WEBVTT - Hessians 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.080 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:13.880 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.119 I'm Tracy and I'm Holly Fry. Holly, do you know 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.799 what I've been exceptionally enjoying on television this fall? I do, 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.000 but tell me anyway, Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is from 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.920 a historical standpoint, quite ridiculous. It is in many other 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.280 ways quite ridiculous. It's kind of a good reminder to 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:35.120 me to sometimes just shut all of that analytical, critical 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.600 brain off and just enjoy the ride. Yeah, I I extremely, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:43.880 extremely enjoy the ridiculous ride of Sleepy Hollow. I enjoy 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:45.840 the fact that we've got a guy that's been walking 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.560 around in multi hundred year old clothing that somehow is 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.640 not falling apartner stinking enjoy the ride, Tracy so great. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:56.000 If you have ever watched the show, you know that 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.560 they take some just absurd liberties with actual history. But 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.400 the reason that we're talking about it right now is 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.920 that they also keep talking about the headless Horseman as 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.160 a Hessian right. But this is not something that the 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.040 show just made up out of whole cloth. In the 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:16.720 legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington. Irving describes Sleepy Hollow this way. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:21.640 The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region and 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.000 seems to be commander in chief of all the powers 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.720 of air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:31.600 without a head. It is said by some to be 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.479 the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.360 carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.920 the Revolutionary War, and who has ever and anon by 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.880 seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.520 of night, as if on the wings of the wind. 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.560 So the TV show is not a cannonball. No, it's 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:56.640 a sword, because in truth, the headless horseman is not 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.120 only a Hessian soldier but also one of the four 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.680 horsemen of the Acalypse, and therefore kind of immortal. Yeah, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.880 they actually in the show, didn't They hit him? And 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.440 they shot him first, Ichabod Crane shoots him and he 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.960 doesn't die. So then he cuts his head off and 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.720 he appears to die, but then comes back later along 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:21.920 with Ichabod. Uh So, Matt, of course, as as things 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.920 do when I'm watching TV, made me think, how can 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:27.680 we talk about this in the podcast? And I really 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.320 got curious about who these Hessians were, Right, I know 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.120 the same basic description as many people who have studied 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.600 the American Revolution, which is sort of mercenaries hired by 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.919 Britain during the Revolutionary War. And that is not even 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.680 an accurate description really, Or when we were first talking 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.440 about it, I said, Christopher Walking was filed down teeth 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:51.280 right because he placed said the Sportsman in the tim 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:56.400 Burton sleepy Hollow, which is the exposure that most people, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.240 I think get They know the word Hessian because of 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.400 that story, and a lot of them, I know, even 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.080 talking to my husband about it when he asked what 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.000 we were recording this coming week, and I said, oh, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.560 the Hessians, and he goes, I don't know anything about that. Yeah, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.360 I pretty much know that one sentence that I just 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.399 said about about mercenaries hired by Britain during the Revolutionary 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.320 War not really accurate. Um, we're gonna talk about that. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.360 We're gonna talk about who these guys were, where they 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.640 came from, why they were participating in the Revolutionary War 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.200 in the first place, and we're also going to talk 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:32.519 about their most famous altercation with the Army of George Washington. Um. 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.880 So there is so much other history that you can 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.119 talk about with the Hessians, but that's a're gonna keep 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:39.680 to today so that this podcast is not four hours 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.920 and or eight parts long. So we have to start 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:48.240 in Germany. Kind of Germany. Germany at the time of 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.640 the American Revolutionary War was not this unified nation that 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.200 we know it as today. Was more like a collection 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.840 of about three hundred little principalities, and they all shared 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.280 a common German language and culture. They're basically little city states. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:05.960 They all had their own rulers, they all needed their 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.920 own defenses, and consequently, they tended to have pretty sizeable 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.840 compared to their size, organized armed forces. Great Britain, on 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.880 the other hand, had a hard time recruiting soldiers at 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.880 this point in history. Uh. And even if people were 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.040 pressed into service, those men still needed training and it 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.719 just was not the same level of military organization. Basically, 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.760 the British economy at this point was robust enough that 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.720 other work was easy to come by, so military recruitment 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.000 was not very appealing for the average man, and it 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.400 was very challenging for the government to reason army. Yeah, 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.479 Britain also had the advantage of being separated from the 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.000 rest of Europe by the English Channel, so it didn't 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.920 