Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/275

 Rh 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. 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