12.38 R8I ^^^-' '# 'mr^^' ■^w i'*v ^^1 a President White Library, Cornell university. K7i>7^S ^i. ^//^ DATE DUE -^-"-r^ "'"'Tu'^'Siiru ■ 11 II. ■ > nnT*^ nqiT? h' 1 CAYLORD PRINTED IN U.,S,A. _ Cornell University Library Z1238 .R81 ®°"riSnirii jmfiii!?'iS*°^X ■ ^ paper read before olln 3 1924 029 561 424 Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029561424 SOURCES OF HISTORY, A PAPER READ BEFORE THE GERMAN-AMERICAN HIS- TORICAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK AND THE PIONIER-VEREIN OF PHILADELPHIA. BY J. G. ROSENGARTEN. PHILADELPHIA: PRESS OF AVM. F. FELL & CO. 1220-1224 SANSOM. STREET. 1892. G) Sources of German-American History. Literary labor has of late years been largely de- voted to history, and no subject offers more general interest, more attractive studj^, more fruitful results. From general history we have now passed to special fields of research, and in our own country the monu- mental work of Bancroft is the foundation from which the modest work of special students in local history takes its departure. From the extent and ;cope of his great task, it was necessary that he should leave much for later students to glean and garner, yet all their labor and research have but confirmed the general truth and exactness of his History. The few instances in which he fell into error have been nearly all corrected in the last edition from his own unwearied and indefatigable hand, and in one or two noteworthy cases his defence and explanation fully confirmed the general im- pression and the accepted opinion that his History was a storehouse of exact truths, and that his one aim was to be absolutely accurate. The military events of the war of American Inde- pendence have been frequently made matter of dis- pute, yet Bancroft's accounts are still the basis of most of the special studies which, with each recurring centennial celebration, have brought forth new ma- terial and given to each action of importance a ful- 3 ness and wealth of detail incompatible with the scope of his work. Trained in Germany at a time when few Americans had that advantage, and under the instruction of Heeren and the other founders of the modern school of German historj', Bancroft was specially iiiterested in the collection of the materials for his History that he found in the German Archives, and he gave an impulse to research in their forgotten treasures for the material that has been used by him to such good purpose. During his long life he continued to add to his collection of original material, and his official position as United States Minister in Berlin enabled him, at a late period of his career, to find much valuable additional MS. He made good use, too, of young men specially fitted and trained for research, and Frederick Kapp was frequently employed by Bancroft to search out and secure original records or copies, now forming- part of the Bancroft Library, but freely and well used by Kapp in his Lives of Steuben and Kalb and his Soldatenhandel. Later students, too, were generously allowed the use of Mr. Bancroft's MSS., and from them have been drawn most of the German journals of officers and men serving here with the German contingent in the British army, that from time to time have been printed. Thus Mr. Bancroft set the example of diligently gathering from every quarter all that could throw light on our history, and his collection shows that he brought together a vast array of original and unprinted MSS., from which he gathered here and there a salient fact or an apt illustration, although the flowing pages of his narrative contain results rather than evidence of his diligent studj' and industrious research, and are essential! 3^ his own. The treasure house of this collection, both of MSS. and printed books, was the Library in which he lived, and after his death it was with pleasure that the public learned that by his will he had offered to the Government of the United States the privilege of being the first purchaser. The time has now come when it is for Congress to decide whether or not it shall accept and make the nation the owner of the Bancroft Library. Students will all unite in urging that this be done, and at once, so that the Bancroft Library may find its final resting place in the great National Library now being built at Wash- ington. It will be the best and most fitting monu- ment to the greatest of American