The family story that has been passed down is that “General Proctor” and his daughter Mary Proctor came to America from England at “the close of the war.” (See “Mystery Monday- The McMurrays in America“) For years we had thought that they were speaking of the Revolutionary War, so these index listings, found when researching Henry Horn, another McMurray ancestor, were intriguing. Could General Proctor have fought in the American Revolution? If so, which side was he on?
And what was his first name?? Since these officers are from Pennsylvania, and Mary Proctor and her husband settled in Pennsylvania, could one of them be her father, ‘our’ General Proctor?
Looking at this mystery again, though, makes a few lightbulbs go on- sometimes a bit more information or even time will help data make sense. We do know that Mary Proctor and her husband William McMurray were living in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, by 22 May 1819 when their son and our direct ancestor, Henderson McMurray, was born. Mary was 26 years old, and William 30.
Oops- we need to do the math. Since Mary was born in 1793 and William in 1789, “the close of the war” would have to be the War of 1812 if the letter from Aunt Ibe Raugh was speaking of an American war. Mary and William were not even born when the American Revolution was happening.
Doing the math and then looking at the timeline makes us realize that these officers are most likely not ‘our’ General Proctor.
The rambling mind of a genealogist, of course, wonders if any of these officers could be the brothers or cousins of Mary’s father, who induced them to immigrate…
The 1850 US Federal Census for Allegheny Twp., Blair County, Pennsylvania, states that William was born in Ireland, and Mary in Pennsylvania- NOT England, as in the family letter. The 1860 census for the same place states again that William was born in Ireland. Unfortunately Mary passed away in 1851, so we have no other census to note her birthplace. Was she born in England or Pennsylvania? Or in Ireland, as some unsourced Ancestry.com trees and her Find A Grave memorial state? This will need more research, though we have already looked for many years.
Keeping the math in mind and a timeline in view, it makes us realize that possibly we need to be looking at the War of 1812 records just in case General Proctor served in it, at the very end. If so, which side would he have been on? As an Englishman, did he come over to fight for the king and then decide to stay and become an American? Or did he fight in the war for the Brits and then, returning home, decide to bring his daughter back to America with him and start a new life? And was he really a General??
If we could find a marriage record for Mary and William, or names of any of her siblings, that might help us find out just who ‘General Proctor’ was, and we can go from there. Any other ideas?
1850 US Federal Census for William McMurray- Year: 1860; Census Place: Allegheny, Blair, Pennsylvania; Roll: M653_1078; Page: 14; Image: 18; Family History Library Film: 805078. Ancestry.com. 5. Find A Grave memorial #128118060 for Mary J. Proctor McMurray- http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=128118060&ref=acom
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A Map of Philadelphia and Parts Adjacent, With A Perspective View of the State House. Philadelphia: Lawrence Hebert, 1752. Source: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3824p.ct000294 via Wikipedia. Public domain.
We last left Henrich Horn, our Hessian ancestor, hanging- thankfully, not literally, but that could have been the case had George Washington’s troops not protected their POWs from an angry mob.
After being marched victoriously by American troops through some of the streets of Philadelphia, the march had been cut short by an inflamed mob that the American escorts felt they could not control. They locked the ~850 Hessian prisoners of war in the American barracks for safety. The POWs, including our Henrich, would have worriedly awaited the next move by their escorts from Washington’s troops.
The first Battle of Trenton, where Henrich and his comrades had been captured, had increased the morale of the patriots so much that it turned the tide of the American Revolution. Little did the POWs know that while insults, rotten vegetables, and rocks were being thrown at them as they marched through Philadelphia, Washington had marched back to Trenton with his troops for another engagement. The Continental Army won that battle, then moved on to Princeton, New Jersey, where Washington was also victorious.
The British traveller Nicholas Cresswell, definitely a Tory, commented,
“The minds of the people are much altered. A few days ago they had given up the cause for lost. Their late successes have turned the scale and now they are all liberty mad again.”
He later wrote, after another British loss,
“It is the Damd Hessians that has caused this, curse the scoundrel that first thought of sending them here.”
(That ‘scoundrel’ would be good King George. Those would be treasonous words, had not the British had bigger fights to manage on the North American continent.)
The British and Hessian soldiers were in such a panic at their unexpected losses to the ragtag Americans that they thought they saw Washington and his troops everywhere. It was in this atmosphere of changing fortunes that the Trenton prisoners were marched from Philadelphia to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Washington wanted the POWs far away from the front, and Lancaster fit the bill.
