report44Wust3348 .pdf

MILITARY IMMIGRATION FROM GERMAN LANDS

1776-1783

s the last German emigrants were on

their way to Philadelphia and

Baltimore in 1775, the transport of

another type of Germans was under discussion

in London. Once the British government

had resolved to use force against the

American rebels, it became clear to military

as well as political leaders that the British

army was too small to subdue the rebellious

colonists. Various schemes were considered.

In view of the considerable number of

German settlers in several of the colonies,

proposals were made to hire Russian troops.

Major General Henry Clinton endorsed this

project: "We must be reinforced, not with

Germans (I fear they will desert)," but with

Russians whom he called "my friends" and

since they had "no language but their own:

they cannot desert." However, according to

the report of the British envoy in Berlin,

attempts to obtain 20,000 men from

Empress Catherine failed, in part because

Frederick II of Prussia intervened.

As soon as the British interest in foreign

soldiers became known, former officers

who had been idle since the Seven

Years' War offered their service to recruit

individuals for British service. In the summer

of 1775 the Hannoverian colonel

Albrecht von Scheither obtained a business

contract for signing up 2,000 men at £10 a

head. He hired fellow ex-officers as

recruiters but due to simultaneous solicitations

for other armies and the massive

recruiting from 1776 on by German princes

to fill the ranks of units needed for their

treaties with Britain, Scheither never

reached his goal. By late September 1776 he

had gathered 1,738 men, who were accepted

by Colonel William Faucitt, the British officer

in charge of inspecting foreign units.¹ When

German princes later concluded treaties to

make entire regiments available, such

private military business were no longer

needed. Besides some former officers,

looking desperately for income from such

business, at times turned out to be less than

trustworthy. Ex-major Heinrich Emmanuel

Lutterloh, whose earlier plans to find settlers

for East Florida and Nova Scotia had not

materialized, reportedly had permission

from Count Johann Ludwig of Wittgenstein

to recruit men for British service but he

suddenly vanished, leaving debts behind

amounting to 7,292 gulden.²

Despite some apprehensions, the

British had begun early in 1775 to look for

auxiliary troops from German principalities.

Indeed, offers had come from the count of

Hanau in August and from the duke of

Braunschweig-Luneburg in September 1775

before any official British move was made,

prompting Edmund Burke of the opposition

in parliament to remark that German princes

had already "snuffed the cadaverous taint of

lucrative war." Colonel Faucitt in Hannover

was given the task of negotiating the treaty

with Braunschweig and then proceeding to

Kassel to find out if the Hessian government

could be persuaded to furnish troops for

generous subsidies and a levy per man.

Although the landgrave of Hessen-Kassel

had not sought such a contract, the British

conditions were enticing enough for the

Hessian negotiator, Martin Ernst von

Schlieffen, to offer 10-12,000 men, twice as

many as Faucitt had been asked to secure.

The treaty was concluded in February but

Military Immigration______________

back-dated to January 15, 1776, to extend

the subsidy and cause the landgrave to

speed up the mobilization of about 12,500

soldiers. Three other German states,

Waldeck (750 men), Braunschweig (4,000)

and Hessen-Hanau (900), signed similar

treaties. By early February the British were

assured of more than 18,000 officers and

men.

Toward the end of the year an agreement

was reached with Margrave Alexander

of Ansbach-Bayreuth for a force of 1,160

men. Finally in September 1777 the duke of

Anhalt-Zerbst also concluded a subsidy

treaty for a contingent of the same size. In

1777 the number of soldiers in several

treaties was revised upwards and as late as

1781/82, 2,988 replacements were furnished

by Ansbach-Bayreuth, Anhalt-Zerbst

and Hessen-Kassel to make up for losses in

the forces.³

The subsidy treaties were no secret

undertakings. The English and German versions

of the ones involving Hessen-Kassel,

Hessen-Hanau and Braunschweig-Luneburg

were openly published in Frankfurt

and Leipzig in 1776. As they were debated

in Parliament in London, James Luttrell, a

member of the opposition who had himself

spent many years in America, rose on

February 25, 1776, to remind his colleagues

of the presence of many Germans in the

colonies: "I apprehend that ministry now

apply to Parliament for seventeen thousand

Germans to send to America. Good God, for

what end? To enslave a hundred and fifty

thousand of their own countrymen, many of

whom fled from tyrants to seek our protection."

