Posted on 05/26/2025 9:06:06 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
6. Many of the Hessians opted to stay in AmericaOpportunities in America impressed these soldiers so much that thousands of them opted not to return to their native country. Johann Döhla, an enlisted man who kept a journal about his experiences, wrote upon seeing New York for the first time that, "The American land is good and incomparable land... It is rich and fruitful, well cultivated, and with much grain, especially a great deal of Indian corn; and it has many and beautiful forests of both soft and hardwood trees unknown to us." He went on to write about the diversity of religion in America and wanted to explore the many ways of life in the colonies much like his comrades. This is an attitude reflected in many journals, diaries, and letters that remain. Ultimately Hesse sent 19,000 of their sons to America. Between casualties rates and the sheer number of deserters little over half returned home...7. As the war went on, some of these men began to side with the Americans...Pamphlets were snuck into camps offering freedom and land to anyone willing to desert and sign up with the American troops. By the wars end Congress offered soldiers farm land, two pigs, and a cow to Hessian deserters along with citizenship, a much brighter future than the one those that returned would have had...8. The American Revolution was the downfall of Hesse-Cassel as a mercenary stateAt the start of the war sending men to America was very convenient for the overpopulated German duchies... However, the unprecedented length of the war had caught the British and the Hessian governments by surprise... After the American war, the Hessians would never be seen fighting as mercenaries again... The Revolution had seen an estimated loss of 5,000 casualties and 3,000 desertions.
(Excerpt) Read more at allthingsliberty.com ...
Actor Rob Lowe traces an ancestor who fought in the American War of Independence. (I think this is the segment where the genealogist lowers the boom; spoiler alert -- eventually there's a happy ending for Rob)Was Rob Lowe's ancestor hired to defeat George Washington? | 8:48
Who Do You Think You Are? | 518K subscribers | 23,002 views | April 21, 2023
I have an ancestor who found in the War for Independence. Unfortunately he was a loyalist. He was a well-to-do merchant who apparently feared the financial consequences of independence, and so he became an officer in Tarleton’s Legion. That’s the outfit that served as the basis for the one commanded by the villain in Mel Gibson’s The Patriot. So that white-wigged flunkie obsequiously bowing and scraping to the villain - yeah, that’s basically my ancestor. I coined the phrase “Darth Vader moments in genealogical research” after this particular find...
Ah, finally this one popped up, the full episode (BTW, no one alive has George Washington for an ancestor):
In Rob Lowe's episode of "Who Do You Think You Are," the actor delves into his family history and uncovers a surprising connection to early American history. Through genealogical research and personal interviews, Lowe traces the lineage of an ancestor who fought in the American Revolutionary War and explores the possibility that he may have been commissioned to defeat George Washington. The episode provides an engaging and insightful look into Lowe's personal connection to the events that shaped early American history.Emmy nominee Rob Lowe has a Surprising
Ancestral Link to George Washington! | 40:14
Who Do You Think You Are? | 518K subscribers | 864,710 views | April 15, 2023
Very interesting and informative.
Thanks for posting.
Heh... it’ll happen. No matter what, it’s better to have an ancestor than to, uh, not have one. :^)
My pleasure.
Hessians were made infamous to militiamen after the Battle of White Plains. They pushed General Washington to the shores of the Delaware and looted and destroyed many of the beautiful homes that dotted New Jersey.
Hession auxiliaries were in Trenton when Washington crossed the Delaware north of them, with private soldier Joe Biden serving gallantly as coxswain. Finally, these men were with Lord Cornwallis as he pushed from Charleston to Guildford and up to Yorktown.
I have at least 3 on my mom’s side who served in the Maryland militia. My mom’s family came over in the early 1700s. They were latecomers compared to my dad’s side which came over in 1649. I have at least one that I know of who served in the North Carolina militia and fought in the battle of Guilford’s Courthouse. I have a written account from him someone wrote down in 1830 when he was an old man. I’m sure there are more on my dad’s side but the record is a little hazy prior to my 4X Great Grandfather who was born in 1776 in Virginia.
The Hessian matrix is a square matrix of second-order partial derivatives of a scalar-valued function, which helps describe the local curvature of that function. It is used in optimization problems to determine local maxima, minima, and saddle points.
Not having ancestors back too far, I just adopt everyone I learn about, every good guy anyway! Lol
Very convenient....AND AMERICAN!!!
Proudly, and most humbly.
So far have found no loyalist (Tory) ancestor and have found several patriot ancestors who fought the British.
However, being a many generation American mutt, have found ancestors who fought on both sides of every war and conflict in North America since the French and Indian War.
Same here, by the time of the Revolution my line had already been here 140 years with other parts of the family here longer, so we were all over the place by 1776.
They were not actually mercenaries, as the article points out.
1. They weren’t that kind of mercenary
Today we consider mercenaries individuals who voluntarily get involved with a conflict for their own personal profit. However, the German soldiers who came to fight were established soldiers in their national armies who were required by their country to serve; the Landgrave (Prince) of Hesse-Cassel himself pocketed the money.[1] This was a widely unpopular move. American Patriots and sympathizers in Europe quickly turned this against the British government. Propaganda like the famous Sale of the Hessians, possibly authored by Benjamin Franklin, followed the defeat at Trenton, attacking the use of these soldiers as being cruel to the Germans who had no stake in the war. It also portrayed the Hessian military leaders and Landgrave as cruel and uncaring about their own people in addition to representing King George as hiring men to slaughter his own people.
Excellent article, thank you!
There was a reason Franklin proposed that German be our national language. Many Hessians settled in PA.
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