Philadelphia is about 80 miles almost due west of Lancaster, and it would take over 20 hours to walk today. In January of 1777, however, it took four days, without snowplows and on roads that would have been icy and rough. The cold and tired prisoners arrived in Lancaster on 6 January 1777, probably around mid-day.
Lancaster was the largest interior American city, with 3,300 residents in 1775, and many German-Americans had lived in the area for some time. The Hessians were taken to a barracks “built of brick, with three wings, and surrounded by a stockade.” The stockade had log cabins on each corner, and walls twenty feet high. There were already some British POWs in the barracks, and the Hessians were given the center wing for themselves.
One Hessian recorded in his journal that everything was “peaceful and quiet.” Maybe now the captured Hessians would get a bit of recuperation after their travails of the last few months.
To be continued…
Notes, Sources, and References:
Featured image: A Map of Philadelphia and Parts Adjacent, With A Perspective View of the State House. Philadelphia: Lawrence Hebert, 1752 source: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3824p.ct000294
Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett, 2004. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History, this tells the story of the crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton, mostly from the American point of view. This is an excellent book, and very well-written.
The Hessians and the other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War by Edward J. Lowell. Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1884.
The Hessians. Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution, by Rodney Atwood, Cambridge University Press, 1980.
The Hessians and Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, by Edward J. Lowell, Harper & Brother, New York, 1884 Republished by Forgotten Books, 2012.
A Generous and Merciful Enemy. Life for German Prisoners of War during the American Revolution, by Daniel Krebs. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.
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Today is “Susan B. Anthony Day” and we should all be celebrating her birth that occurred 15 Feb 1820. She was a tireless worker for women’s rights, so any of us who are female, our mothers, and their mothers, plus the mothers of those mothers, (depending where you are on the generational spectrum) all owe Susan B. a big “THANK YOU!!”
Various bills have been put forth to make 15 February a National Holiday. A number of social activists already have National Holidays honoring their work- Martin Luther King, of course, and even Ceasar Chavez recently got an official day. But Susan B. Anthony was passed over- again, by Congress and the President. How can that be, when her work benefits 51% of our population, and cuts across economic status and race?? Wherever she is, she is probably just shaking her head… women fought for abolition too, and hoped that they would get the right to vote when African-Americans did. She and her sisters wanted the government to make all Americans truly equal, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. Apparently the “all men” in that document meant that literally- black men got the right to vote, white men already had it, but allwomen had to fight for many more years to get the “right” to vote. We should not have to fight now to get a day for Susan and the other women who worked so tirelessly for women’s equality.
Okay, you might say, Susan B. Anthony was put on a coin- shouldn’t that ‘count’? (Bad pun- sorry.) They put her likeness on the front of a silver dollar, BUT left the same reverse as on the previous silver dollar, an eagle landing on the moon. They couldn’t design a coin reverse for her too? How does an eagle on the moon relate to woman’s suffrage?
And who wants to use a heavy silver dollar when they can use a lightweight paper bill? Another problem was that the new smaller silver dollars looked so similar to quarters that the public did not want to use them, and vending machine companies fought it. Thus the demand was small and Susan’s coins were only minted for a total of four years; they are no longer available from the US Mint. Congress has, however, authorized the US Mint to issue a “First Spouse” series- all the wives of US Presidents. While First Ladies have done a lot of good work, it pales in comparison to what the suffragists did, endured, and accomplished. Where is our set of coins for women who worked for a social and political revolution?
It seems that our government just does not want to honor the women who worked for social and political justice.
Even Fox News thinks that Susan B. Anthony should be honored with a National Holiday. There are five states where Susan B. Anthony’s birthday is a state holiday: California, Florida, New York, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Oh wait- West Virginia celebrates it on election day but only in even years (??), so does that really count?
Edward B. Payne, probably circa 1910. Family treasure.
