[ottbmare]

Fascinating article. I love history, especially this era. No, especially all of them. :-)

I have some Jewish friends whose ancestors came to this country as mercenaries, got taken prison, and decided to stay. They admired the lovely, rich farmland available for farming—so much more productive than the land at home in Germany—and the freedom farmers had to keep more of the results of their labor. They also found that there was less prejudice against them here, and a vibrant, very prosperous Jewish community where they were respected.

There is also a quote from an ancestress of mine who lived in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Captured British troops were being marched past her house and stopped to get a drink. She told them that her sons were off fighting the other Brits and the war would soon be over, but she would be kind to the POWs nevertheless because her own mother had been English. The English officer who wrote this was clearly taken aback by her charitable yet patronizing attitude toward someone as elevated as he was accustomed to being.

[larryjohnson]

Shenandoah Co is where my Mom’s homeplace is. Many German names there. Prob these farmer came from PA but may have been resettled Hession or German troops. I have an old York Co history which says they were marched to VA and let go.I have not the smarts to research my family.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for your comments. Ottbmare, your story of your Jewish friends who were rooted in Jewish/German 'mercenaries' made me do some research; but before I get to that, allow me to emphasize that these soldiers were not mercenaries in the 'soldier of fortune' sense; that is, they were (mostly) German farm boys who were drafted by their local prince who was paid by the hiring royal (in our case, George III) and the prince would then pay the conscripts.

Of the 30,000 that were brought over, it has often been said that 10,000 died, 10,000 went back to Europe and 10,000 stayed. The 10k dead, must also include those dying from camp fever, smallpox, etc., since battlefield fatalities were not near that high.

The following has been excerpted form a post on roots-web discussion board.

From: John Helmut Merz
Subject: Re: [AM-REV] [Fwd: "Hessian" soldiers questions]
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 21:43:22 -0700

Of the 30,000 soldiers in the German auxiliary troops who served in America, appr. 17,000 came from the three Hessian principalities of Hessen-Kassel, Hessen-Hanau and Waldeck. The rest was from the Duke of Brunswick and the princes of Ansbach-Bayreuth, and Anhalt-Zerbst, which made no difference to the Americans, they called them all by the name of "Hessians". Within those units were many different nationalities, such as Hungarians, French, Swiss, Prussians, Austrians, Bavarians, Poles, Danes, Dutch, and most of them were either Catholic or Lutheran, with a few Germans of the Jewish faith, there was no distinction made.

There was no distinction made by the American patriots either they referred to all of them as "Hessians", no discrimination there. One, a Jewish officer, comes to my mind, the Quartermaster Jacob Calnek of the Ansbach-Bayreuth Regiment, who settled after the AmRev in Nova Scotia. In fact, he later brought his whole family over from Berlin, which at the time was Prussian territory.