Luttrell then gave a vivid description

of the major German settlements and added

to his account of the American Germans

"that the encouragement for them to quit

their own country and become settlers in

America was so great, so very great, that the

German princes found it absolutely necessary

to make it death by their laws to carry

any more of them out, and the Palatine ships

that used so frequently to convey them have

of late years ceased to arrive at the ports of

our colonies." His speech culminated in

remarks expressing fears that were shared

by many other Englishmen familiar with the

scene:

I think it an excellent opportunity for

our hired troops to desert, because

they will most likely be offered

lands, and protection. These warlike

transports we are to fit out may then

be considered as good as the Palatine

ships for peopling America with

Germans.4

A few days earlier, the Saxon envoy in

The Hague, J. P. I. Dubois, in a report to

Dresden voiced the same opinion about the

subsidy treaties "as a new emigration for the

benefit of the colonies since you can assume

ahead of time that these troops will be

lost."5

In early January 1776 the Philadelphia

Staatsbote printed a letter which Henrich

Miller, its editor and an ardent supporter of

the revolutionary cause, had received from

Germany. The writer consoled his countrymen

in America about German soldiers to

be sent over in the crown's service by

asserting that once in America they would

throw away their arms and take up the

ploughs. It was not until the May 7th issue

that Miller informed his readers of the news

of the actual hiring of these troops to which

he added the question: "Oh George! Are

these your messengers of peace?"6 As soon as

copies of the first subsidiary treaties had

reached Philadelphia in May, Congress

began to debate whether to offer special

enticements to Germans willing to desert.

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On June 1st the first soldiers from

Hanau and Braunschweig landed at Quebec

where they witnessed the withdrawal of

American troops who had besieged the city.

Meanwhile crack units of the Hessian army

had left Kassel on May 11th for Karlshafen

where they were loaded on boats for the

journey down the Weser to Bremerlehe.

After inspection by Col. Faucitt, they were

taken to Gravesend and transferred unto

chartered vessels which sailed in convoys

across the Atlantic. On August 17th they

arrived at Sandy Hook on Staten Island.

Within a few days the Hessians were

involved in successful combat on Long

Island, and a month later New York was in

British hands, leaving the recently arrived

German soldiers with rather negative

impressions of the American rebels.7

Immediate attempts were nonetheless

made to attract Hessians over to the

American side. As soon as the debarkation

of the Hessians was known, Congress had

passed a resolution to accept foreigners

from the royal armies and to grant them fifty

acres of land each if they wanted to become

citizens of the new nation. German versions

of the offer, signed by John Hancock, were

dashed off to George Washington for distribution.

Copies were soon found scattered on

roads or as wrappers with tobacco inside— a

special lure suggested by Benjamin Franklin.

The Hessian commander in his report to

Kassel cited this as typical treachery and as

an example of the "upside-down" thinking

of the rebels.

The widely expected defection of

German soldiers did not occur in 1776. The

first units shipped to America were largely

composed of professional soldiers, many of

whom had been in service for years.

Moreover, the hasty withdrawal of rebel

forces from the St. Lawrence and the initial

success of the British and Hessian armies in

the New York area would have been discouraging

even if some soldiers might have

wanted to get away once they were on

American soil. The number of desertions

recorded by the Hessian command remained

low: 66 in 1776 and 109 in 1777.8

In order to fulfill their treaty obligations,

the principalities involved had to

recruit many young men who were not their

subjects. Hessen-Kassel was given permission

by several neighboring states and imperial

cities to enlist within their jurisdictions.

Recruiting methods in the 18th century were

widely known for their complete disregard

for the person. There are contemporary

sources describing tricks and bribery. Many

were seduced with strong drinks to bring

them into the recruiting station. One of the

victims, Johann Gottfried Seume, a nineteen-

year-old university student, found himself

surrounded by a "human medley," fellows

from such distant places as Jena, Vienna,

Hannover, Gotha, Wurzburg and

Meiningen.9 After his return to Germany

Seume became a well-known poet and the

story of his service in America received

much attention. There were some men who

had volunteered to escape something in

their lives. Others did so in order to give

themselves to the adventure of seeing the

New World. After the arrival of the new

units, the Hessian headquarters in America

sent an assessment of the additional, largely

non-Hessian recruits back to Kassel: "Many

of them may have intended to take advantage

of the chance of free passage to this

country, and finally to quit Europe. They

would have had to work about four years to

pay the cost of their crossing." While such

reports echoed the statements made in

Parliament and in diplomatic circles at the

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outset of the use of subsidiary troops, there

is little proof that there were many soldiers

who had obvious plans for settling in the

colonies. Nor is there any record of encounters

with relatives in the first year.

The main impetus for defection came

from defeated units which found themselves

as prisoners of war in the hands of the rebel

army. For Hessian troops, of whom 868

rank-and-file soldiers had been captured at

Trenton on December 26, 1776, captivity

meant their first real contact with the

American Germans. After they were

marched to Pennsylvania the Americans

decided to farm them out for work instead

of keeping them in guarded camps.

According to detailed lists which have been

preserved, 397 Hessians were released

between September 10 and November 20,

1777, to work for farmers and craftsmen.

Most of their temporary employers were

Germans in and around Lancaster, Reading,

York and Lebanon. A dozen men, most of

them from the artillery company, were sent

to the Cornwall Iron Works where they

became instrumental in improving the quality

of cannons produced for the American

army. Later on thirty-nine prisoners of the

Hessian regiment von Knyphausen were

sent to Mount Hope in New Jersey to work

for ironmaster Joh. Jacob Faesch. They had

evidently agreed to being hired as indentured

servants to escape the awful treatment

they had experienced in Philadelphia jails.