Edward Biron Payne (the grandfather of Dr. Edward A. McMurray) may have met Susan B. Anthony; at the least he most likely heard her speak, and read her articles. (He read everything.) In 1895, suffragists in California invited Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to attend their Woman’s Congress. They were pushing to get woman’s suffrage passed by voters in California, and needed help. (A woman’s suffrage bill was passed in 1893 by the CA state legislature, but the governor vetoed it, saying that women voting was unconstitutional.) The Woman’s Congress was held in San Francisco in May, and Edward B. Payne probably took the ferry across the bay and listened to Susan B. Anthony’s words. Edward himself was very committed to equality- he was a Christian Socialist, a Unitarian minister, and journalist. He also had founded a Utopian colony called Altruria, where it was required that the Vice-President be a woman. We don’t know if he knew Ninetta (Wiley) Eames by this time, but Berkeley, California was a small town, so he may have known her. Ninetta was a suffragist, and would later become his second wife.
Susan B. Anthony spoke around the state in support of women’s suffrage, including at a Unitarian Church in Berkeley. We have no proof that Edward was in attendance, but it would be very surprising if he was not sitting in the front row at that meeting or others. We know he regularly attended lectures, and he also gave a series of lectures to support woman’s suffrage. Rev. Payne loved a great philosophical discussion, and a social revolution for the people. I do hope that he got to meet with her and discourse!
Berkeley’s Citizen Suffrage League thanks Edward B. Payne and others for their aid in the suffrage movement in California. San Francisco Call, 19 Nov 1896, page 11, column 2, via ChroniclingAmerica.com
A thank you to Rev. Payne and others was published after the vote was defeated. Southern California had passed it, but San Francisco, more populous, defeated the bill. Saloonkeepers and the liquor industry, more prevalent in San Francisco, were afraid that if women got the vote, a prohibition of alcohol would be next.
All women today in the US should honor Susan B. Anthony on her birthday, and really, every day. Men need to as well- when women have equality, men benefit economically, socially, emotionally. Having the vote is powerful, and we need to honor the suffragists by using that vote in every election.
Gayle Gullett has done some excellent writing on the California Woman Suffrage movement. She has an article on JSTOR: “Constructing the Woman Citizen and Struggling for the Vote in California, 1896-1911.” Gayle Gullett, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 69, No. 4, Woman Suffrage: The View from the Pacific (Nov., 2000), pp. 573-593. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3641225
She also wrote a book on the topic: Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women’s Movement, 1880-1911.Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. See a review at https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4314
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W. C. Fields (above) was a curmudgeon, and on the anniversary of his birth on 29 February 1880, we celebrate all the curmudgeons we know and love- or try to love.
What is a curmudgeon, you may ask? Generally described as a complaining, crotchety, critical old man, in the interest of equal rights we will include women as possibilities too. “Snarling contempt” is a good phrase that can describe the opinions, attitudes, and writings of curmudgeons. The very best curmudgeons, however, will add a bit of humor or dry wit to their scathing words, and give us an insight into the human condition; sometimes they even make a career out of it.
W. C. Fields is famous for many a curmudgeonly phrase, some from his movies, and some said on his own while in character (he was said to personally be a kind man). Many other quotes have been attributed to him but may not be really his words. Here are a few of his most famous:
“I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.”
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.“
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.”
And the quote that sums up his character:
“I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.“
Title page of the First Folio, 1623. Copper engraving of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout. Public domain, via Wikipedia.
The characters of William Shakespeare issued their share of curmudgeonly insults to each other long before- and now after- W. C. Fields:
“There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.” (from Henry V)
“Thine face is not worth sunburning.” (from Henry V)
“Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after voyage.” (from As You Like It)
“You are as a candle, the better burnt out.” (from Henry IV, Part 1)
Nowadays, we may have to extend the definition of ‘curmudgeon’ to include cartoons (Lucy always complaining and nagging Charlie Brown), puppets (Oscar the Grouch), and even internet memes (Grumpy Cat). And when you put two together you get…
Isn’t the internet wonderful??
We all know some curmudgeons, and likely have a few in the family, though it is doubtful that any of our dear readers would fit into that category. We won’t name (many) names, but we do have a few ancestors who are long gone that we could possibly honor as Curmudgeons on this very special day.
OK, OK, it’s not really that special a day, as any true curmudgeon would proclaim.
Samuel J. Lee in His Drugstore in St. Louis, Missouri, possibly 1940s or 1950s?
Samuel J. Lee (1879-1964) ran a drugstore in St. Louis, Missouri. As the neighborhood changed and got quite a bit rougher, it is understandable that he might have turned a bit curmudgeonly. Only apparently Sam sort of was that way even before. A nephew who worked for him said that it did not take much to get Sam upset. He actually had a peephole in the wall of the drugstore- something common to many stores so that an owner could truly ‘keep an eye’ on things. The nephew stated, however, that Sam would monitor his work performance through the peephole, to make sure he did not dish out too much ice cream to a customer at the soda fountain, or even worse, sample the ice cream himself.