need to have an enormous standing army to really defend 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.679 itself constantly. This was not true on the continent, where 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.520 a lot of times nations had long borders with one 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.200 another that didn't necessarily have any kind of natural old 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:05.320 features to deter invasions. So on the continent of Europe, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.359 people nations were a lot more likely to have bigger 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.279 armed forces than Britain had at the point. At that point, yeah, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.080 it makes sense. But on top of that, George the 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.080 Third was the elector of the German Principality of Hanover, 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.440 and this effectively made George the Third a German prince 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.919 in addition to being the King of Great Britain and Ireland. Uh, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.960 he was automatically considered to be a German ally. So 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.960 when George the Third needed troops to fight for him 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.200 in the American Revolution, German princes were pretty eager to 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:34.960 help him. He was their ally and they kind of 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.159 wanted to show off their military strength. And Britain only 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.520 had about fifty five thousand troops to send to fight 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:46.000 in the American Revolution. About thirty thousand additional soldiers came 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:50.720 from hess Castle Braunch fig hess Han now on spark Behout, 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.200 Valdeck and Anhabs ups to fight for George the third 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.120 twelve thousand of them, the overmwhelming majority from any one 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:04.720 place from hess Castle. Yes, so today Hessian has come 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.800 to encompass all of these troops. But from here on 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.280 out we're pretty much going to be talking about the 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.200 troops specifically from hess Castle for a couple of reasons. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.680 One is that hess Castle was the biggest participant in 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.880 the industry of armies for hire that existed at that 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.040 time that came to be known as so Dotton Handle 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:28.160 in seventy seven. The other is that troops from hess 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.400 Castle were the ones who were occupying Trenton in seventeen 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.800 seventy six. That is a particularly famous Revolutionary War battle 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.480 that we'll talk about a little bit later in the episode. So, 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:43.760 at the time of the American Revolution, military had become 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.440 hess Castle's dominant industry, and this was partly a necessity. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.919 It was a middle size collection of villages that otherwise 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:56.159 survived through subsistence farming. It's position was also, unfortunately between 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:59.240 two parts of Prussia, so hess Castle was often in 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.880 the line of fighter or more accurately the line of 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.680 marching troops on their way from one place to another. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.120 By the mid sixteen hundreds, the army there was kind 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.320 of flagging, and recovery from attacks or just being kind 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.640 of caught in the crossfire in the way of these 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.400 travels of enemy of other armies was really slow for 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:22.760 the little principality. But in sixteen eighty seven, Hescastle decided 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.840 to lease some military forces to Venice. Basically, Venice was 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.440 paying hes Castle money, Hescastle was sending troops their way 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.320 to fight for them. Uh. And this is kind of 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:37.120 a mixed success. Almost eighty percent of the thousand men 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.480 that they sent were killed, But those men fought well 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.240 enough that they earned a reputation for being good, reliable soldiers. 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.840 And so the next year Hescastle sent thirty four hundred 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.320 men to serve William of Orange under a similar agreement. 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.440 Their performance was so highly valued that suddenly Hessian troops 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.520 were in demand from other governments, and hes Castle realized 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.200 that it could maybe make this into a bigger industry 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.360 and turn a profit over maintaining and leasing an army 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.760 for other governments to use. So I could see where 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.520 the appeal for subsistence farmers would be really high. There 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.800 was a lot appeel there. And as hess Castle's efforts grew, 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.640 and we're joined by other German principalities, they eventually crowded 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.680 out the existing private army for higher industry that had 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.120 been in place before that point. Yeah. So there were 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.880 already people who were raising armies and basically selling them 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.720 to other people, but there was pretty much a private enterprise, 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:38.920 and you know, the Hessian troops were higher quality than 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.559 other options. Yeah. Well, and these these little principalities got 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:47.079 so good at it that the private enterprises couldn't compete. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.640 And also people started to view private armies as being 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.120 a pretty shady business to be in, so that that 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:59.400 faded away as all these various German principalities started making 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:04.360 their own army. The focus on the military also trickled 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:09.640 down to the rest of hess Castle. Passions generally used 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.080 their own weapons and uniforms in battle, and so having 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.240 this big army going on create created more work for 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.000 crafts people. The income that came into the government allowed 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.840 them to bring in experts to improve farming and husbandry methods, 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.760 and with these improvements, rural families got bigger. They provided 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.280 a bigger pool of recruits for the military. Um some 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.760 of the revenue from the operation also went into things 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.760 like hospitals and schools, And thanks to all of this 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:41.120 income that came in from leasing armies out, taxes for 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:45.000 the rest of the citizens were lower. So lacing armies 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.320 to other nations was obviously a major economic boon that 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.360 lifted hess Castle out of maybe not exactly what you 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:55.080 would categorize as poverty, but at least pretty austere circumstances. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.040 They were getting by, but as we said, subsistence farming, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.840 and they started the more prosper and then the became yeah, more, 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.360 much more prosperous. It wasn't always pretty though. When your 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.000 country basically becomes a factory for making soldiers, there are 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.600 going to be some repercussions when battles go badly or 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.160 when battles come to your own doorstep. So it did 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.120 take an immense toll, and even even with those downsides, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.480 hess Castle became the most militarized state in Europe. At 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.040 the height of this industry, there was a soldier for 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:28.480 every fifteen civilians, and a quarter of all families had 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.600 at least one member who was in the military. Boys 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.560 were registered for service when they turned seven, and men 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.200 had to present themselves to an official every year to 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.600 determine if they were going to be inducted into service. 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.440 From the tiny turned sixteen until they hit thirty uh, 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:49.079 so called quote expendable people, which were the shiftless, idol, unemployed, etcetera, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.760 could be pressed into service at any time. On the 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.200 other hand, people who had more crucial roles, including roles 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.280 like keeping the army dressed and fed, would be exempt 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.120 from this practice. Yeah, it's the modern side of me 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.280 thinks that this sounds sort of like a dreadful circumstance 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.719 to be in. But wages were good. Military families got 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.319 tax benefits, The pay was better than being a servant 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.080 or a farm laborer, and while discipline was strict within 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.200 the military, if you were a person who behaved yourself, 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.960 it was not really a problem. So it was an 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.760 attractive proposition, and there was also some other attractive stuff 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:35.000 booty and plunder. Yes, on the military side of things, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.480 Hessians had a reputation for being really sharp and skilled, 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.040 but two civilians, they were viewed often as plunderers and looters, 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.600 taking whatever they wanted from the lands where they fought, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.240 and often this was not actively endorsed by the command, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:52.800 but it wasn't exactly discouraged either. They kind of let 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.920 the soldiers do their plundering without much repercussion in terms 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.720 of being punished or dissuaded. Right, So, with the pay 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.480 and the plunder and the stability, becoming a Hessian soldier 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:10.040 was a pretty popular career career move um. Also it 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.400 was you know, it was an army of intense training 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.000 and strict discipline, but at the same time one that 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.880 instilled a lot of pride and its forces. Its leaders 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.880 were generally educated men who were promoted from within according 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:27.080 to merit um see a lot of military history where 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.040 the officers were basically coming from the aristocracy, and they 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.439 were they were officers because they were aristocrats the aristocracy 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.000 and hes Castle was not big enough to be doing 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.520 that for this whole army, so they had to instead 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.680 promote men based on their skill and merit, which meant 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.240 that most of the time people were in units where 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.120 they had a good boss. Having a good boss is 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.800 a good thing, does you know, even when your job 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.400 is maybe one that might be particularly hard and take 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.400 you away from your family for a long time. Men 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.200 who had and served also told their sons about what 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.040 an honorable and rewarding service it was. UH. And the 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.720 principality as a whole was also a Calvinist society with 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:11.920 a really strong sense of duty. So there were a 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:16.160 lot of social factors going into the popularity of being 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.800 in the military. And while many nations, including Britain, often 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.920 hired soldiers from Germany, this was not really viewed favorably 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.880 by the founding fathers here in the US UH. In 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.200 the Declaration of Independence, among the lists of grievances against 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.559 the King, one of them is quote he is at 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.319 this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.920 the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun, with 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.160 circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.120 barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:56.439 Not popular moon the scathing review of that practice, yes, UH, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.400 and later on the rest of the world would start 0:13:58.440 --> 0:13:59.880 to view it's sort of the same way. But at 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:04.600 the point that yeah, the the colonies were extremely displeased 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.440 about this idea. But even though today a lot of 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.480 people call Hessian's merchant mercenaries, and they were referred to 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.760 as mercenaries and the Declaration of Independence. They weren't really mercenaries. