The World Turned Upside Down - The German Battalion (8th Maryland) Continental Regiment.

 

The German Battalion, also known as the 8th Maryland Regiment, was a rather unique Continental Army unit in the American War of Independence, serving from 1776 to 1781 and was authorised by Congress on the 25th May 1776 along with five additional regiments*, one being the German Battalion comprised of officers and men selected from among the German settlers of Pennsylvania and Maryland in eight companies, four from each state. It was hoped Hessians in British service would be lured to desert the British Army to fight for the Americans.

 

*six Additional Continental regiments, were authorized by Congress and organized in late 1775 to mid-1776, and were distinct by having formed without any administrative connection to an individual state; these were further augmented by sixteen Additional Continental regiments approved by Congress as a separate group on December 27th, 1776, specifically in response to a request from Gen. George Washington for additional troops, and Congress expressly delegated their formation directly to Washington.

Each Company was to consist of ninety enlisted men and the following officers: a Captain, a 1st Lieutenant, 2nd Lieutenant, Ensign and non- commissioned officers: 4 Sergeants, 4 Corporals, 2 Drummers or one Fifer and one Drummer and 80 privates. The Regiment was to be commanded by a Colonel, and the officers under him were a Lieutenant-Colonel, two Majors, a Chaplain, a Surgeon and a Surgeon's Mate.

The German Regiment was organized under the command of Colonel Nicholas Haussegger of Pennsylvania, commissioned July 17th, 1776, he having previously been a Major of the 4th Pennsylvania Battalion of Militia; and the same day that Colonel Haussegger was appointed, a ninth company was recruited from Pennsylvanians at the urging of George Washington as a way to employ French and Indian War veteran Lieutenant John David Woelper of the 3rd Pennsylvania Battalion.

The German Battalion was assigned to the Middle Department on 27th June 1776, and the unit organized at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the period 6th July to 25th September, later being assigned to the main army on 23rd September.

The map shows the Battle of Trenton on the 26th December 1776. The German Battalion marched with the northern column covering the Princeton road.

A strength return from 22nd December 1776 showed that the battalion mustered 374 soldiers under Haussegger's command, and together with the 254-man 1st Continental Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hand, the battalion served in Matthias Alexis Roche de Fermoy's brigade; and four days later on the 26th December 1776, the regiment fought at the Battle of Trenton, marching with the left column which was accompanied by George Washington. 

When the column deployed for battle, Hugh Mercer's brigade was on the right, Adam Stephen and Lord Stirling's brigades in the centre and Fermoy's brigade on the left.

Early in the combat, Washington moved Fermoy's brigade to the east to prevent the Hessian defenders from retreating north to Princeton, and when Hessian commander Johann Gottlieb Rall attempted to break out to the north on the east side of town, Washington shifted Fermoy's brigade farther east to outflank him.

The Battle of Trenton - Hugh Charles McBarron, Jr.

Toward the end of the battle, Haussegger's men yelled in German to the Hessians to lay down their weapons and surrender, and with Rall and many of their higher officers wounded, the Hessians soon capitulated.

As New Years Day 1777 dawned, a reinforced American brigade took position behind a creek six miles south of Princeton, ready to block the advance of Lord Charles Cornwallis' forces, and among the 1,000 Americans were Hand's riflemen, of the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, Charles Scott's Virginia Brigade, the German Battalion, with 410 officers and men present, and six artillery pieces under Thomas Forrest. 

During the morning hours, the Americans repulsed the 1st Light Infantry Battalion and two companies of Hessian Jägers, and it was necessary to commit British and Hessian grenadiers before the Americans pulled back, with the British suffering most of the 140 casualties lost during the action.

 
The next day, Cornwallis brought on the Battle of the Assunpink Creek when he launched a major push with 8,000 troops and 28 guns. 

The alcoholic Fermoy abandoned his troops, leaving the capable Colonel Hand in command, and there was a clash at Little Shabbakunk Creek, where Cornwallis was forced to unlimber his artillery, but as soon as British pressure became too great, Hand pulled back his men to a second blocking position, and later falling back to a third position at Stockton Hollow, outside Trenton. 

As dusk fell, superior British numbers forced Hand's troops into a hurried retreat through the town, and during the withdrawal, the British captured Haussegger and some of his men near the lower fords of Assunpink Creek.

The Americans regarded Haussegger's capture with suspicion, and indeed the performance of the German Battalion may have been affected, as he was considered to have defected to the British and was not employed by the American army after being sent home on parole.

That evening, columns of British and Hessian troops tried to storm the bridge and the lower fords, but were stopped, and Washington posted the German Battalion at the bridge in the second line, behind Scott's troops; the next day, 3rd January, the battalion was present at the Battle of Princeton, participating on the left flank in the attack on Lt Colonel Mawhood and the 17th Foot, that eventually, compelled the British to break off the fight.