Sam was a quiet man, according to another family member. He didn’t talk much, and in the evenings would just go sit in the sunroom of the house on Alamo, read his paper and smoke a cigar. So maybe he was more a quiet man, and people just took that silence as curmudgeonly?
Gerard William “G.W.” Helbling in his garden in St. Louis, Missouri. Date unknown, likely 1920s.
Gerard William “G. W.” Helbling (1882-1971) did not have the benefit of much formal education, but he was a brilliant man. That brilliance could drive some people crazy, though, like one of his daughters. She said he always had a criticism for a movie, an article, or whatever. He would explain how it could not really happen, why it wasn’t true, the facts that were missing, or how it was biased. He was most likely right, as he was a prodigious reader and knowledgeable about a whole lot of things. He would often guess what would happen next, and spoil the plot line.
He could be a very loving man, however, and the love he showed for his dear wife, Anna May (Beerbower) Helbling, was the kind of love women (ok, men too) dream about.
So maybe we can’t officially call him a curmudgeon? Maybe just a part-time curmudgeon, who was usually right.
Hannah Melissa Benjamin with her great-grandson, Edward A. McMurray, Jr., about 1926.
We don’t really know enough about Hannah Melissa “Malissa” (Benjamin) McMurray (1854-1932) to officially proclaim her a curmudgeon. We don’t know that she was a complainer- her life was filled with work on the farm until her mid-fifties, and raising five children. She must have been a special woman to have endured it all, and some complaints, if any, should be excused.
But asking a descendant to identify the above picture was interesting. There was no name, and the informant was the young great-grandson pictured with Hannah Melissa (Benjamin) McMurray above. At first he did not recognize her through the fading lenses and memories of the 70+ years that had passed since that picture was taken. Then he looked up, in a somewhat taken aback fashion, when asked if it could be Hannah Melissa (Benjamin) McMurray. (Possibilities had been narrowed time-wise.) “Yes,” he replied. “She was VERY stern.” He was one who always gave people the benefit of the doubt, but apparently she curbed the enthusiasm of a toddler quite significantly, and he remembered it deeply when asked so many years later. He wouldn’t elaborate on whether that sternness was due to her complaining or just silently expecting him to toe the line; so maybe she was a pseudo-curmudgeon.
Headstone of Jonathan Benjamin (1738-1841) in Old Colony Burial Ground, Granville, Licking County, Ohio, with kind permission of photographer.
Jonathan Benjamin (1739-1841) was the third-great grandfather of Malissa (Benjamin) McMurray. Maybe Malissa got some of his ‘stern’ DNA.
The 1881 tome (816 pages!) compiled by N. N. Hill, Jr. called “History of Licking County, O., Its Past and Present: Containing a Condensed, Comprehensive History of Ohio, Including an Outline History of the Northwest, a Complete History of Licking County … a History of Its Soldiers in the Late War … Biographies and Histories of Pioneer Families, [and it goes on…]” tells Jonathan’s story the best:
Jonathan Benjamin was in some respects an extraordinary man. He was a person of rather coarse features, but of strong muscular powers, with a still stronger will. He was very determined in all his undertakings, and of an unforgiving temperament. Having passed through the French and Indian wars, and through the war of the Revolution, and having suffered much and long by Indian depredations, both in the loss of friends and property, the finer feelings of his nature had become blunted to such an extent that he seemed to have lost most of his sympathy for his fellow man. Still he was a man of religious habits, and of good morals, but was generally considered to be a man that was naturally morose and unsociable, and was not known through life to have expressed his forgiveness of the Indian race…. Mrs. Benjamin possessed social qualities that in great measure compensated for lack of them in her husband.”
Jonathan had lived through Indian wars in New York (and/or New Jersey), Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, as well as in Licking and Fairfield Counties, Ohio. He witnessed his family members killed or carried off in Indian raids, and he had fought in military battles from at least the age of fourteen. He lived to be 102 years, 10 months, and 12 days old, and his demeanor never mellowed. His curmudgeonly attitude was likely fueled by the sorrows and hardships he had experienced in his long life. We can put on our psychiatrist hats and say maybe he was covering up the pain. Or maybe he was a quintessential curmudgeon?