historians, who was in succession student and teacher, statesman and diplomatist, serving his country in various fields of labor, and while doing his full duty in every post always finding time to correct, revise, and complete his History, and to add to those stores of books and ]\ISS. from which he had drawn the narrative that has made the story of America, as he tells it, M'orld- known. The organization of societies engaged in forward- ing the study of American history is rapidly supple- menting the work of individual students and collectors. The German Historical Society of New York, the Pionier-Verein of Philadelphia, the German Maryland Historical Society of Baltimore, and kindred associations testify the growing interest (] in collecting and publishing the material that best illustrates the share Germans have had in making American history. The sources of the branch of history thus pursued are largely found in the work already done by Seidensticker and Rattermann, by Lowell and Kapp, by Schurz and L5her, and by other individual contributors. The names of Eel- king and Schlozer, too, deserve our respect for their industry in adding to our knowledge of the great store of original material on the subject of the (Ger- mans who made part of our national history. Mr. Bancroft labored diligently, and during his long and busy life brought together an extraordi- nary wealth of manuscript and books bearing on his subject, and among them were many volumes of im- portant papers copied from German archives. His whole collection is now, under his will, offered to the Government of the United States for purchase, with a view to being made part of the Congressional Library, the National Library at Washington. A brief account of its most important material has been prepared by a bibliographical expert, Mr. Sabin, and from that as well as from the small portion which, by Mr. Bancroft's liberality, has been printed and thus made known to students, it may be of interest to give some description. Would it not be well for the Pionier-Verein, in conjunction with the German Historical Society of New York, to invite the co-operation of similar societies elsewhere, in urging on Congress the purchase of the Bancroft Library, with a view to its freer access and use 'by students, and as the nucleus for an exhaustive collection of all material for the history of the United States? Harvard College Library, by the will of Jared Sparks, himself a diligent collector, is in possession of the great amount of original material gathered by him in the work of editing the Writings of Washington and of Franklin, and the diplomatic correspondence of the American Revolution. What Bancroft and Sparks did with infinite pains and trouble, can now be supplemented at a compara- tively small cost, if only a persistent effort be made to carry on the work and complete it. The archives of the German princes who furnished soldiers for the British army in the American Revolution have been gathered together at Marburg, ordered, and arranged. They have been used from time to time by Ban- croft and Lowell, by Eelking and Kapp, and from the material thus put into print and that brought here in manuscript we can form some estimate of the extent and value of the amount which has never been copied or used. If the government buy the Bancroft Library, it will be easy to ascertain the cost of supple- menting and completing it by copies from the Mar- burg Archives, and the German-American Historical Societies can do no better work than urge this as an undertaking well worthy the government of the United States and its Clongressional Library. To appreciate the extent and importance of the collection of German-American historical MSS. and the Bancroft Librarj^, let us measure it by the amount used by other writers on the subject ; thus, for in- stance, Kapp in his Soldatenhandel says that he used " more than fifty MSS., diaries, and letters of soldiers and officers ; the official Brunswick Reports, four folio volumes ; the notes of the Anspach Minister v. Gemmingen, on the Treaty with Great Britain for Anspach Troops, including unprinted letters of Frederick the Great ; the diary of an Anhalt-Zerbst officer, Steuernagel's diarj^, etc." He says, too, that the Hessian Archives of the American war period were sent to ilarburg in 1873. They comprise cor- respondence between the Landgrave and his gen- erals and