This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... Some Of Our Patriots In Public Life. FOLLOWING the plan J outlined in the preceding chapter, it is proposed, in this, to mention some of our ancestors who attained more or less prominence in public life in connection with the Revolutionary period. This list does not include all, however, who attained any degree of prominence, but merely a partial list of those with whom we are most familiarly acquainted. Montgomery County. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, D.D. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, was born at Eimbeck, Hanover, Germany, on September 6, 1711, died October 7, 1787, married, April 22, 1745, Anna Maria Weiser, daughter of Col. Conrad Weiser (1727-1802). He was one of the first students in the University of Gottingen, 1735. After graduation he received an appointment as teacher in the Orphan House at Halle, upon which duties he entered after a further course in the University of Jena. It was decided to prepare him as a missionary to the East Indies, but, providentially, this plan was disarranged, and, eventually, he departed for America, reaching its shores, near Charleston, S. C, on September 23, 1742, and arriving at Philadelphia on November 25, 1742. Here he began his work of organizing and upbuilding the Lutheran Church, the fruit of which is apparent to this day. So great was his patriotism during the Revolution that he became a marked man, and was obliged to flee from Philadelphia to his home at the Trappe when the British entered it after the battle of Brandywine. Here he was in constant communication with the American leaders, and in the midst of all the important operations then going on. His sons and sons-in-law were noted for their services to their country. Frederick Augustus Conrad...

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.

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.

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 narrative analysis of the complex evolution of the Continental Army, with the lineages of the 177 individual units that comprised the Army, and fourteen charts depicting regimental organization.