Hessians

Who were the Hessians?”

• Germans leaders hires out 30,000 mercenaries to fight in the Revolutionary War

• Over ½ were from Hesse

Who were they?

• Conscripts

• Debtors

• Victims of impressments

• Petty criminals

Pay

• Pay was low

• For some their only pay was their food

What were they?

• Disciplined

• Highly skilled military

• 1/3 of British forces

• Chasseurs (sharpshooters)

• Musketeers

• Fusiliers

What Happened to Them?

• 1,200 killed in action

• 6,354 died of illness or accidents

• 5,000 settled in US when their commanders refused to take them back to Germany because they were physically unfit or criminals

• Became farmers or craftsmen

Headless Horsemen

• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving– “Ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had

been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War.”

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

• The Headless Horseman is a fictional undead and ghost character in Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Since tales of undead, headless horsemen were spread in south-western Germany it's likely that Irving was inspired by tales of a Hessian headless horseman while traveling in that area.

• In Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," it is said the horseman lost his head to a cannon ball during some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War. Ichabod Crane ignores the warnings of danger by the legendary Horseman and later meets an unknown fate by the hands of the horseman. Although Crane's rival Brom Bones may have been masquerading as the Horseman, it is not explicitly determined whether Crane encounters the actual Horseman or Brom Bones.

Setting

• Set at a real bridge near the Old Dutch Burying Ground

Bugs Bunny

• Bunker Hill Bunny

• Yosemite Sam’s Character is a Hessian

Bunker Hill Bunny• Set in 1776 at the "Battle of Bagle Heights“• Bugs, dressed as an American Minuteman

defending a wooden fort against the red-coated Sam von Schamm the Hessian, defending a large stone fortress.

• Sam taunts Bugs with the boast that he has him "outnumbered, one to one" and, after a barrage of ineffective cannon fire, charges across the battleground rattling his saber.

• Sam suffers repeated injury. • A powder keg backfires on Sam, leading him to

change his tune• "I'm a Hession, without no-o-o-o aggression!".

Defeated, he joins Bugs in a fife-and-drum march that closes the film.