fury, and nearly overpowered the guard. So when we
were near the barracks our commanding officer said:
‘Dear Hessians, let us march into these barracks.’ We
did so, and the whole American detachment had to
check the raging people.” Why the American officer
addressed his captives in terms of endearment does not
appear, but a great degree of confidence seems to have
been established between them. Eelking tells a story,
hardly to be taken without a grain of salt, that when
the party was being moved from Lancaster to
Winchester, in the autumn of 1777, and came to the
boundaries of Virginia, the Pennsylvania escort refused to
march farther, and would not set foot on the sacred
soil. In fact, they dispersed, and all went home.
The escorting company which should have come to
meet them from Winchester had not arrived. The
captain who had been in command of the Pennsylvanians
was a man of much presence of mind, and of
equal confidence in human nature. He told the
Hessians, whose affections he had won by his humanity,
that they must march on without an escort, as he
himself should hurry forward to Winchester. He trusted
to the prisoners, promising them good treatment on
their arrival. So he departed. The prisoners, if such
they can be called, whom none constrained, marched
on in an orderly manner. On the third day the old
captain came back with an escort of Virginians, and
found all the Hessians present at roll-call, though some
unprincipled Englishmen had disappeared. The
Germans were, thereupon, all treated to brandy, while the
English captives had to take up their line of march
Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/123
THE WINTER OF 1777.
105