rather than fear. It always takes them a quarter of
an hour to load, and meanwhile they feel our balls and
bayonets.” Among the prisoners taken by the
Hessians were two generals—Sullivan and Stirling. Nothing
can be more characteristic of the hatred and
contempt felt at this time by the Hessian officers for the
undisciplined troop of rebels to whom they were
opposed, than Von Heeringen's account of these generals
and of other officers of the American army. “John
Sullivan was a lawyer, and previously a domestic
servant, but a man of genius, whom the rebels will much
regret. Among the prisoners are many so-called colonels,
lieutenant-colonels, majors, and other officers,
who, however, are nothing but mechanics, tailors,
shoe-makers, wig-makers, barbers, etc. Some of them were
soundly beaten by our people, who would by no means
let such persons pass for officers. Sullivan was brought
to me. I had him searched and found the original
orders of General Washington on him; from which it
appears that he had the best troops under his
command, that everything depended on his holding the
wood, and that he was eight thousand men strong.
The English have one hundred and fifty killed and
wounded” [three hundred and eighteen, says Sir William
Howe]. “This they owe more to their disorderly
attack than to the valor of the enemy. It looked
horrible in the wood, as at least two thousand killed
and wounded lay there. Colonel John, of the rebels, is
dead. A grenadier took him prisoner and generously
gave him his life, only telling him to go back to the
battalion which was following, for the grenadier was a
skirmisher. The colonel wanted to murder him, slyly,
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THE HESSIANS.