Page:The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war.djvu/82

 68 for Hessians in the bushes, they did not fire; but their error cost them Colonel Grant, several other officers, and eighty men. A volley was fired. The English gathered themselves together, attacked with the bayonet, knocked everybody head over heels, and those they did not massacre they took prisoners. In short, the whole regiment is ruined. The rebel artillery is miserable, mostly of iron, and mounted on ships' carriages.”

It is said that many times in this battle the English and Hessians did not give quarter when it was asked. Colonel von Heeringen says: “The English did not give much quarter, and constantly urged our people to do the like.” The Americans are said also to have believed that the Hessians gave no quarter, and to have fought with peculiar desperation, after hope was lost, in consequence. The fact that neither side could understand the other may have tended to diminish the chance of surrender, and have contributed to swell the complaints that some of the Americans had treacherously attacked their captors after yielding. “They were,” says Lieutenant Rüffer in his diary, “so timid that they preferred to be shot rather than to take quarter, because their generals and officers had told them that they would be hanged.” Surely the most curious proof of cowardice ever alleged against any soldiers whatsoever.

After the loss of so important a position, and of so many men in proportion to the numbers of his little