1776

by David McCullough

The British blamed the Hessians. (“The Hessians are more infamous and cruel than any,” wrote Ambrose Serle, after hearing reports of British plundering.) The Hessians blamed the British. The Americans blamed both the British and the Hessians, as well as the New Jersey Loyalists, and the British and Hessian commanders seemed no more able to put a stop to such excesses than Washington had been. The stories, amplified as many may have been, were a searing part of a war that seemed only to grow more brutal and destructive. Accounts of houses sacked, of families robbed of all they had, became commonplace. American reports of atrocities were often propaganda, but many were also quite accurate. The Pennsylvania Journal, the Pennsylvania Evening Post, and the Freeman’s Journal carried reports of the sick and elderly being abused, of rape and murder. No one was safe, according to the British officer Charles Stedman. “The friend and the foe from the hand of rapine shared alike.”