colonels in America, with their reports. Kapp's list, therefore, includes somewhere between fifty and sixty MSS. ^Many of these, as well as those used by Eelking and Lowell, are still in the Marburg Archives, and Bancroft procured copies of all of them together with much other valuable MS. material. Eelking, in his History of the German Allied Troops, gives among his MS. authorities, from Hessian papers, the Journal of Miinchhausen, of the Landgraf Regiment, from Nov. 18, 1774, to May 22, 1778; Letters of Col. v. Heeringen, Capt. Baurmeister, etc. ; Diary of Capt. v. d. Malzhurg, of the Ditfurth Regi- ment, from Feb., 1777, to Nov. 16, 1780; Diary of Capt. V. DinJclage, of the Leib Regiment, from Jan. 14, 1777, to May 29, 1784; Diary of Capt. Lotheisen, of the Erbp'rinz Regiment, from Feb., 1776, to May, 1784; Bid's History of the Lossberg Regiment, 1776 to 1783 ; Wiederhold's Diary, Oct. 7, 1776, to Dec. 7, 1780; Diary of the Voyage of the Sih Hessian Recruit Transport, April 10 to Oct. 28, 1782; the Journal of a Hessian Officer, 1779 to May 22, 1784; Journal of Lt. RiJffer, March 1, 1776, to Dec. 28, 1777 ; Reports of the three Hessian regiments, Knyphausen, Loss- 9 berg, and PmU, of the affair at Trenton, Dec. 26, ITTG, made at Philadelphia, March 19, 1778, by Schdffer ; Report of Rail's Brigade at Trenton, by Major Mathaeus; Baum's Report of the Capture of Rail's Brigade, at Trenton, dated Philadelphia, March 20, 1778 ; Reports of Captains of Engineers Pauli and Martin, and Lt. Biel on the Battle of Trenton ; Re- port of a Hessian Officer on that affair ; Letters of Lt. Henkelmann and extracts from his Diary ; Letters of Capt. Ries and of Scrgt. Flachshaar : Part of a Diary of Corporal Caspar Reclmagel ; Diary of Corporal Reuber, January 1, 1776, to November 29, 1783 ; History of the Hessian Jiiger-Battalion, by Capt. Mahlberger (lithographed in a few copies) ; of Bruns- wick MSS., Eelking refers to the Riedesel Papers at Eisenach (used by him in his Life of Riedesel) ; Quartermaster-General Gebhart's Journal of the Brunswick Troops, Feb. 22, 1776, to Jan. 15, 1779; Journal of Col. v. Specht from the voyage over to the capitulation at Saratoga; Correspondence of Major Cleve (Riedesel's Adjutant) and Capt. Tunclerfeld ; Journal of Count Ranfzau, April 8, 1777, to Aug. 29, 1778 (he was drowned in the Delaware while he was a prisoner of war) ; Journal of Schiller (afterward General Schiiler von Senden), May 15 to June 20, 1776, and from June 23, 1776, to April 17, 1781 (extracts printed in 1781 in the Journal for Art, Science, and History of War) ; Journal of Chaplain Melzheimer (printed at Montreal from a MS. the gift of W. L. Stone); Journal of Major Cleve during his im- prisonment; Journal of Fr. Jul. v. Papet, May 15, 1776, to 1779, Oct. 10, 1783 (printed in the Pennsyl- 10 vania Magazine of History, from a German Maga- zine) ; Journal of Corporal Schither ; of Waldeck MSS. Eellcing quotes : Steuernagel's Journal of the 3d Wal- deck Regiment, May 20, 1776, to 1783; Diary of Chaplain Ph. Waldeck; of Anspach-Bayrevth MSS., Dohla's Journal (printed by Rattermann) ; of Anhalt- Zerbst MS., Historj' of the Regiment in the Ameri- can War,— ^making in all between thirty and forty MSS. used by Eelking in his History and his Life of Riedesel. Rattermann, in the Introduction to Dohla's Diary (Deutsch-Amerikanisches Magazin, Vol. I, No. 1, October, 1886), says that the original belongs to Dr. Wilhelm Holper, in Munich, a descendant of the friend and companion of Dohla, who received it after Dohla's death. Rattermann obtained the loan for publication through Mr. Philip Kostner, of Aurora, Indiana, also a descendant of Adam Hein- rich Holper, Dohla's fellow-soldier in America. Dohla was born in Bayreuth, Sept. 4, 1750 ; he was the son of a school teacher, and was himself edu- cated with a view to the same profession. On his return from America he became teacher at the same school in Zell in which his father had taught, and he died in 1811. Rattermann's services to American history, in col- lecting and printing the great amount of original German MSS. and other matters relating to the part taken by Germans in this country, from the very earliest time down to our own day, deserve hearty recognition from all students. Mr. Lowell, one of the most diligent American / 11 students of this branch of history, in his Hessians in America, cites MSS. in Cassel : Journal of Ldwen- stein Regiment, Minigerode's Battalion, Hessian Jiiger, Jan. 20, 1776, to May 17, 1784 ; Platte's Battalion, Feb. 16, 1776, to. May 24, 1784, by Carl Bauer; Journal of Lossberg Regiment, by fleusser, March 10, 1776, to Oct. 5, 1783 ; by Pier, March 10, 1776, to Oct. 5, 1783 ; Kleinschmidt's Journal of Huyn Regiment, 1776 to Nov., 1783; Journal of Feldjdger- Corps, 23d July, 1777 to 20th April, 1784 ; Wiederhold's Diary, 1776 to 1780; Journal of Trumbach Regiment, 1776 to 1783 ; Journal of Knoblauch Regiment, 1776 to 1783; Letters of Riedesel to the Elector; Diary of Pausch (printed by Stone) ; Journal of Mirhach Regi- ment, from the Marburg Archives ; Reports of Gen. V. Knyphausen, — making thirteen MSS. used by this diligent student. As against this array of original authorities the Bancroft Collection contains : Steuben, MS. Letters ; Riedesel, Papers of Burgoyne's Campaign ; Reports, Correspondence, Returns, etc. ; Riedesel, Journals, Letters, etc., from 1776 to Sept., 1783, about 400 pages, folio ; Anspach Papers, 4 folio volumes, several thousand pages ; the Papers of the Secretary of the Margrave, Correspondence, Reports, Journals, etc ; Brunswick Paper's, 2 volumes, folio, 985 pp.. Re- ports, Plans of Battles, etc. ; Ewald, Feldzug d. Hessen nach Amerilta, 4to, 50 pp. ; Geschichte der Hessischen Jdger im Amerikanischen Kriege, 1776 to 1784, 4to, 96 pp.; Wiederhold's Diary, 135 pp.; 14 volumes of Ger- man MSS., viz., 2 volumes Malzburg's Diary, 968 pp. ; Diary of Lossberg Regiment, 177 pp. ; Journal of Lt. 12 V. Malsingen, 57 pp. ; Journal of Papet, 400 pp. ; Jour- nal of Lt. Wiederfeld, 133 pp.; Journal of the 3d Waldeck Regiment, 300 pp. ; the WaldecJc Regiments, 110 pp. ; Battle of Trenton, 100 pp. ; Lotheisen, Jour- nal, 150 pp. ; Reuher's Diary, 213 pp. ; PieVs Lossherg Regiment, 92 pp. ; Hessian Jdger Regiment, 150 pp. ; Puffer's Journal, 176 pp. ; Dohla's Journal ; Dinklage's Journal, 400 pp.; Letters, Battles of Long Island, Bennington, Brandywine, etc., 4to, 6 pieces. 8 volumes, 4to, of German MSS., 150 to 400 pp. each, Official Re- ports, etc.; 3 volumes, folio, of State Papers, Prussia and America; 3 volumes, folio, of State Papers, Prus- sia and France ; 1 volume, folio, of State Papers, Prus- sia and Holland; 1 volume, 4to of State Papers, Prussia and England, — all relating to the American Revolution ; 1 volume, folio, Washington and Freder- ick the Great, 300 pp., — making forty MSS., many of them in several volumes, and rflany of them not in- cluded in the other collections. The very valuable collection in the Bancroft Library on this one subject — the part taken by Ger- mans in American history — is but an index of the extraordinary amount of material gathered by Mr. Bancroft for his History. The New York Historical Society has a collection of Steuben Papers, never printed at length. From them Kapp drew freely for his Life of Steuben. Sparks, in his collection now in Harvard University Library, had a selection of im- portant papers from Steuben's Papers, extracts from his Journal, and a fragment of his Journal from Dec. 11, 1780, to Jan. 11, 1781. Sparks also had a MS. of DeKalb's Mission to America in 1768, from 13 the Paris War Office Archives, since printed in part in French, and autograph letters of DeKalb to Wash- ington, La Fayette, etc. ; Breyman's Report of a Skir- mish at Walloon. Creek, Aug. 16, 1777, as well as the Correspondence of Frederick the Great with his ambas- sadors in London and Paris on American affairs, procured in Berlin in 1844 by Wheaton, then American Minister. In the Magazine of American History for 1877 there is a translation, by Mr. A. A. Bierstadt, of Baurmeister's Narrative of the Capture of New York, from a MS. in the possession of the Hon. George Bancroft. It was addressed to Captain v. Wangenheim. In the same volume is DeLancey's account of Fort Washington and its capture, with a map taken from the original in Cassel, for Professor Joy, now in the possession of J. Carson Brevoort. Thus on all sides we find fragments of the valuable collections that still remain in Germany, and evi- dences of the value to students of that portion which Mr. Bancroft had gathered together, and the free use he gave to all who, like Mr. Bierstadt, made intelli- gent additions to our stock of material for local history. In the pages of the Magazine of the His- torical Society of Pennsylvania