Printed appeals to desert were increasingly

effective among the still active units

as they had more time to observe the obvious

prosperity of the local populations, both

in the rebellious colonies and in loyal

Canada. The American general Israel

Putnam issued a proclamation at White

Plains in November 1777, urging the

Germans to abandon the British cause and

"lead useful and peaceful lives among the

free men of America."10 Among the auxiliary

units in the province of New York at that

time were regiments from Braunschweig

which comprised numerous soldiers from

other German lands. The official rolls list

men from Brandenburg, Wurttemberg,

Hessen-Darmstadt, the bishopric of Mainz,

Alsace, the Palatinate, Thuringia and

Saxony and many other areas. Individual

desertions began in considerable numbers

late in 1777 after the battle of Saratoga.11

The British retreat from Philadelphia in

1778 was accompanied by the defection of

more than 235 Hessians from their units

during the march. Reporting to the

Landgrave in July, General von Knyphausen

referred to the heavy desertion:

The cause of this, so far as I can

guess, is that printed leaflets were

spread amongst the men in a secret

manner, in which each man who

would desert and settle here in the

country was promised a quantity of

land, two horses, one cow, and similar

encouragements. Also those who

were exchanged from captivity have

made such glowing descriptions of

the regions there, and how well they

have been received....12

In predominantly German communities

in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia

individual soldiers found acceptance by

local people once the prejudice against

"Hessians" was overcome through personal

contact. In many places, particularly in the

western parts, deserters were harbored by

their established countrymen. Although the

saying "Du verdammter Hess" (you damned

Hessian) remained alive for a long time in

German settlements, the common soldiers

often overcame the barriers. For the offi-

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cers, who almost to a man showed no inclination

to change sides, there remained the

impression of enmity, which was often

mutual. Hessian lieutenant Andreas

Wiederholt found most of the American

Germans "of the lowest class." Even those

who offered hospitality "remain raw and

unrefined German peasants. They are

steeped in the American idea of Liberty but

know nothing of what liberty really is and

are therefore worse than all others and

almost unbearable." Army captain Johann

Ewald described his experience in Maryland

with less bias: "This region is well cultivated,

the inhabitants are mostly Germans but have

a very bad opinion of us." Ewald then

mentions his encounter with an old woman

sitting in front of her home whom he asked

for a glass of water. She answered in a true

Palatine dialect:

I shall give you water, but I must

also ask you, what have we done to

you? You Germans come here to

ruin us and to chase us from our

homes. We have heard enough of

your plundering, you will do the

same here as you did in New York

and New Jersey, but you will be punished

for it.13

One spectacular example of solidarity

of local Germans with a soldier from

Braunschweig in the early days of the war

has been recorded in a diary and in letters

preserved in the army archives. The musketeer

Andreas Hasselmann deserted from an

outpost of his regiment near Quebec in June

1776. After he was captured, the commander,

General von Riedesel, ordered his execution

by firing squad. The order was well

publicized to set an example for others who

might have the same intention. Fourteen

German-born residents of Quebec intervened

on Hasselmann's behalf. They signed

an appeal which was delivered by one of

them directly to Riedesel on August 27th.

Two days later the general informed the

Quebec Germans of having granted a pardon

"although he deserved death." In order

to impress the troops, though, the entire execution

ceremony was staged on September

4th. Hasselmann's pardon was read only

moments before the firing. He was freed

from arrest and served with his regiment

until the end of the war, when he received a

discharge in June 1783 to remain in Canada.14

In 1778 the Hessian command tried to

use executions as a deterrent for others. In

August a soldier was hanged for leaving an

outpost and in October another one who had

left his unit in Newport was executed. Later

some Hessian commanders commuted the

death sentences of other deserters to running

the gauntlet, but in Canadian garrisons

Indians were sent after deserters with orders

to bring back their scalps the next day. In

March 1782, three Hessians caught beyond

the lines were shot dead. Although the

Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth had instructed

the commander August Valentin

von Voit to replace the death penalty with

imposing the gauntlet "since I want no soldier

to be sentenced to death," the desertions

became so frequent that in 1780 members

of the Ansbach troops were executed

by firing squads in order to set a warning

example.15

Meanwhile the American endeavors to

lure Germans of the conventional army over

to their side continued. Since many soldiers

were afraid to join the rebel armies outright,

special offers were made to exempt them

from military service. On February 3, 1781,

when the main theater of the war appeared

to be in Virginia, Governor Thomas

Jefferson issued a proclamation in Rich-

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mond which expressed the true feelings of