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.280 What they were was auxiliaries. So mercenaries were individual people 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:26.080 who served in foreign armies for pay. There were mercenaries 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.480 in both the British and Hessian armies. Um. And these 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.800 are people that like had their own negotiated terms and 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.280 rates of working and like a length of time that 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.680 they would serve. Auxiliaries, though, were armies that served on 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.560 behalf of governments, with subsidies being paid at the national 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.320 level instead of the personal level. And this is a 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.600 difference that was recognized by international law. Uh. And at 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.080 this point in history, the hiring of auxiliaries was an 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:58.600 extremely common and pretty well accepted practice, except for in 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.960 the colony, where it was not favored at all. So 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.400 these were really well trained soldiers who were paid to fight, 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:10.880 So not really that different from military service today, except 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.560 that they had been kind of contracted on maths through 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:18.920 a government agency. Yeah. So as soon as Britain decided 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.600 to use force against the American revolutionaries, it was pretty 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:24.520 much a given that they were going to have to 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.480 use a hired army as part of the package. Brittain, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:29.720 as we said earlier, just did not have a big 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.920 enough army on its own, and German Principality started offering 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.000 troops to the British in August of seventeen seventy five, 0:15:37.520 --> 0:15:39.760 just a couple of months after the Battle of Bunker Hill, 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.840 and once Britain agreed, they set a date for troops 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.120 from Hescastle to be ready to march, and that date 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.000 was February fifteenth of seventeen seventy six. This was meant 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:53.360 to put Hessians in America in time for a summer campaign. 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.520 Time was so much of the essence in this whole 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:00.320 plan that this deadline was actually set earlier than the 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.239 agreement between the two nations was going to be ratified. 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.840 Once it was actually signed, Britain's then back They did 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.360 the pay for their service by a month to January. 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:17.080 And for American units, the Hessians include yeager or hunter companies. Uh. 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.040 These were foresters and huntsmen, and their role was sort 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.320 of like elite rangers. They had better field skills and 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.640 we're better marksmen than average recruits, and the younger got 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.600 better pay and really spiffy uniforms that were green so 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.120 that they could blend into the woods, and also in 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.760 the mix were for grenadier battalions and fifteen infantry battalions 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:42.040 which included field and garrison regiments, and those troops were 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:47.440 dark blue. The agreement between Britain and Hescastle outlined the pay, 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.600 the removal of injured Hessians back to Germany, medical care, 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.360 and free passage for the troops mail. The medical care 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.160 was similar to the care that was going to be 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.560 provided for British troops, but it was going to be 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.440 given German doctors who would travel with the units, and 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.040 the Hessian troops that came with this agreement could only 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.639 serve in Europe and America. Hescastle had to pay for 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.399 replacement soldiers who were killed or injured too badly to 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.320 return to the field. On the other hand, if illness 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.760 or a shipwreck or some other disaster wiped out a 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.919 whole unit, that was then on Britain to pay for 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:26.879 that was their responsibility. Even though a Hessian army seemed 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.080 to like a given from this point, like we said, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.480 hiring a foreign army was pretty standard and how warfare 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.960 went at this point, there were some really big worries 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.240 within Britain about what the results of this action would be. 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.960 One part of this was that a lot of people 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.919 had the just the justifiable fear that if they started 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:50.280 a full scale military action with hired troops and everything, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:53.800 that was going to irreparably damage the relationship between the 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.960 colonies and Britain, so that no matter how the war went, 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.240 it would not ever be repaired from having Star did 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.399 with Okay, we're gonna have a big military action with 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.879 you guys. And there were also to consider a hundred 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.600 and fifty thousand Germans that were living in the colonies, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.600 and British leadership worried that a German army was going 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.119 to be convinced to desert and resettle by these existing colonists, 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:18.000 and there were in fact some desertions along the way. Yeah, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.080 there was even some talk that maybe they should use 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.679 troops from Russia instead, because there were fewer people in 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.840 the colonies who spoke Russian, so there would be less 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.840 of a temptation to lure people away from their units 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.600 to this sort of idealistic dream of what the founding 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.440 fathers were shooting for with UH. With the founding of 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.399 the nation UH, these troops started to move out a 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.080 little bit later than was originally planned, and a lot 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:45.760 of it just had to do with the logistics of 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.600 moving so many people. The Vision started leaving their garrisons 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.760 in Germany in February and March, and they continued to 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:58.560 to depart until the spring. They moved from their garrisons 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.560 in cycles of marching and rest, thing, with the so 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.679 called rest days really involving a lot of training and 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:08.439 exercise we would call the active rest day. Hessian troops 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.920 embarked for America in April and June of seventeen seventy six, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.720 so several months after the initial plan, and their first 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.520 stop was Portsmouth, where they got more food and additional 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.800 ships so the voyage would be more comfortable. Otherwise they 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:22.800 really would not have been in any sort of condition 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:25.840 to fight when they arrived. It was a very long trip. 