"Hessian flags questions..." Topic

I'm putting together a couple units of Hessians for 28mm Land of the Free rules.

I already have several packs enough to do a hessian musketeer regiment and I chose to do the Von Trumbach/Von Bose regiment flags.

I want to also do a hessian grenadier regiment, but from the little research I did I got a little confused.

Am I correct that the hessian musketeer regiments had grenadier companies attached like regular british foot regiments had? So those grenadier companies would be under the flags of the overall larger hessian regiment?

But for full-fledged hessian grenadier regiments, did they have their own flags or did they not carry flags?

For example GMB Designs has flags for the Rall regiment and it's called a grenadier regiment. However this looks like an exception as it appears to be the only regiment designated being grenadier with a set of its own flags.

Also what about the hessian fusilier regiments, did they carry flags?

Thanks in advance!

The grenadiers were converged into three battalions. Not sure they carried any colours. Mine don't.

Converged Grenadiers didn't carry colours but the Grenadier Regt Rall did.

The only grenadier regiment I recall was Rall's. They were not brigaded with the grenadiers, likely as they not viewed as real grenadiers. LoL

What Fat Wally said. Also Rall only had them in 1776 and possibly after 1779.

I have been doing research on Hessian uniforms and colors for an upcoming painting project involving the Rall Grenadier regiment, Fusilier Regiment Lossburg and Fusilier Regiment Knyphausen. In looking for documentation on regimental colors I found the following article, "Colors of the Hessian flags in North America 1776 – 1883", Military Collector and Historian, Winter 2003-2004, vol. 55, issue 4. This is simply brilliant and a must have article if researching this topic.

The author is Steven Hill. He is one of (if not the) best historians on the topic of military flags. Is using his career he was responsible for restoring and maintaining many historical flag collections. I had the pleasure of meeting him many years ago when he was working to restore and maintain The Civil War collection of flags in the Massachusetts State House.

If you want to know which regiments carried what colors, what they looked liked and what happened to them this is where you look. There are pictures of fragments of colors captured at Trenton. How often do you see these? In addition there is also some documentation on uniforms. So my friends, do yourself a favor and download this article.

Here is pdf of the article:
dupagemilitaryflag.com/files/33395736.pdf

Here is his flag site:
dupagemilitaryflag.com

Rall was killed at Trenton. What was left was renamed and shipped South.

I think Von Menningerode formed a Grenadier Battalion?- TMP link -von Minnigerode's battalion consisted of the grenadier companies of the Erbprinz, Ditfurth, Lossberg and Knyphausen regiments

If you are doing Brandywine, this is one of the units there.

Thanks for all the info guys, this is really good stuff! That Steven Hill article especially, that is absolute research gold. Awesome!

I am glad you liked it!

Nicely done, WillBGoode. It's always nice to see truly helpful replies coupled with exhaustive research.

There were three converged Hessian grenadier battalions, though the names sometimes changed with the various officers commanding.

Converged Hessian Grenadier battalions get no flags.
However…
Rall was not a converged battalion. It was a Grenadier REGIMENT. It's complicated.
As a regiment, they got flags.

many thanks. I truly appreciate your comments.

After Rall's Regiment was reconstituted, it was commanded by d'Angelelli.

Jim

Ok, so if I've interpreted all the info. correctly:

They took the grenadier companies from the various Hessian regiments and formed them into grenadier battalions while in North America, in a similar way the British foot regiments took their grenadier companies and made them into consolidated grenadier battalions sometimes.

The consolidated Hessian grenadier battalions did not carry their own flags.

The Rall regiment was an exception because they were designated as a dedicated "Grenadier regiment" with its own distinct identity and its own flags.

You got it.

Basically, the Regiment "owned" the flags, in the case of both the British and Hessian regiments, when a grenadier company was stripped from the parent regiment, it did not take a flag with it.

Not sure I understand?

A Hessian REGIMENT consisted of 5 companies. One was the "elite" company, the Grenadiers.
Each company had a flag. In combat, however, the flags were all clustered around the commander of the regiment, not doled out. So, the companies did not really "have" a flag.

In practice, the Grenadier companies were stripped from the Regiment and converged into battalions. In theory, this was temporary, but the converged service could last for quite some time.
As in the British army, this gave you an "extra" battalion, one with a harder punch.
It must be emphasized that, being a "temporary", ad hoc formation, that these converged battalions had no flags. Flags belonged to permanent units. The flags did not belong to the Grenadier company, so they did not "bring them with them".
In fact, most units at the time did not even bother to carry flags in battle at all.

An exception is the Rall (NOT "von Rall", he was not a noble) Grenadier REGIMENT. Way back in previous wars, under different name, it had been a converged Grenadier battalion, which for some reason, was made a permanent unit, and thus had the full complement of flags. The Rall Regiment even had an "elite" company which was stripped and converged into the converged battalion which was composed of Grenadier companies from the Garrison regiments.

Clear?

Just to confuse matters more, these regiments changed their names with new commanders.

However, being a wargamer, I use Betsy Ross flags, and even gave one of my British battalions of Guards a flag. Yes, that's wrong. Sue me.
Bottom line is that it's incorrect to give a battalion of converged Hessian Grenadiers flags. But if you think that looks cool, it's up to you. They're your figures.

Sorry John, I must have misread your previous post. But thanks for the well explained post. :-)

Hessian Regiments were single battalion units of six companies. Five regular companies of musketeer's or fusilier's or garrison soldier's and one grenadier company that was detached to a converged grenadier battalion. The Rall standing grenadier Regiment was made up of five regular grenadier companies (Clean-shaven)and an elite sixth flank company of grenadier's that served with the fourth converged grenadier Battalion Koehler.

As to the reference to the article in the Military Collector and Historian..,.. a better solution is go to the Company of Military Historians and join our merry band. We need the dues. The journal has been published quarterly for about 70 years. mention me when joining.

As for the colours of Rall and other Hessian regiments, a difficult topic and no I am not fully agreeing with Hill.

The problem are the sources, one would have to go most likely to Marburg to find out more.

Gheradi Davis in his book about Regimental Colors in the American Revolution, which is available for download, seemingly was corresponding with the archives, before WW1.

The so called Darmstädter Bilderhandschrift, or better a copy of it, published by the Gesellschaft für Heereskunde – shows plates which should origin between 1783 and 1789.

It also shows the Leibfahne and the Kompaniefahnen. I am opting for the information of those plates and not Hill, due to the fact that the Leibfahne, in usual German fashion is white.

Here a plate of the Landgrenadier Regiment

Hmmm.
Who makes Hessian oboe players?