the American cause more than any other

appeal to the subsidiary troops. While referring

to the earlier resolution of the

Continental Congress, Jefferson stressed the

willingness of the states "to extend the protection

of the Laws to all those who should

settle among them of whatsoever nation or

religion they might be." He did not conceal

the feelings of the revolutionary movement

about the disgraceful "Foreign Princes" and

their "habit of selling the blood of their people

for money. Besides promises made by

Congress to those who decided to stay "in a

Country where many of their Friends and

relations were already happily settled," the

governor pledged to those leaving the

enemy armies in Virginia "a further donation

of two Cows, and an exemption during

the present War." If they continued to live in

the state, they were exempted from all warrelated

taxes, "and from all Militia and

Military Service.16

The British surrender at Yorktown on

October 19, 1781, was for all involved the

clear signal that the Americans—with considerable

assistance from the French—were

prevailing in this war. For several months

afterwards there were skirmishes, but

important places like Savannah, Georgia,

were still firmly in British hands. On

February 20, 1782, the rebel governor of

Georgia, John Martin, with the consent of

the Executive Council, issued a proclamation

from his temporary seat at Ebenezer in

which the state offered a piece of land of

200 acres free of any costs, a good cow and

two breeding hogs to every soldier leaving

the English service. In March the Hessian

commander, Friedrich von Porbeck, sent a

report to the ministry in Kassel with which

he enclosed a copy of the governor's proclamation

in German, "which the Rebel gener-

al Wayne has disseminated in our garrison

by slatternly women from Ebenezer."17

Colonel Alured Clarke in Savannah

wrote to his superior General Leslie that the

Hessian regiment von Knoblauch had been

stationed there too long and there were

many deserters. Leslie, in a report to

General Henry Clinton, the chief of the

royal armies, explained why he found it

necessary to withdraw the Hessian regiment:

"I am sorry to observe that when the

Hessian Troops are sent to out Posts

Desertion takes place, they being so long

here has been the means of their forming too

many connections." The "connections" were

indeed responsible for most defections.

One of them was with women, but it was

most frequently not with the "slatternly"

ones. There are numerous stories of

German soldiers, some while they were still

prisoners of war, who became attached to

local girls and their families. The records

kept by the Rev. G. C. Cöster, who served

two Hessian regiments as chaplain, contain a

number of notations of marriages to

American women who were pregnant.

Cöster cites the responsibility some soldiers

felt for mother and child.18

The use of deserters from German subsidiary

units in the American forces was a

problem because many rebel officers considered

them generally unreliable. George

Washington even thought they might cause

his own soldiers to desert whenever the fortunes

of war seemed to be in favor of the

British. For him, men who readily changed

sides "have given proof of a treacherous disposition,

and who are bound to us by no

motives of attachment." Washington's view

of defectors changed when two young

ensigns of Hessian regiments, Carle Friedrich

Fuhrer and Carl Wilhelm Kleinschmidt

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convinced him of their enthusiasm for the

American cause. He supported their plan to

organize a separate corps of deserters and

prisoners of war in a letter to Congress on

August 18, 1778. Eleven days later

Congress resolved, 'That a new corps of

troops be raised by the name of the German

volunteers, to consist of such deserters from

the foreign troops as shall be disposed freely

to enlist therein." Both ensigns were to be

given "for the present the pay of captains in

the service of the United States...."19

Washington had been impressed by

Fuhrer's attitude and he had received good

reports about him from Virginia. The bright

young man had been taken prisoner at

Trenton in December 1776, where he

received a personal parole. Fuhrer spent

most of the time in Dumfries, a seaport in

Virginia, until a prisoners' exchange was

negotiated in 1778. When he and Kleinschmidt

were returned to their regiments in

New York, they applied immediately for

permission to resign their commission,

which was granted on condition that they

should not enlist in American forces.

Unwilling to submit to this restriction, they

hired horses and crossed over to the

American lines at White Plains on August

7th. They expressed their motivation while

claiming that they had not deserted as prisoners

but waited until they could resign

their commissions in a public statement. In it

they also stated:

Whenever a Prince undertakes to sell

his Subjects to a Foreign Power for

infamous and wicked purposes,

without their knowledge or consent,

we are of the opinion, such subjects

have a right to vacate the contract as

soon as opportunity offers.20

The recruiting efforts of the two officers

turned out to be a failure. A number of

Hessian, Braunschweig and Ansbach soldiers

volunteered but not enough to make a

separate corps a reality. Some, like Fuhrer

himself, were assigned to the Pulaski

Legion, others to Armand's Legion. A former

Prussian officer, Major Bartholimew

Van Heer, organized a band of light dragoons

as a provost guard which consisted

largely of Germans, including deserted

Ansbachers and Hessians. It became

Washington's mounted bodyguard and

served as such until the end of the war.

There were also German deserters in state

and local militia units. Fuhrer himself

returned to Virginia, where he was offered a

position with the state cavalry and promoted

to the rank of major. Kleinschmidt, his

erstwhile companion, obviously had a

change of mind. In June 1780, he wrote to

his former Hessian commander asking for

forgiveness because-as he claimed- he had

been duped by Fuhrer, who had also cheated

him of his money. He never received a

reply and was last reported to have been

taken prisoner by the British at Yorktown.21

When the war ended, all those who had

been impressed by the obvious advantages

life in North America offered to the common

man and who had not defected had to

decide seriously whether they wanted to

stay or return home For those who had

wives and children it was a question of

whether they could find the means and

receive the permission to return to America

with their families afterwards. A few stayed

anyway. Daniel Arnd of the Ansbach-

Bayreuth troops took the oath of allegiance

in Winchester, Virginia, in June 1783, leaving

his wife alone in Ansbach. The Ansbach army

surgeon Sigismund Friedrich Arnold settled

in Nova Scotia, deserting his wife and his

daughter, who was born after he had left for

America.