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.960 The first ships were sighted at Long Island almost three 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.840 months after they had departed, on August twelve. Yeah, the 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.560 idea was that they were supposed to arrive ready to fight, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.840 so while it was still a long and difficult sea voyage, 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.160 it was a long and difficult sea voyage with more 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.560 comforts than you might ordinarily see better amenities. Everybody had 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:47.840 a pillow and two blankets and a place to sleep, 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.840 and and pretty nice allotments of rations, at least until 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:54.560 later in the voyage when a lot of that was 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.760 spoiled and gross. Even with those amenities and the relatively 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.439 acious and comfortable transport, about eight hundred Hessians in that 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.800 first convoy were sick once they arrived. Scurvy and diarrhea 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.560 were two of the big complaints. They also because they 0:20:12.560 --> 0:20:15.560 had not seen fresh fruit for months while they were 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.720 on their way. A lot of them made themselves ill 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:24.120 on unripe apples after they landed um and also exhausted 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.399 themselves in the manual effort of setting up camps once 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:31.320 they got off the ships. Once on American soil, they 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.160 had a number of compensations to make. So the Hessians 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.520 had a reputation for being exceedingly competent soldiers really well disciplined, 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.119 but their training in Germany really didn't always translate to 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.040 combat skills in America. There had been a lot of 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.119 focus on marching and very precise formations, and that didn't 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.280 work well when mixed in with British formations or in 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.520 skirmishes with small bands of revolutionaries who were fighting in 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.679 more of a guerrilla combat style. Yeah. I can't of 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.720 imagine a well trained army the very focused on maneuvers 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:06.399 and on precision in in marching and formation and things 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.040 like that, and and being harried by little bands of 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.440 scrappy guys with guns taking pot shots at them from 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:17.359 the woods. Not really compatible. Yeah. The colonists had also 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.280 gotten word that Hessians were on their way, and they 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.720 had made their own recruitment and training efforts to try 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:26.720 to compensate um these though as we as we just said, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:31.119 they were scrappier, raggedier forces than these professionally trained and 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:36.040 dressed troops from Britain and Germany. So the American troops 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.080 looked like they were just going to be easily overwhelmed 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:42.600 by the Hessians. In the British they did not look 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:50.280 like trained, competent soldiers. They looked like ragamuffins. Really like 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.760 I'm sort of imagining them as grown up street urchins 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:57.240 with rocks m from a Dickens novel. They just went 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:04.119 through time to the battlefield. Yeah their faces so yeah, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:09.560 And for a while, um, the the American forces faced 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:13.560 a lot of defeat In the late summer, fall and 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.400 early winter of seventeen seventy six, the colonial forces met 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:21.359 the Hessians again and again, and they saw what seemed 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.320 like just an endless string of defeats. This really cemented 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:27.639 the idea in the in the you know, minds of 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.840 the Hessian troops that the Americans were not good soldiers, 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:34.800 but they would be easily defeated and this overconfidence would 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.120 turn out to be a problem, as over confidence often does. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.800 Do you want to pause for just a second before 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.440 we get to the meaty story of battle, Yes, and 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:45.960 take a word from our sponsors. Yes, And now let's 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.440 get back to the most famous battle that the Hessians 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.399 were involved in in the American Revolution. This is the 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.640 one that followed George Washington's famous crossing of the Delaware 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.240 River on Christmas night seventeen seventy six, and that happened 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.479 at Trenton. So the brief version, the war had been 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:09.760 going very very poorly for Washington's army, with many defeats 0:23:09.760 --> 0:23:14.320 and retreats and trouncings by the Hessians. Desertion had become 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.119 a huge problem, and new recruits were getting more and 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:19.760 more difficult to come by. The mood of both the 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:23.720 army and the leadership was pretty seriously demoralized, and it 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:28.080 was basically fraught with pessimism. Yeah, listen started out as 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:33.040 a very idealistic attempt to become independent and to start 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:39.000 a new, pretty groundbreaking system of government, and then as 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.360 the fighting went on, it was just like being kicked 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:46.200 over and over. It was not going well. You could 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:49.199 see how that would break their spirits. Yes, at this point, 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.600