It is hard to actually know if these folks were truly curmudgeons or not, as we only have a part of the story. They all had hard lives, so I do apologize to them if they were not curmudgeonly just for the sake of curmudgeon-ness.
So, who will you honor today on “Curmudgeon Day”??
The “remainder biscuit after voyage” refers to the saltwater-soaked, then dried out, wormy biscuits that are all that is left for sailors and travelers to eat at the end of a very long voyage on board ship.
Jon Winokur wrote The Portable Curmudgeon and a variety of sequels which are just delightful if you enjoy this genre of humor and quotations.
History of Licking County, O., Its Past and Present: Containing a Condensed, Comprehensive History of Ohio, Including an Outline History of the Northwest, a Complete History of Licking County … a History of Its Soldiers in the Late War … Biographies and Histories of Pioneer Families, Etc., compiled by N. N. Hill, A. A. Graham & Co., 1881 may be found at https://books.google.com/books?id=_Xw8AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. Jonathan Benjamin bio on p. 602.
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Family history is meant to be shared, but the original content of this site may NOT be used for any commercial purposes unless explicit written permission is received from both the blog owner and author. Blogs or websites with ads and/or any income-generating components are included under “commercial purposes,” as are the large genealogy database websites. Sites that republish original HeritageRamblings.net content as their own are in violation of copyright as well, and use of full content is not permitted.Descendants and researchers MAY download images and posts to share with their families, and use the information on their family trees or in family history books with a small number of reprints. Please make sure to credit and cite the information properly.Please contact us if you have any questions about copyright of our blog material.
When we last left our Hessian ancestor Henrich Horn and his fellow prisoners of war, they had been marched by General Washington’s troops about fifteen miles from Trenton, New Jersey to Newtown, Pennsylvania. It was the 26th of December, 1776, late in the by-then dark day after crossing the Delaware River, with the blustery, frigid weather of the northeast making their trek even more miserable. They were exhausted after many days of high alert, skirmishes, brutal weather, and their ill-fated Battle of Trenton that very morning. Once in Newtown, possibly their only meal of the day had been dropped from a hole in the ceiling of their hastily-thrown-togeher prison, and they felt they were being treated like animals. The Americans had left them to sleep, but it was likely not a very restful sleep with not knowing what was in store for them as POWs.
Our Henrich Horn was only about 16-18 years old at the time, and likely had been a soldier for less than a year. Thankfully he was in a large group of fellow soldiers, which would have been a bit less frightening than being by himself. Despite his shared woes, he must have been very frightened, angry at the mishandling of the battle by his Hessian superiors, and concerned for his life, so far from home.
The Americans after the Battle of Trenton, as well as the populace of Newtown, were eager to see what the hated Hessians looked like. They found they were just men, not the ruthless spawn of Satan, as some had feared. One American, a Sergeant Elisha Bostwick, had this to say about the Hessians:
“They are of Moderate Stature and rather broad Shoulders their limbs not of equal proportion light complexion with a blueish tinge hair cued as tight to the head as possible Sticking straight back like the handle of an iron skillet. Their [von Knyphausen’s Regiment’s] uniforms blue with black facings.”
[Could that blueish skin tinge possibly be due to the bitter cold and their clothes soaked from rain, snow, and the river?]
One researcher stated that their uniforms were purposefully made short and tight, to make it look like they were getting larger and more invincible. (True? Or just because the tailors wanted to save on cloth?)
George Washington decided that the hated Hessians would be paraded through Philadelphia, the capital of the colonies. He wanted to show off his triumph- he needed that to boost citizen morale as well as that of his soldiers and Congress, as the Americans had been losing battles and the enlistment of many of his soldiers was almost over; supplies and payroll funds were short, too. The American army had been teetering on the brink of destruction, and it was important to rally at that moment in time, or they would be defeated from within as well as without.
Washington wanted the people to realize that the Hessians were not invincible- they could actually be defeated, even captured, by his brave troops. So with hardly time to warm up and recuperate, the Hessian POWs were gathered into rows and columns on 30 December 1776 and marched to Philadelphia, about 30 miles southwest of Newtown. Google indicates that it would be an eight-hour walk today, but it would be interesting to know how long it took these sick, injured, and exhausted men in the snow and cold. The thought of another march must have been daunting to the captured as well as the capturers, after the exhausting few days they had just survived. But march they all did, as General Washington ordered.
