[passionfruit]

I think that any place that was used to house POW’s would have had the same problems. I don’t see any sense in blaming Thomas Jefferson for problems of transportation, housing, feeding, guarding, etc. It isn’t like this infant nation had POW camps and guards all set up before the war.

I had been told that many captured Hessians were housed with t Pennsylvania Dutch, who were also German immigrants. As a result, some of the Hessians switched sides, and thousands stayed here after the war.
That was a great solution. Put them with patriots that speeak their language, have beautiful farms and plenty of food,a social structure with many other german immigrants. Of course they wanted to stay!

[Pharmboy]

What scholars of the RevWar say of the Hessians: one-third were killed, one-third stayed here and one-third went home. And to think of them as ‘mercenaries’ is not quite fair: they were conscripted by their prince and sent off to war. These were not, for the most part, paid soldiers of fortune.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Actually, much of the mid-Atlantic was German (NOT “PA Dutch”) in the mountains. In fact German was considered as an “official” language for the new country, it was so prevalent.

Interesting story from my love of graveyards. I found every graveyard I could in my little section of CT when I lived there years ago. Wonderful ancient things that included lots of RevWar stories.

I found a simple square brownstone marker at 1 that drew attention just because it was capped (literally) by a copper/bronze piece on top, as if to protect it. Amazed to see it was a marker for a former German soldier placed, c.1805-11, by the family who “adopted” him and housed him.