Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/245

 Rh above, not a grain of salt can be demanded of them gratis. So the poor soldiers would have to die of hunger if they did not receive threepence worth of ships' provisions every day, consisting of a pound of biscuit, salt pork hardly fit to eat, a few mouldy beans, a little oat-meal, and a little rum; on which they must live, though many of them lose their health.”

In the skirmishes and smaller expeditions about New York the Hessians generally took part; and it may be worth while to glance at a few of these events before turning to the more important operations in the Southern States, by which the fate of the country was finally decided.

In the latter part of August, 1778, the Jäger Corps was posted on the Spyt den Duyvel Hills, near Courtland's Plantation. Early in the morning of the 31st, a captain with one hundred and fifteen chasseurs, of whom fifteen were mounted, was sent out on a scouting expedition towards the Phillips House. They had marched less than half an hour when they were surprised by a party of Americans and Indians under the Chevalier Armand, who had been in ambush in a ravine on the right hand side of the road. Sixteen chasseurs were killed, wounded, or taken, and the others ran away. Colonel von Wurmb, who commanded the Jäger Corps, hastened to the assistance of his detachment as soon as he heard the firing, but the Chevalier Armand retired with his prisoners, and crossed the Phillips Manor towards East Chester, where Lieutenant-colonels Cathcart, Simcoe, and Emmerich were posted with their light troops.