from Savannah at the end of February. The slaves
of rebels had been confiscated. These slaves, in South
Carolina, were the most degraded on the continent,
and had been the worst treated by their former
masters. The field hands among them, according to a
Hessian journal, usually received a quart of rice or
Indian corn a day. This they ate half-cooked, finding it
more nourishing in that condition than if fully boiled.
Many of them had hardly a rag to cover their nakedness.
Few could understand English.[1] On the 31st
of May ten slaves were given to each regiment starting
for New York. The negroes formed a part of the
booty of the campaign, and thousands of them were
shipped to the West Indies to be sold.
Early in June, Sir Henry Clinton sailed for New
York. With him went the Hessian grenadiers and
chasseurs, but some of the Hessian regiments remained
behind.
The expeditions to Savannah and Charleston were not the most distant in which the German auxiliaries were engaged. In the autumn of 1778 about twelve hundred men, Waldeckers and Provincials, under Major-general John Campbell, were sent to reinforce the garrisons of West Florida. Sailing early in November and touching at Jamaica, these troops were landed at Pensacola at the end of January, 1779. Pensacola was then a town of about two hundred wooden houses, defended by forts built of logs and sand. It stood in a sandy desert, surrounded by thick and interminable forests. It was a four weeks' journey overland to Georgia by the old trading path. The woods were in-
- ↑ MS. journal of the Grenadier Battalion von Platte.
