ABSTRACT
Time seemed to have stood still for German veterans of the Seven Years War, who found themselves in action two decades later as auxiliaries of the English in the War of Independence. A party of Hessians was once surrounded by the rebels, and they broke out yelling Frederick’s old cry of Allons! Allons! A less happy precedent was called to mind by the German officers who were stranded with Burgoyne’s army after the battle of Freeman’s Farm (19 September 1777), and they told their chief that his situation was worse than that of the Saxons at Pirna in 1756 or the corps of Finck at Maxen in 1759. Following Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga their one consolation was the sight of the American uniforms at close range, for ‘various former Prussian officers were so delighted at the sight of blue coats that they recalled the battles of Soor, Prague, Kunersdorf etc’ (quoted in Pettengill, 1864, 113).
