whom had any military experience, and whose officers
were taken from civil life.
The Hessians were much struck with the appearance of wealth and plenty which they found on Staten Island. The colonists lived in comfortable houses surrounded by gardens and orchards. Their light red wagons drawn by two small horses excited the wonder of the Germans. A colonist on Staten Island lived as comfortably as a German country gentleman, and it seemed extraordinary to the Hessians that people should revolt against a government under which they enjoyed so many blessings. Many of the Americans had fled from their homes on the approach of the Hessians, and those who remained were at first inclined to be surly when troops were quartered upon them; but when they saw that strict discipline was enforced, and that only regular requisitions were made, the fugitives returned, and relations of tolerance, if not of cordiality, were soon established. The British government still hoped to reconcile the colonists to the rule of the mother country, and strict orders had been given to prevent all excesses.
No sooner did Sir William Howe find his army collected than he prepared to attack the Americans. The British advanced guard, under Sir Henry Clinton, with the Hessian chasseurs and grenadiers, commanded by Colonel von Donop, crossed the Narrows to Long Island on August 22, 1776. A diary, published in a magazine at Frankfort-on-the-Main in the following year, gives a graphic account of this operation and of those that followed:
“August 22.—We weighed anchor and lay close
