completed their occupation of the little village of Trenton with the arrival of Colonel von Lossbergâs Fusilier Regiment. Their drums shattering the morning silence, their leggings chalked white, their coats bright red, they marched proudly into the village and quartered themselves in the Methodist and Episcopal churches. Later the same day, Colonel Rahl established his brigade hospital in the parsonage of the Presbyterian church. Dr. Elihu Spencer, the Presbyterian parson, was an avid book collector, and he complained afterward that the Hessians had used his books to light fires and to clean their boots.
With the arrival of the Fusilier Regiment of Hessians in Trenton, Sir William Howe completed his plans for the containment of Washingtonâs shattered army until the Delaware River froze solid within a few weeks. He stationed his British troops in the rear, where they could easily join the Hessians when the time came for a general advance against the Continentals: a thousand Highlanders at Amboy, a thousand red-coats at New Brunswick and a thousand more at Princeton.
The Hessiansâwho were armed not only with their guns but with their reputationsâwere at the river bank itself, somewhat more than fifteen hundred men at Trenton and about the same number at Bordentown, some ten miles downstream and toward Philadelphia. Thus six thousand men were considered by the British as ample to deal with what remained of the American army. The rest of the troops were quartered in New York City for that intervalâa short one they were certainâbefore the war ended.
[21]
THIS DESCRIPTION of the Hessian soldier is taken from Dunlapâs History of the American Theater:
âA towering brass fronted cap; mustaches colored with the same material that colored his shoes, his hair plastered with tallow and flour, and tightly drawn into a long appendage reaching from the back of his head to his waist; his blue uniform almost covered by broad belts sustaining his cartouche box, his brass hilted sword, and his bayonet; a yellow waistcoat with flaps, and yellow breeches, met at the knee by black gaiters; and thus heavily equipped he stood as an automaton, and received the command or cane of the officer who inspected him.â
The flamboyant, colorful, peacock dress of the Hessian soldier was by no means unusual in Continental Europe. There the uniform of the soldier had social as well as sexualâand often homosexualâsignificance. Its popinjay qualities were not without reason but served a very necessary purpose during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Recruited most frequently from among the peasants, and often enough from the serfs, the Continental European soldier experienced a very significant change of character and position upon entering the army. From the very lowest rung of society he was elevated to a position of great subjective and even considerable objective importance; he was dressed in a colorful and striking uniform, and he was given the right to strut and parade his peacock feathers for the edification of the urban woman, whom he had always desired, even though she were maidservant or prostitute.
Criminal or peasant, he had once belonged to the least powerful element of society; now a musket was put in his hand and he was given the right, under certain conditions, to kill. This enlargement from subjugation to what was the ultimate power gave him a very distinctive and particular place in society.
The American soldier, on the other hand, was a world apart from this uniformed robot. Except for a few city companies of prosperous volunteers, the Continental had no other uniform during the year of 1776 than the clothes he wore when he had enlisted in the army either as a regular soldier or as a part of the militia. The whole symbolic significance of the uniform was lost upon him. Instead of the polished, bemedaled and brightly colored garments upon his own back, he saw
With the arrival of the Fusilier Regiment of Hessians in Trenton, Sir William Howe completed his plans for the containment of Washingtonâs shattered army until the Delaware River froze solid within a few weeks. He stationed his British troops in the rear, where they could easily join the Hessians when the time came for a general advance against the Continentals: a thousand Highlanders at Amboy, a thousand red-coats at New Brunswick and a thousand more at Princeton.
The Hessiansâwho were armed not only with their guns but with their reputationsâwere at the river bank itself, somewhat more than fifteen hundred men at Trenton and about the same number at Bordentown, some ten miles downstream and toward Philadelphia. Thus six thousand men were considered by the British as ample to deal with what remained of the American army. The rest of the troops were quartered in New York City for that intervalâa short one they were certainâbefore the war ended.
[21]
THIS DESCRIPTION of the Hessian soldier is taken from Dunlapâs History of the American Theater:
âA towering brass fronted cap; mustaches colored with the same material that colored his shoes, his hair plastered with tallow and flour, and tightly drawn into a long appendage reaching from the back of his head to his waist; his blue uniform almost covered by broad belts sustaining his cartouche box, his brass hilted sword, and his bayonet; a yellow waistcoat with flaps, and yellow breeches, met at the knee by black gaiters; and thus heavily equipped he stood as an automaton, and received the command or cane of the officer who inspected him.â
The flamboyant, colorful, peacock dress of the Hessian soldier was by no means unusual in Continental Europe. There the uniform of the soldier had social as well as sexualâand often homosexualâsignificance. Its popinjay qualities were not without reason but served a very necessary purpose during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Recruited most frequently from among the peasants, and often enough from the serfs, the Continental European soldier experienced a very significant change of character and position upon entering the army. From the very lowest rung of society he was elevated to a position of great subjective and even considerable objective importance; he was dressed in a colorful and striking uniform, and he was given the right to strut and parade his peacock feathers for the edification of the urban woman, whom he had always desired, even though she were maidservant or prostitute.
Criminal or peasant, he had once belonged to the least powerful element of society; now a musket was put in his hand and he was given the right, under certain conditions, to kill. This enlargement from subjugation to what was the ultimate power gave him a very distinctive and particular place in society.
The American soldier, on the other hand, was a world apart from this uniformed robot. Except for a few city companies of prosperous volunteers, the Continental had no other uniform during the year of 1776 than the clothes he wore when he had enlisted in the army either as a regular soldier or as a part of the militia. The whole symbolic significance of the uniform was lost upon him. Instead of the polished, bemedaled and brightly colored garments upon his own back, he saw
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