I covered the battle of Princeton in my post looking at the 17th Foot.
JJ's Wargames - The World Turned Upside Down, HM 17th Foot

After Haussegger defected to the British, George Washington appointed Prussian volunteer Henry Leonard d'Arendt to command the battalion, on the 19th March 1777, the same day that Haussegger was removed from the rolls.

Following the battles of Trenton and Princeton, both British and Continental Army troops entered their winter quarters in early January, with General William Howe ordering General Cornwallis back to New York, and pulling all British and Hessian forces back to Brunswick and Amboy, two New Jersey towns just across the river from New York City. 

This effectively surrendered New Jersey to the Continental Army, leaving Continental regulars and militia companies from New Jersey and Pennsylvania at liberty to engage in numerous scouting and harassing operations against the British and German troops quartered in New Jersey and needing to protect supply trains, reconnaissance parties, and messengers, as well as foraging parties sent out to find food and forage for themselves and their horses.

Later known as 'The Forage War' consisting of numerous small skirmishes that took place in New Jersey between January and March 1777, the battalion fought in the Battle of Spanktown on the 23rd February 1777, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Stricker. 

A reinforced British brigade under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood, with a battalion each of light infantry and grenadiers, plus the 3rd Brigade consisting of the 10th Foot, 37th Foot, 38th Foot and 52nd Foot, was on a mission to destroy any rebel forces they could catch; and near Spanktown, Mawhood found a group of militia herding some livestock covered by a larger body of Americans waiting on a nearby hill, and he sent the grenadier company of the 42nd Foot on a wide flanking manoeuvre. 

Just as the grenadiers prepared to launch their assault, they were fired on from ambush and routed with the loss of 26 men, and at this moment, the Americans attacked with a superior force forward to envelop Mawhood's force. The American force included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th New Jersey Regiments, the 1st and 8th Pennsylvania Regiments, and the German Battalion. Mawhood's surprised men were hounded all the way back to Amboy, with casualties from the action seeing, the American forces inflicting 75 killed and wounded on the British while losing five killed and nine wounded in return.

About this time, the German Battalion shed its status as an Extra Regiment and was counted as part of two state establishments, with one-half of the unit credited to the Maryland Line while the remaining half became part of the Pennsylvania Line, with Washington refraining from raising any Additional Regiments in Maryland because of that state's responsibility for the German Battalion.

Major General John Sullivan

On the 22nd May 1777, Washington assigned the German Battalion to the 2nd Maryland Brigade, under Brigadier General Preudhomme de Borre part of Major General John Sullivan's division, later taking part in the abortive raid on the British held Staten Island on the 22nd August 1777.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Staten_Island,_1777.svg

Sullivan's division had been left in New Jersey in case Howe doubled back from his cruise south, and Sullivan's attack on Staten Island was designed to convince the British command that the New York garrison was at risk.

The attack started well, catching the Loyalist garrison by surprise, but British reinforcements and not enough boats to effect a retreat, cost the American force two companies, made worse by an incompetent guide misleading one of the detachments to the front of the British positions rather than its rear, resulting in American losses of dead, wounded, and captured, each double or more than those of the British, depriving Washington of some 180-300 men needed for his campaign to defend Philadelphia.

Battle of Brandywine, 11th September 1777, Knyphausen's approach.

The battalion fought at Brandywine on the 11th September 1777, with a strength of 305 men all ranks,  initially positioned near Brinton's Ford, until Washington ordered Sullivan to take overall command of Stirling and Stephen's divisions (in addition to his own) and quickly march north to meet the British flank attack.

The British attack, saw the Brigade of Guards catching de Borre's 2nd Maryland Brigade by surprise on the American left, before they had had time to fully form, and immediately sent them into disarray, causing the entire division to rout, and collapsing the American line before Birmingham Meeting House.

After capturing Philadelphia, General Howe left a garrison of some 3,000 troops, while moving the bulk of his force to the outlying community of Germantown, and on the 4th October 1777 Washington's 11,000-strong army attacked the 9,000-man British army through a heavy morning fog with four separate columns designed to converge on the British position.

The Battle of Germantown, 4th October 1777.

The German Battalion as part of the 2nd Maryland Brigade was met by the British counterattack by generals Grey and Agnew's brigades, that, along with American troops attacking Chew House, and others firing at each other in the fog, eventually causing the American attack to lose impetus and initiate a retreat.

The following June the German Battalion was at the Battle of Monmouth, 28th June, 1778, now under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Weltner, and part of Brigadier General Peter Muhlenberg's Virginian Brigade, with a strength of 397 men all ranks, and bolstering a brigade with three regiments, the 1st, 5th and 9th Virginians, so reduced to be amalgamated into one regimental group, however the brigade arrived late in the day and was not engaged. 