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The commanders of the German subsidiary

troops now had to keep their units

together and, above all, gather up all those

who had been made prisoners and were

scattered on work assignments over a wide

area. The Americans had renewed the

inducements for those who wanted to stay.

They were given the choice of joining the

continental army or taking up farming on

200 acres of land with the gift of one cow

and two hogs. When there was not the

expected response, the Americans began to

charge them for food and lodging as long as

they did not return to their units for repatriation.

The Hessian high command made

considerable efforts to contact all prisoners

and supplied those they located with clothing

and money until their exchange could be

negotiated.

When the captive troops of Lord

Cornwallis' army were released and

marched toward Staten Island for embarkation,

240 men deserted along the way. A

last, vain attempt was made to gather

Hessians employed in New Jersey and

Pennsylvania, but soldiers who had been

indentured by local people were no longer

considered prisoners of war, and the

American War Council had no more jurisdiction

over them. The release depended on

the contractors and on the intention of the

soldiers. If the latter wanted to return to

Germany, a cash payment of thirty pounds

Pennsylvania currency per man was

required. The negotiations with ironmaster

Joh. Jacob Faesch at Mount Hope in New

Jersey, were particularly difficult. Faesch,

known as a hard taskmaster, refused to

release them at the end of the war because

he considered their indentures as civil contracts

which had to be fulfilled. Two of the

men had enough cash to pay Faesch and free

themselves, eight escaped and joined their

units in New York. The Hessian army

redeemed twenty-one men with cash. Only

six soldiers chose to remain at the iron

works. By August 12, 1783, the embarkation

date for the first contingents of the

Hessian army, no more efforts were made to

gather ex-prisoners.

There was no provision under which

the Hessian command could have legally

released any Hessian subjects from enlistment.

Article 13 of the subsidy treaty

expressly forbade any of them to settle in

America without the landgrave's approval.

As to subjects of other states in the Hessian

forces, soon after Yorktown Colonel

Ludwig von Wurmb suggested to the Kassel

authorities that they be allowed to stay in

America "if they so desire, otherwise they

will desert and take their rifles with them."

Wurmb saw good opportunities especially

for craftsmen. There is no record of any

official reaction to his proposal.22

A letter dated February 8, 1783, from

Duke Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand of Braunschweig

to the commander of his corps in

America reveals the rarely mentioned fact

that convicts had been included in the units.

Major General von Riedesel, who had been

given namelists of "delinquents and criminals"

when the troops embarked for

America, now was reminded that they were

to be "now and ever excluded" from the

return to the fatherland.23 The duke also

made it easier for others who wanted to

remain in North America, mainly because

he could not maintain so many troops at

home in peacetime. All those unfit for

future service were simply to be left behind.

Subjects of other states, both officers and

common soldiers were even to be encouraged

and given a bounty to settle in the

colonies remaining under the British crown.

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Close to 600 Braunschweig soldiers availed

themselves of the opportunity in Canada.24

The regiment of Ansbach-Bayreuth

left 680 men behind, many of whom had

quit their units while they were prisoners in

Winchester, Virginia, and in Frederick,

Maryland. Captain Philipp von Molithor,

who had married an American woman without

the required approval of the margrave, was

placed under arrest but released once the

troops had embarked for Germany. He led a

group of discharged soldiers from various

German regiments who were moving to Nova

Scotia together with loyalists. Molitor

received 700 acres, the common soldiers

100 acres each in Annapolis county.25

The troops from Hessen-Hanau also

provided more than 400 settlers to the

remaining British colonies in 1783 after

having lost numerous deserters in the rebel

states. Colonel Joh. Christoph Lentz of the

Hanau Rangers wrote to his command in

July that he felt "honour bounds" to dismiss

all those who had joined under the promise

of settlement in North America before his

unit embarked for Europe. Many Hanauers

stayed in Quebec, but others took part in the

westward movement into Upper Canada.

Several of these ex-soldiers eventually went

south to areas in the United States where

they had established contacts earlier.

Captain Sigmund Hugget, a Hanau officer

from Colmar in Alsace, obtained an official

pass to move with his wife to the United

States.26

The decision was not easy for all men.

Hessian Lieutenant Karl Philipp von Krafft

was full of regrets when he had to prepare

for the home voyage: "My whole heart is

filled with sadness when I see fading from

my view the receding landmarks and house

tops in whose midst I leave my whole hap-

piness behind." Once back in Germany, he

obtained his discharge and returned to New

York to marry his sweetheart and settle for

good in America. The field surgeon Fetzer, a

native of Weingarten in Austria, was

already on board the transport vessel

Isabella in August 1783 when he decided at

the last minute to sneak back ashore and

remain in Quebec.

Army surgeons were obviously much

in demand in American and Canadian communities.

The regimental records of

Ansbach-Bayreuth cite the desertion of

Friedrich Rapp and his servant in.

