Hessians

Someone pointed out that King George had Hessian soldiers in his employment in reaction to my pointing out that the United Colonies had French, Spanish, and Dutch support. The combined strength of the Americans and the French virtually guaranteed victory against Great Britain, not the citizen soldiers of the militia (BTW, there were also loyalist militia units). The Continental Army soldier Benjamin Thompson, who expressed the 'common sentiment' at the time which was that minutemen were notoriously poor marksmen with rifles:[1]

"Instead of being the best marksmen in the world and picking off every Regular that was to be seen...the continual firing which they kept up by the week and the month has had no other effect than to waste their ammunition and convince the King's troops that they are really not really so formidable."[2]

See also France in the American Revolutionary War and Loyalists during the American Revolution.

The amount of support given by france was rather staggering with the French troops outnumbering both British and American troops at the siege of Yorktown!

French: 11,800 regulars, 29 war ships
American: 5,700 regulars 3,100 militia

British: 9,000 soldiers

Hessians were a different thing.

Hessians comprised approximately one-quarter of the British forces in the Revolution. They were called Hessians, because 16,992 of the total 30,067 men came from Hesse-Kassel. Some were direct subjects of King George III, even though they were not British, since he ruled them as the Elector of Hanover. Other "Hessian" soldiers were sent by Count William of Hesse-Hanau; Duke Charles I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel; Prince Frederick of Waldeck; Margrave Karl Alexander of Ansbach-Bayreuth; and Prince Frederick Augustus of Anhalt-Zerbst.

About 18,000 Hessian troops arrived in the Thirteen Colonies in 1776, with more coming in later. They first landed at Staten Island on August 15, 1776, and their first engagement was in the Battle of Long Island. The Hessians fought in almost every battle, although after 1777 they were mainly used as garrison troops. An assortment of Hessians fought in the battles and campaigns in the southern states during 1778–80 (including Guilford Courthouse), and two regiments fought at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781.

The troops were not mercenaries in the modern sense of military professionals who voluntarily hire out their own services for money. As in most armies of the eighteenth century, the men were mainly conscripts, debtors, or the victims of impressment; some were also petty criminals. Pay was low; some soldiers apparently received nothing but their daily food. The officer corps usually consisted of career officers who had served in earlier European wars. The revenues realized from the men's service went back to the German royalty. Nevertheless, some Hessian units were respected for their discipline and excellent military skills.

The real rub comes since use of Hessian troops by the British further rankled American sentiment, and pushed some loyalists to be in favor of the revolution. Using foreign troops to put down the rebellion was seen as insulting, as it treated British subjects no differently than non-British subjects; Some pro-British Tories felt that the British nature of Americans should have entitled them to be above mercenary forces.

The problem was that many of the Loyalist Officers depended on local support to fill the ranks of the Loyalist units. So, I find it annoying that someone who claimed loyalty to the crown would not come forth and do their duty. Moreover it was their duty to serve in Loyalist units if they were insulted by the use of Hessians. This is one of the reasons for the reputation the loyalists had for being cowardly.

If you consider that the War for American Independence was a civil war to begin with, this would be roughly like the US Forces expecting some other power to come to their rescue.

Nevermind, that the forces of rebellion needed the help of the French to defeat the British.

More War for American Independence

Believe it or not, I have a lot in common with the average colonial at the time of the War for American Independence. They considered themselved British and that was a major part of their grievance at their being taxed without their consent.

I saw something in the Philadelphia Weekly that struck a chord with me about the "tea Parties" which are occurring over in the States. As Joel Mathis says: "It’s getting so you can’t tell regular Republican insanity from the lunatic fringe anymore."

I liked the part where antitax activist Larken Rose took the microphone and praised America’s Founding Fathers as “cop killers”—and wondered aloud why today’s citizens are too wimpy to follow in their footsteps.
 (A rough transcript of Rose's speech is available at his website).

“Those people were criminals, they were tax cheats, they were traitors,” Rose told the audience, which had dwindled to a few hundred people in the late afternoon. “Truth be told, some of the colonists were cop killers.”


Where, asked Rose, were the Americans who were willing to break the laws passed by crooked politicians and fight back against “crushing” governmental taxation?


“I’m not talking about voting and whining to your congressman,” he told the audience. “I’m talking about resistance.”


Needless to say, the organisers wanted to distance themselves from this type of talk.
“The speakers we had at our tea party gave the message we wanted to portray—period,” says Chris Clemency of the Independence Hall Association.


Pennsburg resident Rob Pepe helped organize the second tea party under the “ReTeaParty” banner. He says he wasn’t the person who invited Rose—but suggests Rose’s speech was to be taken metaphorically.
 “This is an educational revolution,” Pepe says. “It’s time to understand what liberty is all about.”


Rose—an author who served prison time for tax evasion—denies the legitimacy of the federal government and writes angry tirades against “Gestapo” police tactics on his website. It sure didn’t sound like he was speaking in metaphors. He mocked “Freedom Movement” members who vote and obey the law, and smilingly acknowledged a shout of “9/11 Truth!” from the crowd.


“If 2 to 3 percent taxation justified a revolution in 1776, why doesn’t 50 percent and growing justify a revolution?” Rose asked. “If a few little excise taxes on pieces of paper and tea justified open lawlessness from these rebels that were all celebrating, why don’t the myriad of incomprehensible, unavoidable, crushing taxes—state, local and federal—why don’t they justify a revolution today?”


By the way, Rose didn’t respond to an interview request from PW . But it’s worth noting that despite his fiery talk, he doesn’t always walk the walk. He urged his audience to refuse to recognize the authority of the government­—but when convicted of tax evasion in 2005 he didn’t exactly go down in a hail of bullets: Instead, he was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and lived to write and speechify another day.


Now, this is a good point. Most of the "patriots" were pretty conservative. And, Like Rose, were quite willing to raise taxes on themselved beyond the low taxes which caused the rebellion. As I say, they didn't like taxation without representation, but would go on to tax the crap out of themselves.

The Tories were correct, things were pretty good and far from "tyranny", unless you take into account the standing armies. The problem is that rebellion for the hell of it would lead to people like Larkin Rose.

236 years of a mistake, it's time to go back!

History is written by the victors

Ever wonder what life would be like if the British had won the war for American Independence or the French the French and Indian Wars? I do. Not sure which would be a better scenario. The first, the US would be an intelligent Canada (no sales tax on stamps, gun control, "socialised" medicine, land planning etc.) and the Second, kind of a larger Belgium with French, English, German, and Dutch being the official languages.

Anyway, I found this badge in my travels:


Sure, it is for the Island of Jersey Militia, but think with all these RKBA people talking about being able to rebel against a tyrannical government. Now, what is to prevent people from deciding that the US war for Independence was illegal and that the current government neglects the welfare of its citizens? I mean there are loads of us who have loyalist ancestors who decided it was better to keep their traps shut than say the rebels were wrong. 50,000 Loyalists left the states for Canada. And, Benedict Arnold, the true patriot, ended up living his days in London (not a bad option). Additionally, as I continuously point out, the REAL reason for the rebellion was an out of control military.

Now, Isn't the current military establishment pretty out of control? I mean several trillion for a couple of wars that really don't make sense as far as security goes. Give me a break, Iraq is a failure as is Afghanistan.

So, watch out for the Royal New Jersey Militia!