-----Original Message----- From: Bob Brooks <rcbrooks@pivot.net> Sent: May 25, 2005 10:32 AM To: AMREV-HESSIANS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [HESSIAN] the term Hessian Stephen -- >>> Hello Bob. Hello Nelda. Boy, I think I'd be more likely to take argument >>> about the use of the word "mercenary" than I would about the word >>> "Hessian". Imagine - a simple 500 word essay penned by Benjamin Franklin >>> while in France seeking military support from a former enemy (who not >>> but a few years before murdered and massacred colonial men, women, and >>> children at places like Fort William Henry without a second thought) >>> turned volunteers and conscripts alike into mercenaries. You can still >>> hear the ring of Franklin's sword, ere pen, as he scribes the word >>> "mercenary" on parchment battlefield. <<< Whether or not the German auxilary troops were "mercenaries" is a subject where opinions get in the way of facts. In modern terms, it makes a good "sound bite." I have not studied enough 18th century German history to consider myself having any kind of expertise on the subject; however, my limited studies have convinced me that (1) people did not have the person freedoms which we are accustomed to today, and (2) a military career was an honorable career. In 1775, prior to the deployment to North America, the companies in the Hesse-Cassell regiments were manned to about 50% of the level to be deployed. Once the regiments were committed to America, recruitment was required to bring the regiments to the deployment levels. Because the pay was to be by the British pay-scale which was higher than the German pay-scale, there were plenty of recruits willing "to take the King's shilling." In rough numbers, the first Hesse-Cassel contingent comprised 15 infantry regiments, each of five companies and about 600 men; four composte Grenadier battalions, ecanh of four companies and about 500 mem, two Jäger companies and a detachment of artillery plus two general-staffs -- call it 12,000 men -- of which maybe 6,000 were already employed and 6,000 eagerly had "taken the King's shilling." In the six annual replacement recruit deployments, an average of another 1,200 or so replacements were sent over. I believe that conscription only applied very marginally and the mostly to the later repaxements. When your government sends YOU overseas to fight for another country's cause, does that make YOU a mercenary? I should hope not. As a member of the US Marines, in 1965 I was deployed from a peacetime garrison situatiuon in California and ended up in a place called Vietnam. At that time the US Marines was an all-volunteer organization. Was I a mercenary? Just because Ben Franklin called them "mercenaries" doesn't make it so. The Viet Minh and Viet Cong had some pretty nasty things to say about the US Marines in Vietnam, too. Bob Brooks ==== AMREV-HESSIANS Mailing List ==== Please stick to our published subject - Hessian Soldiers of the American Revolution, not WWII or the Civil War. No other Immigrants. You can search the archives for a specific message or browse them, going from one message to another. To search: http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/?list=AMREV-HESSIANS To browse: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/AMREV-HESSIANS-L ============================== Census images 1901, 1891, 1881 and 1871, plus so much more. Ancestry.com's United Kingdom & Ireland Collection. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13968/rd.ashx