Philadelphia. Rapp settled in Germantown

and married a local woman. The Hessian

field surgeon Philipp Klipstein from

Darmstadt opened a successful medical

practice in Winchester, Virginia. No fewer

than thirty-six such surgeons made Canada

their new home and several of them became

versatile physicians. A number of ex-soldiers

with some education became schoolmasters

like Wilhelm Heyden in the town of

Frederick, Maryland, or Philipp Goldeiss,

who conducted the Lutheran parochial

school on Mill Creek in the Virginia frontier

country. Hessian ensign Spangenburg, one

of the Yorktown prisoners, settled down in

eastern Virginia with his American wife and

soon was known for giving Latin lessons.

Another Hessian officer, Philip Reinhold

Pauly of Magdeburg, was hired as a French

and Latin teacher in Philadelphia at the new

university before he entered the Reformed

ministry.

Corporal Joh. Henrich Giese of the

Hessian Crown Prince regiment, a native of

Lichtenau in Hessen educated at Hersfeld

Latin School, was a student at Marburg

University when he joined the Americabound

troops. In February 1782, he was per-

—41 —

Military Immigration______________

suaded by Reformed communicants in

Frederick, Maryland, to go into the ministry

since many churches were without pastors.

Giese began preaching to four Reformed

congregations in nearby Loudoun county in

Virginia and remained in America after the

war. Another Hessian corporal, Theophil

Emanuel Frantz of Stettin in Pommerania,

was licensed by the Lutheran Ministerium

in October 1778, but he was unable to get a

congregation because "the people consider

him to be crazy and non compos mentis."

Joh. Georg Hoehl, a private of the Ansbach

troops from near Nordlingen in Franconia,

began preaching on his own for pastorless

Lutheran congregations in western

Maryland and Virginia. The Pennsylvania

Ministerium turned him down after the

results of his examination were considered

"too poor for a common country schoolmaster."

There were also real ministers who chose

to remain in America. Chaplain Joh.

Christoph Wagner of the Bayreuth regiment

was promised a position as pastor in

Maryland, where he had been in captivity.

When his unit was freed and ready to return

to Europe, Wagner stayed behind in

Frederick, but by July 1783 he decided to

join the loyalists and moved to Nova Scotia,

where he was assigned 400 acres of land.

Friedrich Valentin Melsheimer, a graduate

of Helmstedt University, came in 1776 as

the chaplain of the Braunschweig Dragoon

regiment. He was taken prisoner in August

1777 and exchanged for a captured

American chaplain in May 1779. In his own

words he explained that he did not return to

the regiment "on account of some difficulties

I had with brother officers, I resigned my

commission as chaplain and assumed

charge of several congregations in

Lancaster county." Frederick Muhlenberg, a

member of the Continental Congress in

March 1780 called, Melsheimer "a true

Friend of American Liberty." This was the

beginning of a long career as a Lutheran

minister in Pennsylvania coupled with a

systematic study of minerals plants and

insects, earning him, the designation as "the

father of American entomology."28

Among the participants in this unique

chapter of German emigration were men

trained in many crafts for which there was a

need in American communities. A large

number came from rural backgrounds,

which gave them an appreciation for the

land that was offered to them. Certainly

there were some charlatans and crooks

among them. Many a peacetime emigrant

transport brought such people along with all

the good ones. Almost every state of the

new United States became the borne of exsoldiers.

Compared with the conditions in

Germany, the free atmosphere of the still

British colonies to the north likewise proved

attractive enough to many hundreds of

them.

Joh. Henrich Reuter of Hasselbach in

Wittgenstein sent his first letter home from

Halifax, Nova Scotia, on October 30, 1783:

"I am now a free man, free from soldier's

life after eight years, and I am resolved to

remain in this country because as a sergeant I

have been promised two hundred morgens of

land." While he mentions other assistance

the colony was offering, he expresses the

wish "to have you, dear sisters and brothers

or some of my friends here with me because I

would be able to feed them here on my

land." In a letter from Savannah, Georgia,

the Hessian veteran Justus Hartmann

Scheuber wrote to his former chief,

Friedrich von der Malsburg: "How happy I

and others are who have left the

—42—

_______________________Wust

slavish spirit for republican and democratic

angels."29

Another group of people associated

with the troops was described in a letter

Rebecca Samuel, the wife of a Jewish

watchmaker in Petersburg, Virginia, sent to

her parents in Hamburg: "you cannot imagine

what kind of Jews they have here. They were

all German itinerants who made a living by

hawking in Germany. They came to America

during the war, as soldiers and now they

wouldn't recognize themselves." Indeed, it

took not very long for many of them to

prosper. Joseph Darmstadt, a sutler with the

Hessian troops became a very successful

merchant in Richmond and was soon elected

to the city council. Philipp Mark, a native of

Waldeck who converted to Protestantism,

came to America as quartermaster of the

Third Waldeck regiment. In 1783 he opened

his own export-import business in New York

and soon became active in the local German

Society which had been founded after the

war to assist newly arrived emigrants.30

The exact number of German soldiers

and their camp followers who remained in

North America cannot be ascertained.

Estimates based on official records in the

six principalities which furnished troops

range from, 5,500 to 6,500 persons.

