[Fiji Hill]

It was true then as well. Washington had the advantage of being the victor in that particular contest, so we venerate his service. What do you think would have happened to him and the other Founding Fathers if the French and Hessians hadn’t supported his efforts and the revolution had been snuffed out by the British?

They’d all be nothing more than minor footnotes in British history.

No, Washington would be seen as an American Robin Hood, and tracts by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton would inspire the next revolt, led by Andrew Jackson in 1815, which would be successful.

The Founding Fathers would become folk heroes on both sides of the Atlantic and earn the attention of artists as romanticism swept through nineteenth-century Europe. In 1822, Gioacchino Rossini's new opera Tommaso Jefferson would open at the Real Teatro di San Carlo in Naples to a sellout crowd.

By the way, the Hessians fought for the British, not the Americans.

[El Kabong1]

That’s the wonderful thing about history. We can each ponder the “what might have beens” at our leisure.

You might want to read a little about Baron Friedrich von Steuben, a Hessian General who trained Washington’s army.