Author: Rodney AtwoodPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521526371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
A study of the German auxiliaries who fought with the British against the American colonists.
The Hessians
Author: Rodney AtwoodPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521526371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
A study of the German auxiliaries who fought with the British against the American colonists.
A Hessian Diary of the American Revolution
Author: Johann Conrad DöhlaPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806125305
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
This unique diary, written by one of the thirty thousand Hessian troops whose services were sold to George III to suppress the American Revolution, is the most complete and informative primary account of the Revolution from the common soldier's point of view. Johann Conrad Döhla describes not just military activities but also events leading up to the Revolution, American customs, the cities and regions that he visited, and incidents in other parts of the world that affected the war. He also evaluates the important military commanders, giving readers an insight into how the enlisted men felt about their leaders and opponents. Private Döhla crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1777 as a private in the Ansbach-Bayreuth contingent of Hessian mercenaries. His American sojourn began in June 1777 in New York. Then, after several months on Staten Island and Manhatten, the Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments traveled to the thriving seaport of Newport, Rhode Island, where they spent more than a year before the British forces evacuated the area. The Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments returned briefly to the New York New Jersey area before they were sent to reinforce the English command in Virginia. Eventually Döhla participated in the battle of Yorktown—of which he provides a vivid description—before enduring two years as a prisoner of war after Cornwallis's surrender. Bruce E. Burgoyne has provided an accurate translation, helpful notes for scholars and general readers, and an introduction on the Ansbach-Bayreuth regiments and the history of Johann Conrad Döhla and his diary. This first edition of the diary in English will delight all who are interested in the American Revolution and the thirteen original colonies.
Hessians
Author: Friederike BaerPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190249633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
Between 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, they actually came from six German territories within the Holy Roman Empire. Over the course of the war, members of the German corps, including women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada in the North to West Florida and Cuba in the South. They shared in every significant British military triumph and defeat. Thousands died of disease, were killed in battle, were captured by the enemy, or deserted. Collectively, they recorded their experiences and observations of the war they fought in, the land they traversed, and the people they encountered in a large body of letters, diaries, and similar private and official records. Friederike Baer presents a study of Britain's war against the American rebels from the perspective of the German soldiers, a people uniquely positioned both in the midst of the war and at its margins. The book offers a ground-breaking reimagining of this watershed event in world history.
A Generous and Merciful Enemy
Author: Daniel KrebsPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806189037
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
Some 37,000 soldiers from six German principalities, collectively remembered as Hessians, entered service as British auxiliaries in the American War of Independence. At times, they constituted a third of the British army in North America, and thousands of them were imprisoned by the Americans. Despite the importance of Germans in the British war effort, historians have largely overlooked these men. Drawing on research in German military records and common soldiers’ letters and diaries, Daniel Krebs places the prisoners on center stage in A Generous and Merciful Enemy, portraying them as individuals rather than simply as numbers in casualty lists. Setting his account in the context of British and European politics and warfare, Krebs explains the motivations of the German states that provided contract soldiers for the British army. We think of the Hessians as mercenaries, but, as he shows, many were conscripts. Some were new recruits; others, veterans. Some wanted to stay in the New World after the war. Krebs further describes how the Germans were made prisoners, either through capture or surrender, and brings to life their experiences in captivity from New England to Havana, Cuba. Krebs discusses prison conditions in detail, addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners’ responses to their experience. He assesses American efforts as a “generous and merciful enemy” to use the prisoners as economic, military, and propagandistic assets. In the process, he never loses sight of the impact of imprisonment on the POWs themselves. Adding new dimensions to an important but often neglected topic in military history, Krebs probes the origins of the modern treatment of POWs. An epilogue describes an almost-forgotten 1785 treaty between the United States and Prussia, the first in western legal history to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war.
