Hessian

[16thVA]

Term used by Southerners for a Union soldier. In "Campaigning in Western Virginia" printed in "The Continental Monthly", Boston, 1862, by a "Union Private of Artillery", the writer records finding a letter at Laurel Hill, WV, which read "The Yankees have at last arrived, about ten thousand strong. For the past two days we have had some sharp skirmishing, during which we have killed one hundred of the Hessians. We have, as yet, lost one man."

 

[Glorybound]

Hi 16th: I had not heard that term (Hessian) used in reference to Yankees before. That's interesting. I used to live near an Amish community in SE Minnesota. They referred to us outsiders as "The English".





Lee

 

[16thVA]

Hi, Glorybound. There is a dictionary of Civil War slang which defines "Hessian" as a Southern term for Northerners, though I don't remember the title of the book. Anyway, it does make sense. Although there was heavy German settlement in northeastern West Virginia, much of the population of West Virginia and Kentucky was Scotch-Irish. Gen. McClelland's army, which invaded western Virginia, was from Ohio, which has a very heavy German ancestry. Similarly, in Missouri, much of the Union Army was composed of German immigrants. So many of the Southerners identified Northerners with the Hessians of the Revolutionary War.

 

[ole]

Hessians. Originally used as mercenaries hired as soldiers and muchly from the Germanic state of Hesse. These guys apparently didn't have jobs and were open to just flipping off to a war wherein the could earn something.

Hence, Hessians.