I think I need to clarify something that I said during today’s episode. I mentioned that about 2200 Hessian soldiers fought in the Revolution.

That number is accurate, but it only refers to the soldiers who came from Hesse-Hanau and were affected by the treaty alluded to today. Another big chunk came from Hesse-Kassel and the rest came from elsewhere in Germany.

In all, more than 30,000 Hessians fought in the Revolutionary War, comprising about a fourth of the British land forces. According to the now-defunct website Mad Mike’s America, only a little more than half of these soldiers made it home: 5000 opted to remain in America; about 6300 died from illness or accident, and the rest died in battle or as a result of their wounds.

Incidentally, a Hessian features in one of the New York downstate area’s favorite stories, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The headless ghost in that story is said to be a Hessian soldier whose head was struck off by a cannonball “in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War.”

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