>I suppose often times when a soldier did not show up for muster, it was >hard > to determine if he had been killed, deserted, or captured, unless there > was > some means for periodic exchange of information between the two sides. A German soldier serving during the AWI faced much of the same situation as today's soldier in a deployed military unit. Except in cases of detached duty, I doubt that 24 hours passed without his unit knowing he was missing. There would be daily musters and he had to get his rations. Like any army, there was a lot of "hurry up and wait" action. Remember, in the North the armies went into winter quarters when it got too cold to fight and in the South they went into summer quarters when it got too hot to fight. There would be picket duty and foraging parties. The majority of the units saw more combat in their first 18 months in America than they did during the remaining five and a half years of their deployment. The Brunswickers and the Hesse-Hanauers arrived at Quebec in May 1776 and surrendered at Saratoga in Oct 1777. The Hesse-Cassel troops arrived at New York in Aug 1776 and after going into winter quarters in Philadelphia at the end of 1777 had all the major battles behind them -- The New York campaign, Trenton, Brandywine and Germantown. When Yorktown surrendered in Oct 17814, only four German regiments were involved, two Hessian (Erbprinz, von Bose) and two Anspach-Bayreuth (von Voit, von Seybothen). As I recall, only Regt v. Bose marched from Charlestown (Charleston SC) throughout the south as part of Cornwallis's army on the march. The Anspach-Bayreuthers went to Norfolk with Benedict Arnold in Dec 1780. The Erbprinz Regt went to Portsmouth VA in March 1781. I think it probable that there were a few occasions where the French/Americans overran a British/German position and men were left on the battlefield and presumed dead or captured, the later categorization made by the reports of the last members of his unit to see him/them. My general observation is that men reported dead have reappeared so look at the date and try to determine whether the date matches a known combat. My intuition tells me that this was more prevalent in the Brunswick records than any other of the German States. I recall that five or six years ago on this list I encountered a cemetery record of a soldier reportedly being killed in the Saratoga campaign but was killed by lightning on that same date, several years later. As I recall, the name was Isene/Esena. Bob Brooks