Depends on what side you view it from. Our 5th great grandfather fought on the wrong side of the American Revolution…. and he wasn’t British! These are Prussian examples of mlitary uniforms similar to what Andreas would have worn.
In researching Grandma Beach’s side and looking at Adeline Legault, Lewis Beach’s wife, I have found that her mother, Mary Cheffer (Schaeffer), was the granddaughter of a Hessian soldier who fought for the British in the Revolutionary War!
Brunswick soldier and great grandfather of ours, Andreas Gerhart Schaeffer, was born around 1756 in or around Wuerzburg (or Kussingen, depending on source) Germany. Germany was not a state as we know it at this time in its history. The “State” would really be areas of territory under the control of the House of Brunswick (Later the Duchy of Brunswick). Andreas fought as a Brunswick soldier for the British in the American Revolution.
In early 1776, King George III of England hired units from the various houses or states of Germany to assist with bringing the colonist’s rebellion to order. The hiring of foreign troops to supplement a country’s army was a normal procedure during this time of history. Several of the German rulers, needing hard currency and being “between wars”, were only too happy to oblige. About 18,000 “Hessian” troops arrived in North America in 1776, with more coming in later, of this about 3/4 of them were from Hesse-Kassel. The colonist’s newspapers referred to all of them as Hessians and the name stuck. The units were used to help the British and to protect Quebec and other British holdings in America.
Andreas joined a new regiment being formed for the American expedition. He joined the Light Battalion of Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Friedrich Albrecht von Barner. He was part of the second company, the elite Jäger Company, lead by Captain Maximillian Ernst Schottelius. The von Barner Light Battalion consisted of 24 Officers, 56 NCO’s, 14 Drummers, 528 Men and 36 Servants.
The Jaegers (Hunters) were recruited normally from game-wardens, sons of wardens and other persons working in the forests. They used the traditional green for their uniforms. They were equipped with a heavy barreled rifle.
On February 22, 1776 he was one of 2,282 officers and men who left Braunschweig and marched to Stade on the Elbe River. Andreas got on the ship Margaretha Alida, of Dutch Registry, bound for America (via England) on May 27, 1776 near the village of Stade on the River Schwinge, near Hamburg, in northern Germany. On board were Major Ferdinand Albrecht von Barner, Captains Maximillian Christoph Ludwig Schottelius (Jäger), Gottlieb Joachim von Gleissenberg, Lieutenants Johann Andreas Bode, Johann Friedrich Pflueger, Caspar Friedrich Rohr, Regimental Surgeon Kuntze and 308 men of the Jaeger Company and the Company of Major von Barner, Leib company. The ship went to England and was part of small fleet that left for America on June 25th 1776. The ship was slower than the English ships and von Barner’s ship had to be towed a few times because it could not keep up. One of the officers on another ship in the fleet wrote about this in his diary and said the officers were all having a good laugh kidding Barner about this. Andreas and the fleet arrived in Quebec in Sept 1776. They went into camp with the Jaeger-company, under Captain Schottelius and were quartered in Yamaska, Quebec. They eventually came out of the winter of 76/77 and went on to fight the rebels in the spring, summer and fall of 1777.
Saratoga
On October 11, 1777 General Gates and the Americans, after some morning confusion, are able to surround Burgoyne’s Army and are positioned upon the heights overlooking the British camp enabling artillery and rifle fire into it. Burgoyne, Riedesel, Hamilton and Phillips meet to discuss possible options for an attack or further retreat. After reconnaissance shows that no clear opening existed for further retreat and von Riedesel’s pledge that the Brunswick regiments could cut a pathway for Burgoyne’s Army is denied then all was indeed lost.
SURRENDER
On October 14, 1777 Burgoyne calls a counsel of war and discusses the capitulation of his forces which was agreed upon by the senior officers. A armistice was agreed upon by General Gates and Burgoyne until 10:00 AM on October 15th, capitulation to occur at 3:00 PM and grounding of weapons by 5:00 PM. Burgoyne stalls for time and demands from Gates the full honors of war, that the troops would be returned to England, on condition that they would not serve in North America again. A treaty is signed by both commanding Generals, capitulation being changed to convention, on October 17th.
At 10:00 AM on October 17, 1777 the troops of Burgoyne’s army march out with the honors of war, ground their weapons by the river, and begin the 200-mile march to Boston. This convention army consisted of: 5,895 men of all ranks – 3,018 British, 2,412 Germans, 465 ‘auxiliaries’ – plus 215 British women and 82 German women, and an assortment of camp followers, and a menagerie of local wildlife pets of the German troops. The march through Massachusetts, to internment at Winter Hill near Cambridge, took 21 days. I am sure but still need to prove it, that Andreas’s wife followed him and settled in Quebec with him in 1783.
On November 17th 1777 the Brunswick regiments were placed in the old American barracks built during the siege of Boston. The officers and men were stripped of their personal effects, a violation of the treaty. Further violations of the treaty occur when the Brunswick troops are scattered throughout Massachusetts with private families and forced to work for food and clothing, and induced to desert. With the help and supervisions of General von Riedesel, at the end of December 1777, the Brunswick convention regiments had only lost 20 men to desertion.
1778 – 1783
Further American violations of the treaty occurr when the Continental Congress refuses to accept terms of the treaty and consider the “conventioneers” prisoners of war. The Brunswick troops remain scattered until November 1778 when Congress decides to march the “conventioneers” to Virginia. The Brunswick regiments are marched through severe winter weather, without tents or adequate supplies, and arrive at Charlottesville, Virginia in the middle of January 1779. With no provisions for shelter the troops were required to construct a small village to house themselves, grow their own food and generally provide for themselves, and it is here that many remained until the end of the war. In May of 1780 there were still 1,503 Brunswick troops still in Virginia. The conclusion of the war in Fall of 1783 enabled the remaining Brunswick troops to return to their homeland. Of 5,723 total men who came over to America during the war only 2,708 returned and under 500 of these returning troops were from the convention army. A good number of the soldiers stayed in America or Quebec instead of going back home.
Andreas shows up on the Brunswick Deserter-Immigrants of the American Revolution. (German-American Genealogical Research Monograph, 1.) Thomson, IL: Heritage House, 1973. [54p.] p. 37. So he spent less than a year fighting then ended up as a prisoner until 1783 when he either deserted instead of going back home or he left the army to stay in Quebec.
Still looking for his wife (our 5th great grandmother), Johanna Dorothea Mayer, I believe she would be one of the camp followers mentioned above. His wife died and he remarried in 1806.