On the American side of the war there

were a few unemployed officers from

Germany who were accepted by the

Continental Congress from among a considerable

number of military professionals who

were seeking jobs. Foremost among them

was Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben who

had left the Prussian service in 1763 and

taken on a position as chamberlain for the

prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen which

he gave up in 1774. After much futile

searching for a military position befitting

his prior experience, Steuben's attention

was directed toward the American cause.

He arrived during the first week of

December 1777 at Portsmouth, New

Hampshire, on a clandestine French armament

transport and was subsequently

appointed Inspector General of the

American army with the rank of major general.

Steuben made the new republic his

home after the war.31 Among the very few

other German officers who stayed on and

became citizens was Heinrich Emanuel

Lutterloh whose application to serve in the

continental army had been approved by the

American commissioners in Paris in 1777.

Lutterloh's services turned out to be erratic.

He resigned as assistant quartermaster in

1778 but seems to have later been used in

the supply corps,

After France concluded a treaty of

alliance with the United States on March 20,

1778, American hopes for the active participation

of French troops against the British

were high. It was, however, not until July

1780 that the first units of the expeditionary

forces under Count Rochambeau landed at

Newport, Rhode Island, after successfully

crossing an Atlantic swarming with British

warships. Among Rochambeau's army was

the regiment Royal Deux-Ponts, a unit

which the ruler of the Duchy of Zweibrucken

had placed at the disposal of the

King of France as far back as 1756. There

were some Germans in other regiments.

Together with German-speaking soldiers

from Lorraine, Alsace and Switzerland, the

German element of the entire French expeditionary

force in America represented at

least one-third of the total. In contrast to the

German auxiliary troops of the British,

these soldiers did not come as enemies.

While their reception was friendly every-

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Military Immigration______________

where, the appearance of a regiment from

the Palatinate in areas settled by Germans,

many of whom from the Duchy of

Zweibrucken, caused much excitement and

delight both among the soldiers and among

the local population. Private Georg Flohr, a

native of Sarnstall near Annweiler in the

Palatinate, vividly described in his diary the

encounter when the troops reached

Pennsylvania early in September 1781.

Near the Delaware, at Grandfort, "here we

met German people for the first time who

welcomed us on the road as fellow-countrymen."

Closer to Philadelphia,

there we were met by a crowd of

German inhabitants from the city

who were looking for compatriots

and for acquaintances because they

had heard that the Zweibrucken regiment

was to be there. In our ranks

there really was no lack of such

countrymen since it is no exaggeration

to state that one third of the regiment

met people here from home;

among them there were very many

brothers and sisters who met and

who had not seen one another for

many years since they left in their

youth to go to this New Land.

In this manner many a soldier also

met his father etc. Some had left

their children behind in Europe

when they fled to this country

because they had gone into bankruptcy.

When the regiment set up its camp near

the city,

within half an hour so many people

gathered that it looked tike the

largest country fair in front of the

camp but all tents were also crowded,

one had his brother there, another one

his sister, a third one his friends etc.

On the 4th there was even a larger

throng than before because country

folk came from up to 10-12 hours

away in order to look for familiar

faces which they found aplenty.

Flohr continues his description of this

"homecoming" with a mention of the need of

the local Germans for information from their

native land from which communications had

been interrupted for several years by the war.

They wanted to know if friends and relatives

were still alive. Any Zweibrücken soldier

who ventured into Philadelphia was taken by

his countrymen to the nearest inn and treated

generously as long as he was willing to talk.

Such contacts with the local population

worried the officers. For the first months after

arrival, the French had tried very hard to keep

the soldiers away from civilians but, after all,

they had come as allies and had to accept the

kindness and enthusiasm of the Americans.

Most of the soldiers under French command

had signed up for eight years of service

before there was any hint of their being used

overseas. Of 316 deserters from Rochambeau's

corps, the Zweibrucken regiment

accounted for 104, almost one-third of the

total. Thirty-three of them left their units

during the five months prior to the embarkation

which took place from Providence, Rhode

Island, for the West Indies in December 1782.

Private Flohr noted that some Americans had

promised to hide defectors "until the French

were gone." The French had sentenced five

recaptured deserters to immediate execution in

order to set an example. Those who left the

troops before their enrolment contract had

expired were also punished by the confiscation

of all their property and inheritance at

home.32 Among those of Rochambeau's corps

who remained in America was the army

doctor Franz Joseph Mettauer, a native of

Sulzbach in Alsace. Others returned with their

regiment and as soon as they obtained a dis-

_______________________Wust

charge headed for America. In September

1784, Father Paul Rignatz, a native of

Wurzburg and Catholic chaplain of the regiment

Deux-Ponts, arrived in Baltimore on

his own and reported immediately to the

Prefect Apostolic, John Carrol.

Georg Flohr, whose journal of the

American experiences described the

impressions of a young man raised in a remote

Palatine village, did not return to

America until more than ten years later.

After he witnessed the violent turn of events

of the French Revolution in Paris, Flohr

decided to go to the Robinson valley in

Virginia, where several Germans lived who

had fought alongside the French corps. He

taught school there and studied for the

Lutheran ministry under Pastor Wilhelm

Zimmermann. For thirty years afterwards

Flohr was the leading Lutheran clergyman

in southwest Virginia.

