Reflections of a Hessian

The book probes the reasons why my Hessian ancestor came to this country to put down the Patriot rebellion, then defected to make the Patriot cause his cause. Except for his birth and death dates and the year of his defection, nothing is known about this man prior to his desertion, after which he became a farmer in what's now West Virginia. The manuscript creates his background in his German state and traces his journey through battles of the Revolutionary War, an incident that led to the death of a fellow countryman for which he felt responsible and his tutelage by an American woman who would become his wife. His course of action is contrasted with that of a childhood friend, also a Hessian soldier, who spent five and a half years in American prison camps but felt obligated to return to his home country. This book should be of interest to the many Cale descendants and to devotees of American history, especially to people who are interested in the history of the American Revolutionary War.


About the Author


The author is a cardiologist and a professor of internal medicine at Mercer University School of Medicine, Savannah campus. He received his M.D. degree from the University of Maryland and served an internship at the University Hospital in Baltimore. In the late 1950s he was a U.S. Navy flight surgeon for Airborne Early Warning Squadron One, based in Hawaii and Guam. He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology at the Ohio State University where he served as a faculty member for 9 years. In 1974 he was appointed Chief of Cardiology and in 1990 Dean of the School of Medicine at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. In 1977 he relocated to Savannah, Georgia. Dr. Leighton is the author or coauthor of over 90 publications in the field of cardiovascular disease and of two recent books: "Dear Folks: A Memoir from 500 Letters in 2016 and "From Guam and Beyond: Stories of the Men of VW-1" in 2018.