Would the Hessians have been told of the plan, or their minds left to wander as to their next fate? Think about the language barrier, too, although there were German-American patriots who would have translated orders. The minds of Henrich and his comrades would have been teeming with fear of the possibilities: Would the Hessians be executed in another place? Would they be separated, as they had been from their officers right after the battle? Or would they be lucky enough to be a part of a prisoner exchange?
An angry mob had already gathered outside the city when the Hessians arrived at Philadelphia. By that time the Hessians had been told of what was to happen next. They were joined by their officers, who had been marched to different towns after the capture, and been wined and dined by American officers, as was often the custom. (Officers often treated each other very well and respectfully after capture or defeat, and some of the Hessian officers had actually dined with George Washington and discussed the tactics that had led to their defeat.)
The Hessian officers rode in covered wagons through the city which protected them, but the common soldier captives were hit, pushed, yelled at, etc. as they marched through the angry mob. The old women screamed at them that they had come as mercenaries to take away the freedom of the American people and they tried to strangle the men; dirt and rocks were thrown at them. The Americans hated the German auxiliaries, as for the past year, even before the Hessians had arrived on American shores, newspapers had whipped up terrible fears- one paper stated the Hessians were soldiers who:
“… will exhibit such a scene of cruelty, death, and devastation as will fill those of us who survive the carnage, with indignation and horror, attended with poverty and wretchedness.”
(Sadly, this had been often true earlier in 1776.)
It was recorded that some Americans brought brandy and bread for the captives, but the old women would not allow them to help the Hessians.
“Presidents House” at 524-30 Market St., in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Hessians would have paraded before this home which was built in 1767. Nine months after the Hessian POW parade, the house would be lived in by General Howe during the British occupation of Philadelphia. Later, Presidents Washington and John Adams lived in this home. Wikipedia, public domain.
The Continentals paraded their prize of about 850 German POWs for all to see, down Market Street, Front Street, and then Walnut Street. The guards had been told to lead them throughout the streets of Philadelphia: “We became a spectacle for the entire city,” wrote one German captive. The Hessians must have been a sorry sight after their ordeals, and the Americans were therefore embarrassed that they had run in terror from “such vagabonds.”
Washington had ordered that the prisoners should be protected, and the escort realized that with such an angry mob around them, it was impossible to guarantee the safety of their charges. As the mob numbers and violence increased, the Americans cut short the path through Philadelphia and marched their prisoners to the city barracks rather than continue the dangerous parade. The American small escort had to fend off the townspeople while the German prisoners sat inside the barracks, listening to the cries for their death from the mob outside. Even though they were battle-hardened, well-trained troops, being so outnumbered in the midst of an angry enemy must have been very frightening, especially for a soldier no older than about eighteen, like Henrich Horn.
Why were the Americans so protective of their prisoners, especially when the Hessians were so hated by all, even British Loyalists whose homes and businesses had been raided by the Hessians on their fierce march through New York and New Jersey? One of the American plans was that the POWs would be paroled or exchanged, and go back to their Hessian regiments with stories of how well they were treated, and “sow the seeds of dissension between them and the British troops.” The Americans had even gone so far as to publish and distribute tracts in German offering land and money for desertion of the Hessian troops. Additionally, Washington was afraid of attacks on the prisoners alienating them, making them even more fierce opponents once they had been released.
Henrich Horn and his fellow POWs would have been quite relieved to have survived the march through an angry Philadelphia. They would have been wondering as to what would happen next in the saga of their capture.
Notes, Sources, and References:
Re: 1784 engraving showing the Hessians captured at Trenton being marched to Philadelphia, then the American capital. Translation is approximately: “The Hessians captured by General Washington on December 25, 1776 at Trenton are introduced as prisoners of war in Philadelphia.” Note that the Battle of Trenton was on the morning of December 26, 1776, not the 25th as written in caption.
Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett, 2004. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History, this tells the story of the crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton, mostly from the American point of view. This is an excellent book, and very well-written.
The Hessians and the other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary Warby Edward J. Lowell. Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1884.
The Hessians. Mercenaries from Hessen-Kassel in the American Revolution, by Rodney Atwood, Cambridge University Press, 1980.
The Hessians and Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, by Edward J. Lowell, Harper & Brother, New York, 1884 Republished by Forgotten Books, 2012.
A Generous and Merciful Enemy. Life for German Prisoners of War during the American Revolution, by Daniel Krebs. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.
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