The effect on so many Germans on

both sides of the conflict having seen the

well-being and personal freedom of their

countrymen was to be felt in most areas to

which veterans returned.

— Klaus Wust New

York City

—45—

—46—

Rodney Atwood, The Hessians: Mercenaries from

Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution

(Cambridge, 1980), 10, 24-25.

Ulrich Weiss, "Ein Wittgensteiner Regiment?,"

Wittgenstein 47 (1983), 126-128.

Atwood, 25-26.

Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliaments

1754-1783 Respecting North America, ed. R.

C. Simmons & P. D. G. Thomas, 6 (White

Plains, NY: 1987), 409-410.

Horst Dippel, Germany and the American

Revolution, 1770-1800 (Chapel Hill, NC:

1977), 128.

Staatsbote (Philadelphia) Jan. 5 & May 7, 1776.

Lyman H. Butterfield, "Psychological Warfare in

1776: The Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause

Hessian Desertions," Proceedings of the

American Philosophical Society, XCIV (1950),

No,2, 233-241; Atwood, 186-187.

Ernst Kipping, The Hessian View of America, 1776-

/7&?(Monmouth Beach, NJ: 1971), 9.

Johann Gottfried Seume, Mein Leben (Bremen,

1969), 51-52.

Kipping, 10, 24, 40-45; Atwood, 191, 199-201.

"Clifford Neil Smith, Brunswick Deserters—

Immigrants of the American Revolution

(Thomson, IL: 1973); Atwood, 193-194.

Knyphausen's letter dated 6 July 1778. Staatsarchiv

Marburg 41, 410, No. 2, fol. 386

Kipping, 24.

Library of Congress (photostat) PreuBisches

Geheimes Staatsarchiv—Heeresarchiv Rep.

15A Ms. 382.

Atwood, 192-193; Erhard Stadtler, Die Ansbach-

Bayreuther Truppen im Amerikanischen

Unabhaengigkeitskrieg, 1777-1783 (Nurnberg,

1956), 66-67.

Calendar of Virginia State Papers I (Richmond,

1875), 482-483.

George F. Jones, "Georgia's German Language

Proclamation: An Appeal to the Hessians to

Desert," The Report 39 (1984), 21 -22.

Leslie to Clinton, dated 2 March 1782, The Report

39 (1984), 26-27; August Woringer, "Protocol

der Amtshandlungen, die der Feldprediger G.

C. Coster verrichtet," Deutsch-Amerikanische

Geschichts-Blatter 20-21 (1920-1), 281, 286-

287, 289, 292.

(Worthington C. Ford, ed.) The Writings of George

Washington (New York: 1889-1903), XI, 81,

98-99.

Pennsylvania Packet, 24 December 1778.

Atwood, 202.

Stadtler, 152; Atwood, 10-11, 189; Kipping, 36.

Gunter Moltmann, "Die Transportation von

Straflingen," Deutsche Amerikaauswanderung

des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: 1976), 171.

Virginia DeMarce, German Military Settlers in

Canada after the American Revolution (Sparta,

WA: 1984), 3.

Stadtler, 26, 71-73, 151.

Pages 89-91 in H.W. Debor, "German Soldiers of the

American War of Independence as Settlers in

Canada," German-Canadian Yearbook 111

(1976), 71-93.

DeMarce, 8, 11, 19; Atwood, 198, 204; Stadtler,

73, 151, 160, 166; HETRINA—Hessische

Truppen im amerikanischen Unabhangigkeitskrieg

(Inge Auerbach & Otto Frolich, eds.) III

(1976), #5984, #10951; IV (1976), #2371.

Charles H. Glatfelter, Pastors and People

(Breiningsville, PA, 1980) I, 55, 87-88.

Wittgenstein 47 (1983), 122-123; Dippel, 341.

Dated 12 January 1791 in Jacob Rader Marcus,

American Jewish. Documents—Eighteenth

Century (Cincinnati, OH: 1959), 51-54; Klaus

Wust, The Virginia Germans (Charlottesville,

VA: 1969), 104; Albert W. Haarman, "The Third

Waldeck Regiment in British Service," Journal

of the Society for Army History Research 48

(1970), 182-185.

Edith von Zemensky & Morgan H. Pritchett,

"Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben: Soldier of

Fortune or Military Professional?," The Report

36(1975), 8-25.

Ernst Drumm, Das Regiment Royal-Deuxponts

(Zweibrucken, 1936); Rudolph Karl Tross, "Zu

Wasser und zu Land: Die Erlebnisse des Georg

Flohr im Hochloblichen Regiment von

Zweybrucken," Pfalzischer Merkur, 1 & 2

September 1976; Robert A. Selig, "A German

Soldier in America, 1780-1783: The Journal of

Georg Daniel Flohr," The William and Mary

Quarterly, 3rd Series, vol. L, no. 3 (1993), 575-

590.

Notes

Military Immigration, Notes__________

—48—