What Does Hessian Mean?

The term of Hessian is used to refer to the residents of Hesse in Germany. It is more commonly used to refer to the German regiments who were in service to the British Empire in the eighteenth century.

In the course of the American Revolutionary War, German leaders like Landgrave Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel employed a huge number of recruits as secondary back-up to England to help fight against the American forces.

Around thirty thousand of these recruits were employed, and they came to be known by the name of Hessians, as majority of the hired men hailed from Hesse-Kassel.

The most well-known occurrence that involved the Hessians was the Battle of Trenton. In which around nine hundred Hessians were seized out of fourteen hundred.

The Hessians were not actually mercenaries, in that; they did not fight for money. They generally consisted of debtors and also petty criminals.

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