Washington’s Crossing Still Remembered By Losers

Yesterday was not only the annual Pagan Tree Festival, it was also the anniversary of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, where he braved icy conditions (and piranhas) to go to Trenton, where he was shot. But then he recovered and killed the Hessians, German mercenaries who were, apparently, incompetent.

One thing they weren’t, though, was drunk, as the Courier Times pointed out yesterday. The Hessians weren’t drunk, but they sure were good people!

Fischer writes that the Hessians also were not mercenaries per se. Rulers of small principalities in Europe often hired out their well-trained armies to other nations.

The soldiers had a profit motive as well, making money not just from their regular pay, but from whatever they could plunder.

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