On the 22nd July, the battalion transferred back to the 2nd Maryland Brigade and was reassigned to Edward Hand's Pennsylvania Brigade on the 24th November 1778 and served in the Sullivan Expedition in the summer of 1779; a devastating campaign led by General John Sullivan, and ordered by George Washington to cripple the British-allied Iroquois Confederacy by destroying their villages, crops, and food supplies in New York and Pennsylvania, aiming to end raids on settlements like Cherry Valley and Wyoming Valley. 

The scorched-earth campaign, involved around 4,500 Continental troops, and successfully razed over forty Iroquois towns and ruined vast harvests, forcing thousands of Iroquois refugees to flee, significantly weakening their war effort and opening lands for future American settlement, though it resulted in immense suffering for the native population.

On the 8th October 1779, the German Battalion was detached from Hand's Brigade, and the unit transferred to the New Jersey Brigade on 16th September 1780. 

On January 1st, 1781 General Washington ordered the army reformed and the Maryland forces were consolidated into five regiments serving in the Southern campaign, which would see the German Battalion officially disbanded at Morristown, New Jersey and Baltimore, Maryland on the 1st January 1781, when its men were transferred to other regiments from their respective states, where they continued to serve.

The early disbandment of the regiment is likely explained by it's poor discipline record, it being described by one commentator as 'one of the worst regiments in the Continental Army, not because it was actually bad at fighting, but because it had a poor corps of officers, which may have contributed to its soldiers’ habit of mutiny.'

That reference to a poor officer corps can be traced back to the cloud that hung over the regiment's first commanding officer, Colonel Nicholas Haussegger, who whilst in British captivity was accused by other American officers of trying to persuade them of the futility of the rebellion and to change sides.

The second Colonel of the German Regiment, Baron d’Arendt, a Prussian volunteer, was unpopular with the men and sought a transfer after a few months of being in charge. Henry Laurens, a founding father, described Arendt as 'an Indolent worthless Creature'.

The second Lieutenant Colonel of the German Regiment was Ludowick Weltner, who was the commanding officer of the German Regiment from autumn of 1777 until its dissolution. In 1780, the German Regiment was stationed at Sunbury in the Pennsylvania frontier, and while in Sunbury, Weltner terrorized the local inhabitants, encouraging his officers and men to beat the locals, steal from them, and destroy their property.

Besides the highest ranking officers in the unit, the junior officer corps also had a bevy of problems, which included physical infirmity, duelling, fraud, embezzlement, and cowardice in battle.

Not surprisingly, the state of the leadership described impacted the men's morale and the regiment was involved in two episodes of mutiny, one in September 1776, when rations were halted when men were not working whilst in barracks in Philadelphia, needing Lt. Colonel Stricker, who had issued the order for no rations, to parade the regiment and have men with loaded muskets directed at them to gain control back.

The second mutiny occurred a few years later, when the German Regiment was part of Hand’s Brigade during General John Sullivan’s campaign against the Iroquois in 1779; when in the spring of that year, soldiers from Pennsylvania petitioned Congress, believing that they had been defrauded into serving for the duration of the war:'

On the 14th July of 1779, William Rogers, a chaplain in Sullivan’s army wrote that “Last Night thirty three of the German Regiment deserted under the plea of their time being out. They went off properly armed with drum and fife. … a detachment of fifty soldiers on horseback were ordered to pursue them.” The deserters were captured, and made to remain with the army.

So my German Regiment will make for an interesting addition to my Continental Army when it is brought to the table.

As with previous units, I have used the plastic Continental figures from Perry Miniatures to represent the regiment, which is one that has less information about it's appearance than others, but given its connection with other Maryland regiments it seems likely that the blue and red faced coats were a feature, but with more use of the ubiquitous hunting shirts, given its 'Additional' status and supplies of coats having likely already been issued to other regiments. The only other reference I came across was the wearing of 'blue stockings' and so I have sprinkled a few examples around my regiment.

The colours carried are purely conjectural, with a snake/liberty design from GMB and the Gostelowe Standard No. 5, with the motto, 'Sustain or Abstain' (Help or Stay Neutral), and with a thorn bush in hand, from Flags of War.

In August 1778, Major Jonathan Gostelowe, a member of the Philadelphia militia artillery, and serving with the 4th Continental Artillery Regiment, completed an inventory of all arms and materiel held by the Continental Army in south-eastern Pennsylvania. This inventory included illustrations of thirteen standards (regimental flags). It is not known which regiments were issued these flags, or indeed if they were issued at all, but given the German Regiment's association with Pennsylvania the choice of a Gostelowe colour seemed appropriate.

In addition to the Colours chosen I have completed my German Regiment with a set of low profile sabot bases from Supreme Littleness Designs.

Next up, my Canadian Regiment has received some reinforcements, which I added to the unit before Christmas, so I will post a few pictures of the larger unit, that recognises it's rather unique structure better, based on the French organisation rather than the British one.

Alongside that, I am working on some Charlie Foxtrot Snake Rail Fence kits whilst carrying on with the next two new units to be showcased, so lots happening and more to be posted here on JJ's.

As always more anon.

JJ