, essentially, with another tool in their arguments for complete break with a king. Because at some point, in 76, there started literally saying, like, the king is not feeding us like his subjects anymore. He is breaking up with us, basically, by engaging his foreigners. So that was, I think, another important contribution in a sense. And the final thing I just want to mention in terms of legacy or what this means, these soldiers were really an incredible source of information for German speaking Europeans. At the time, and they remain an incredible source of information about the American war and the land of the people for us today. The volume of material is incredible that they had created official records, of course, but also private records. And I want to use this opportunity to make a little bit of a plug for thinking about these military records broadly. Much of the material includes descriptions about American customs, about American manners, about the landscape, about the war, about the army, the officer's strategy, everything. So we have to define military history very broadly to really appreciate their contributions.

No, I think the war would not have lasted as long as it did. I think it did give the British a real chance to actually put down the rebellion. And I think once you go into different regions within North America, you could probably also make the argument that they might have lost certain territories that they ended up keeping, for example, Canada. They were Quebec. As I mentioned, several thousand soldiers were sent to Quebec. We think of these soldiers mostly because some of them accompanied John Burgoy and down to Cere Togo and were captured, but thousands be mained in Canada throughout the entire war. So that by the early 80s, there were more German soldiers there than British soldiers. And they of course help preserve that province, essentially. Most of them never see combat there are there to defend this province from the Americans. So it's possible that without the presence of all these German soldiers there, who knows where would have happened to Quebec and possibly also Nova Scotia. Maybe the Americans would have dared another invasion, and maybe that one would have succeeded.

Yeah, I basically returning to Federico Vidal. She remains very fascinating. I think her book, some people know about it, but it's never been the subject of a falling study. It's been published, but no one has really clated close to and contextualized it. And because she is a member of the Convention Army, the book is, I would say, focusing on her, but it is about the Convention Army, the German portion of the Convention Army, the troops that were captured at Siratoga, I was just reading a letter yesterday by a clerk with one of the veterans who is a member of the convention army that for a while they were in and around Boston. He is lodging in Cambridge and he writes in this letter to his parents back in Germany. He's like, I'm having a great time. I'm taking classes at Harvard College. I'm going to the local taverns and I'm writing letters. It's wonderful. It's so hard for us to imagine. This is a prisoner of war. So tons of records like this, I think, really unique and full of view of what it was like in North America as a prisoner of war. So that's what I'm working on right now.

I love hearing from people. Please reach out. I do maintain a website, which is my name, FedericaBear.com, where also share these sort of random sources that I came across that have not been published. I transcribed them. I translate them. I contextualize them. So I encourage everyone to take a look. Also, you can contact me through the website. Or you can easily find me at the Penn State University website as well.

Thank you so much for having me. This is really really wonderful. See you again and having this conversation. Thank you.