Johann Walbrecht, a young Germanic hunter/soldier, is immersed in medical training at Marburg University when he is forced to flee his country after a pistol duel with the son of the regions Baron. He has no idea the course of his life is about to change forever. It is November 1840 when he boards a ship bound for America. Four months later, John arrives in New Orleans, Louisiana aboard the slave ship he has worked on keeping the captives alive. He buys four slaves, eats a hearty meal at a French restaurant, drinks too much, and is eventually robbed of the gold eagles gifted to him by ships captain. So begins Hessian Johns new and unpredictable adventure. He acquires Mississippi riverside land neighboring Joseph Davis (older brother of Jefferson Davis), completes his medical training, and is recruited as an army surgeon during the Mexican War of 1847. John soon becomes one of the earliest doctors to challenge the longstanding problem of poor sanitation in military camps and field operations. In the first of a four-book series, a frontier doctor embarks on a coming-of-age journey in the American South before the Civil War and participates in historical events that soon lead the direction of both his career and his life.

Continuing from Books I (Hessian John, 19th Century Military Surgeon), Book II (Hessian John, Army Surgeon in the Pioneer West), and Book III (Hessian John, Civil War Military Surgeon), 48-year-old former Mississippi plantation owner, Dr. Johann Walbrecht, in Book IV (Hessian John, 19th-Century Railroad Surgeon) faces harsh Reconstruction-Era land reform policies then turns to serve as a contract surgeon during the Union Pacific Railroad Companys building of the transcontinental railroad where he encounters Arapahos, Sioux, and other Native tribes in the wild Wyoming Territory. During the vibrant post-war decade from 1865 to 1875, the United States grows rapidly westward fueling a rush of European immigrants hungry for land made available by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad Companies penetrating the former Indian lands beyond the Missouri River system. In this fourth of a five-book series, former military surgeon, John continues a mid-life journey though the spectacular and still-wild American West participating in major historical events that continued to influence his life as an experienced and practical pioneer surgeon.

Continuing from Book I (Hessian John, 19th Century Military Surgeon, that ended in 1849) and Book II (Hessian John, Army Surgeon in the Pioneer West that ended in 1861), 44-year-old Mississippi plantation-owner Johann becomes a Confederate Army surgeon helping to organize the Souths medical corps and serving briefly as a Southern spy in the Unions medical headquarters in Washington. While in the Union Army, he serves as a battlefield surgeon in the opening battles of the Civil War where he is wounded, captured by his own army, and returned to Confederate service where he continues as an army surgeon until sent on a gold-collecting mission to California serving President Daviss hopes to stabilize the collapsing Confederate economy and to overcome the Souths blockaded access to European weapons and supplies. Finally, he participates in the attempted escape of President Jefferson Davis and his cabinet officials, ultimately returning to his Davis Bend plantation, Lindenbaum, where he is faced with the harsh problems of the Reconstruction Era so troubling to many Old-South landowners. In this third of a four-book series, military surgeon John continues on a stark Civil War Journey through mid-19th-Century Southern and Western America, participating in major historical events that deeply influenced his life.

Follows the aging soldier-surgeon, plantation owner, and railroad doctor as he deals with tribes on the Western Plains in the late 19th century. During the '70s, he serves as an army contract surgeon in major battles against Indians while attempting to help those victims of broken treaty promises. Since he holds unique understandings of the "Indian Problem," he participates in efforts to reform army policy suborned to corrupt federal influences.

Captain Johann is an assistant surgeon who has recently returned from the Mexican War. After being chastised by Army Surgeon General Tom Lawson for criticizing poor camp-sanitation practices, he was sent on an inspection trip to camps along the Oregon Trail where cholera and other diseases were spread by forty-niners. In the early '50s, his 4th Infantry Regiment was sent via Panama to Fort Vancouver where he served with Lieutenant U.S. Grant and Captain George McClellan. Still later, he roamed the gold fields to find a missing brother-in-law and to practice proper medicine among gold seekers who were poorly served by medical charlatans. In the mid-'50s, he returned to Europe, serving with the U.S. Observer Team at the Crimean War where he learned more about sanitation from Florence Nightingale. Finally, he returned to his Hessian hometown where he was again captured by his pursuers who served the Baron Horst von Biebertal.

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.

The book probes the reasons why my Hessian ancestor came to this country to put down the Patriot rebellion, then defected to make the Patriot cause his cause. Except for his birth and death dates and the year of his defection, nothing is known about this man prior to his desertion, after which he became a farmer in what's now West Virginia. The manuscript creates his background in his German state and traces his journey through battles of the Revolutionary War, an incident that led to the death of a fellow countryman for which he felt responsible and his tutelage by an American woman who would become his wife. His course of action is contrasted with that of a childhood friend, also a Hessian soldier, who spent five and a half years in American prison camps but felt obligated to return to his home country. This book should be of interest to the many Cale descendants and to devotees of American history, especially to people who are interested in the history of the American Revolutionary War.