Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/276

 252 by Indians, who received three pounds sterling from the British for every hostile scalp. Among the Indians the Waldeckers found a countryman of their own, one Brandenstein, who had deserted in his youth from the Waldeck service, and after many adventures had assumed the manners and the costume of an Indian warrior.

The garrison of Pensacola was at first occupied in fortifying the town. Lieutenant-colonel Dickson, an English officer, held Baton Rouge. In the course of the summer of 1779 three companies of Waldeckers were sent to reinforce him. Meanwhile war had broken out between England and Spain. Don Bernardo de Galvez, the Spanish governor at New Orleans, was young and energetic. He seized several small vessels in the Mississippi and the waters near its mouth. In September fifty-three Waldeckers were taken prisoners on Lake Pontchartrain. The Spaniards advanced against Baton Rouge, and after two attempts to carry the works by assault began a regular siege. Dickson capitulated, and the garrison marched out of the fort with all the honors of war. They numbered over four hundred, and the besiegers under Galvez between fourteen hundred and two thousand men. Nearly one half of the capitulating garrison were Waldeckers, and more than thirty of the regiment had been killed or wounded.

The news of Dickson's surrender reached Pensacola on the 20th of October, but was at first received with incredulity. “Is not this a cursed country to make war in?” writes the Waldeck chaplain, “where the greater part of a corps may be prisoners for five weeks,