Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/123

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