who knows what I might have done. But, my love,
God has given me this calling; I must follow it; duty
and honor bind me to it, and I must console myself
and not complain.”[1]
General Riedesel set out from Brunswick on the 22d of February, 1776, for Stade, on the Elbe, at the head of two thousand two hundred and eighty-two men. The troops were embarked between the 12th and the 17th of March, and got to sea on the 22d of that month. There were seventy-seven soldiers' wives with this division. The remainder of the Brunswick contingent marched to Stade in the month of May. The divisions amounted together to the number of forty-three hundred men. The regiment of Hesse-Hanau, six hundred and sixty-eight strong, joined the expedition at Portsmouth. The Brunswickers were reviewed and mustered into the English service by Colonel Faucitt, who was not pleased with the appearance of the soldiers. Many were too old, many were half-grown boys. The uniforms of the first division were so bad that the English government was obliged to advance £5000 to Riedesel to get his men a new outfit in Portsmouth. He was cheated by the English contractors, and when the cases of shoes were opened at sea, they were found to contain ladies' slippers. For a Canadian campaign no overcoats had been provided. New uniforms for the first division were sent after them in the course of the summer.[2]
- ↑ Baroness Riedesel, p. 1.
- ↑ As late as January, 1779, fourteen Brunswick soldiers and two soldiers' wives froze to death on a march in Canada, and about thirty were frost-bitten; and their officer excused himself on the ground that they were insufficiently clad.—Eelking's “Hülfstruppen,” vol. ii. p. 187.
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