"Hessian Help" Topic

I came across these emails from Hessian Bob, when I was researching how to portray these Hessian units.
There is no better source for information.

Here are Bob's replies to mu queries:

The regiments von Donop and von Bose were musketeer regiments, they each had 5 companies of musketeers, and one of grenadiers. The musketeers wore the tricorn hat, and the grenadiers, the grenadier mitre.

The regiments von Knyphausen and Erbprinz started the war as fusilier regiments, each having 5 fusilier companies and one grenadier company. The fusiliers wore the fuslier mitre, and the grenadiers the grenadier mitre.

The regiment Erbprinz changed its designation to ‘musketeer' in 1780, and changed its facing colors and some head gear, now wearing hats instead of fusilier mitres.

The grenadier companies were all told off before shipping to America, and were formed into grenadier battalions. They stayed that way for the entire war.

The tape on the tricornes was white in all cases.

The color of the mitre metal varied by regiment, the von Donop, von Bose, and von Knyphausen all being brass, and Erbprinz being silver.

Von Donop's bag color was buff, von Knyphausen's was buff, von Boses's was white. Erbprinz's was either pink or carmine, depending on the year.

The cloth on the von Knyphausen's fusilier mitre was buff, on Erprinz's fusilier mitre (when they had them), was pink.

I hope that's of help,

Robert Sulentic

vondonop.org

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Von donop had buff facings, buff small clothes

link

Knyphausen had black facings, buff small clothes

link

Erbprinz had rose facings, white small clothes until 1780, when the facings changed to carmine, and they turned in their fusilier caps for tricornes.

link

Von Bose had white facings and white small clothes.

link

Hope that helps.

-Robert Sulentic

Thanks to Bob for sharing his knowledge.

Thanks – that's useful and interesting

Good stuff. This relates to the Hesse Cassel contingent. The Brunswickers fighting with Burgoyne also had an Erbprinz regiment which can be confusing if you are ordering flags or searching the Internet.

Thank you for sharing! Von Bose is enroute to me via Royal Mail and I was just thinking about how to paint it.

The Erbprinz Regiment fighting with Burgoyne were Hesse-Hanau, to make things even more complicated. There is a nice watercolour of a musketeer of that regiment by Lieutenant Friedrich von Germann of the same regiment. He should have known, shouldn't he?
The Brunswick infantry regiments were "Prinz Friedrich", "Riedesel", "Rhetz" and "Specht". You can find a description of the different regiments at the Perry website (https://www.perry-miniatures.com/pages.php?page=german-saratoga-campaign).
I did the Hesse-Hanau "Erbprinz" regiment myself, have a look: link
There you can also find a picture of the von Germann watercolour.

Fridericus, Nice site. I'll be checking it out. What flags did you use for you Erbprinz unit?
And I saw that your drummers were not in reverse colors. Was that the Hessian custom? Thanks.

Hello, nevinsrip,
The Hesse-Hanau Erbprinz Regiment had pink (!) flags, the colonel's flag (Leibfahne) had the ducal arms in its centre; the regimental flags (Kompniefahnen) had the Hesse-Hanau backwards looking lion in a blue shield surrounded by silver laurel twigs and topped by a white banner and the ducal crown; in the corners of the flag were the ducal ciphers surrounded by silver laurel twigs and topped by the ducal crown. I depicted both at my blog.
The drummers actually had no reversed colours, but special lace decoration.
Again the information given at the Perry website ist helpful: "There is little evidence of what Hesse Hanau drummers wore, but possibly they followed the Hesse Cassel style with a blue coat covered in white lace, possibly with red and blue "worms"."
What the Hesse-Cassel drummers looked like in 1783-1789 can be seen at the website of the Hesse-Kassel archive: link
But mind: The regiment depicted there is the Hesse-Cassel regiment Erbprinz and not the Hesse-Hanau one! And the picture is from after the war, when Wilhelm of Hesse-Hanau had become the ruler of Hesse-Cassel (all very complicated, but useful information).

Indeed, a useful post. Rare though they seem to be of late. Lots of inanity, not so much useful. This post very useful. Thanks!

We did a special issue back in the 1990s for Time Portal Passages. One was on Loyalist units. Another combined Native American tribes and actions and half was on the German units in the AmRev.