Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War by Friederike Baer (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War by Friederike Baer Brady J. Crytzer (bio) Keywords Hessians, Germany, Revolutionary War, Prisoners of war Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. By Friederike Baer. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 528. Cloth, $74.00.) In Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, Friederike Baer offers a thorough and critical analysis of the German experience in the American Revolution. Relying on a variety of international sources, Baer reveals how German soldiers perceived the conflict, and how their contributions affected the outcome of the war. Despite their being major players in the British war effort, the contributions of German auxiliary soldiers remain some of the most under-studied elements of the American Revolution. Baer's efforts to shed light on these often-overlooked sources has helped to fill a critical gap in modern Revolutionary scholarship, making Hessians an essential read. In the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, the British Empire witnessed its overall military strength reduced to a skeleton crew of less than 60,000 troops. With the empire at its largest size yet seen, British administrators were faced with a crippling debt, and an emerging rebellion in its North American colonies. To address their lack of military might, British diplomats scoured the continent of Europe in search of reliable auxiliary soldiers to fill the king's ranks. What followed was months of negotiations with some of the most unscrupulous monarchs of the Old World. Both at home and abroad, these negotiations were met with consternation and scorn; in the colonies John Adams described the ruler of Hesse-Kassel as a "Soul selling Landgrave" (29). In the first chapter of Hessians, Baer [End Page 326] expertly navigates the political consequences in Britain, Germany, and America. As a result of their diplomatic efforts, Baer reveals how British officials brokered several different agreements with six separate German states. In the second and third chapters of Hessians, Baer analyzes the recruitment of these soldiers and their subsequent voyage to the New World. While the respective German states discussed in these chapters held a unique place in the greater politics of Europe, Baer shows how they each desired unique concessions from their British clients. Amongst the most contentious aspects of these agreements was the reputation of the German rulers for unscrupulous and bad-faith negotiations. Their citizens were commodified; many of these rulers issued conscript drafts to field large armies with little care for training and readiness. In Chapter 3 Baer discusses how these troops were deployed to the New World, bringing the story to life through her use of first-hand accounts. The German soldiers shuttled to North America were often highly literate and very opinionated, and the author amassed an impressive collection of their early experiences on their trans-Atlantic voyage. The first analysis of the German Auxiliary experience in the New World is presented upon their arrival in New York and New Jersey. While the book offers a balanced narrative of the events of the period, Baer takes special care to place the foreign troops at the center of her analysis. They were the consummate outsiders with very little investment in the outcome of the conflict; that fact was a stunning reality given that they were often the ones tasked with actual combat operations. As products of Germany's famed martial culture, German officers often provided scathing critiques of the American war effort. The entire Patriot cause was viewed as an affront to the German affinity for order and autocracy, and the Continental commanders were deemed illegitimate and unworthy of respect. As Baer notes, one German officer named Andreas Wiederhold very deliberately described George Washington as "Mister Washington," and not "General Washington" (88). Chapters 4 and 5 of Hessians offer pointed analysis from an alternative viewpoint of the New York and New Jersey campaigns, with special emphasis of the battles of Trenton and Princeton. The geographically diverse nature of the war highlights the remainder of Baer's manuscript. The various theaters of the American Revolution saw patriot motivations diverge, and the character of the war change as well. While issues like slavery, loyalism, and plantation-style agriculture typified...