Guide to Help You Find Your Hessian Soldier of the American Revolution
Author: Johannes Helmut MerzPublisher: Hamilton, Ont. : J.H. Merz
ISBN:
Category : Canada
Languages : en
Pages : 162
Book Description
A Hessian Soldier in the American Revolution
Author: Stephan PoppPublisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1789125758
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 125
Book Description
German corporal Stephan Popp kept a diary during his time in the American Revolution. This present volume is the translation of his diary by Reinhart J. Pope, originally published in 1953. Corporal Popp takes the reader on a gripping journey, beginning with his departure of his Bayreuth regiment from its home encampment, the voyage to America, and the arrival in New York. Popp then relates events of the war from the vantage point of the Bayreuth regiment, with inclusion also of the activities of an associated regiment sent from the neighboring principality of Ansbach, which was at that time under the same ruler. Popp’s account includes a description of the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, where the Ansbach-Bayreuth troops were taken prisoner by the Americans in October 1781 until their release in May 1783. Popp also describes the journey home, ending with his arrival in Bayreuth.
Hessians
Author: Brady CrytzerPublisher:
ISBN: 9781594162244
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Three Stories. Two Worlds. One Revolution. Revealing the German Experience in the American Revolution through the Experiences of an Officer, a Baroness, and a Chaplain In 1775 the British Empire was in crisis. While it was buried in debt from years of combat against the French, revolution was stirring in its wealthiest North American colonies. To allow the rebellion to fester would cost the British dearly, but to confront it would press their exhausted armed forces to a breaking point. Faced with a nearly impossible decision, the administrators of the world's largest empire elected to employ the armies of the Holy Roman Empire to suppress the sedition of the American revolutionaries. By 1776 there would be 18,000 German soldiers marching through the wilds of North America, and by war's end there would be over 30,000. To the colonists these forces were "mercenaries," and to the Germans the Americans were "rebels. "While soldiers of fortune fight for mere profit, the soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire went to war in the name of their country, and were paid little for their services, while their respective kings made fortunes off of their blood and sacrifice among the British ranks. Labeled erroneously as "Hessians," the armies of the Holy Roman Empire came from six separate German states, each struggling to retain relevance in a newly enlightened and ever-changing world. In Hessians: Mercenaries, Rebels, and the War for British North America historian Brady J. Crytzer explores the German experience during the American Revolution through the lives of three individuals from vastly different walks of life, all thrust into the maelstrom of North American combat. Here are the stories of a dedicated career soldier, Johann Ewald, captain of a Field-Jäger Corps, who fought from New York to the final battles along the Potomac; Frederika Charlotte Louise von Massow, Baroness von Riedesel, who raced with her young children through the Canadian wilderness to reunite with her long-distant husband; and middle-aged chaplain Philipp Waldeck, who struggled to make sense of it all while accompanying his unit through the exotic yet brutal conditions of the Caribbean and British Florida. Beautifully written, Hessians offers a glimpse into the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of the German armies commanded to destroy it.
I Survived the American Revolution, 1776 (I Survived #15)
Author: Lauren TarshisPublisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 0545919754
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 103
Book Description
Bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tackles the American Revolution in this latest installment of the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling I Survived series. Bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tackles the American Revolution in this latest installment of the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling I Survived series. British soldiers were everywhere. There was no escape. Nathaniel Fox never imagined he'd find himself in the middle of a blood-soaked battlefield, fighting for his life. He was only eleven years old! He'd barely paid attention to the troubles between America and England. How could he, while being worked to the bone by his cruel uncle, Uriah Storch? But when his uncle's rage forces him to flee the only home he knows, Nate is suddenly propelled toward a thrilling and dangerous journey into the heart of the Revolutionary War. He finds himself in New York City on the brink of what will be the biggest battle yet.
Ludwig Hirdes, A Hessian Soldier Who Settled In America
Author: Timothy Neal HartisPublisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 131271803X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Hessians
Author: Friederike BaerPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190249633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 529
Book Description
Between 1776 and 1783, Britain hired an estimated 30,000 German soldiers to fight in its war against the Americans. Collectively known as Hessians, they actually came from six German territories within the Holy Roman Empire. Over the course of the war, members of the German corps, including women and children, spent extended periods of time in locations as dispersed and varied as Canada in the North to West Florida and Cuba in the South. They shared in every significant British military triumph and defeat. Thousands died of disease, were killed in battle, were captured by the enemy, or deserted. Collectively, they recorded their experiences and observations of the war they fought in, the land they traversed, and the people they encountered in a large body of letters, diaries, and similar private and official records. Friederike Baer presents a study of Britain's war against the American rebels from the perspective of the German soldiers, a people uniquely positioned both in the midst of the war and at its margins. The book offers a ground-breaking reimagining of this watershed event in world history.