History Of The American Revolution: How Common People Shaped The Fight For Independence

Hessians were German soldiers who served as auxiliaries to the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. The term is an American synecdoche for all Germans who fought on the British side since 65% came from the German states of Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau



During the American Revolution, Great Britain hired thirty thousand German troops to fight rebellious colonists. Five thousand of those troops marched across New Jersey from Princeton and Trenton to the northern tip of Sussex County. Though popular legend would cast them as cold and vicious mercenaries, many were prisoners of war with little choice.