are numerous occa- sional contributions from German sources of value and interest. Bancroft worked hard and long to bring together the enormous amount of material for history which now constitutes part of his collection, and it ought to find its final resting place in the splendid building 14 that is now going up in Washington, the future home of the Library of Congress, which will in time become the National Library, where all the wealth of historical papers now scattered in various de- partments ought to be brought together for the use of students and with a view to printing in part or in whole. The New York Historical Society has set a good example by printing the Journal of Krafft, a volunteer and corporal in Douop's regiment and a lieutenant in Bose's regiment. He married in New York and became finally a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, where he died in 1804, leaving children through whom his Journal was preserved until it was finally printed in 1887. That Society has also printed the Journal of General Rainsford, the British Commissary in charge of the German forces sent to this country by Great Britain. What personal industry can do is attested by the long list of German MSS. from Marburg and Cassel, belonging to General Wm. S. Stryker, Adjutant- Gen- eral of New Jersey, who has gathered together an immense amount of material on the Battle of Tren- ton. His collection of German MSS. includes : Min- utes of the Court of Inquiry of the Lossherg, the I'Cnyp- hausen, and the Rail Regiments, List of Officers of these Regiments and of the Artillery and the Yager ; Maps by Wiederhold, Fischer, and Piel ; Letters of Donop to Rail, and Rail to Donop; of the Elector of Hesse to Knyphausen; Diaries of Piel, Minnigerode, Wieder- hold and Ewald; Reports of Spies to Donop ; Exami- nation of Hassell and Bauer ; Investigation by Wanger- 15 mann; Statements by Cols. Schaffer and Mathaeus and Capt. Baum ; Capt. v. Heister's Digest of the Minutes of the Court-Martial ; Lotheisen's and Motz' Digests, and the Opinion of the War Commission on the finding of the Court-Martial. These illustrate the Battle of Trenton, and are copies from the records at Marburg and Cassel, — in all about twenty MSS. When Bancroft began his collection, the material was scattered far and wide, and although it was not much appreciated, still the difficulty of securing it must have required indomitable patience and energy. Now the papers relating to the German forces employed in America have been gathered together. Kapp describes them as being partly in the Berlin Archives of the Staff at Berlin, partly in the Archives at Marburg. He says that permission to examine them can be got, and that they will well reward the student. In the old Schloss at Marburg the papers relating to the Hessians in America are now arranged in order. They were brought from Wilhelmshohe by order of the Emperor William the First. They include the Journal of the Hessian Corps in America under General v. Heister, 1776 to 1777; Reports of v. Heister for the same period, and of General v. Knyphausen from 1777 to 1782, and of General v. Lossberg from 1782 to 1784, 5 volumes in all ; Reports from Knyphausen to the Landgrave, from 1777 to 1779, 3 volumes, and several large bundles of unbound papers labelled " Kriegssachen, 1776-1792." A recent visitor, Mr. Charles Gross, in a letter to the New York Evening Post, in describing his visit to Marburg, says that 16 these Reports are full of interest. In one, Ober- Auditeur ]]fofz gives a description of New. York, in another a detailed account of. the Battle of Trenton, and there are many other reports bearing on that affair. In the Berlin Archives (Kriegs-Archiv des grossen Generalstabs) Gross found eighteen letters, between 1776 and 1779 — four from Henel, five from Henkel- nian, and the rest from other Hessian officers serv- ing in America, while there still remain many other papers not yet arranged and catalogued. Kapp was a useful ally for Mr. Bancroft and helped to get for him much of the material now in his collection, but there still remains in the Marburg and Berlin and other Archives a great deal of inter- esting and valuable matter that ought to be secured for our own National Archives. That the Hessians serving in America are an object of interest still on both sides the ocean, is at- tested by the recent publication in Cassel of a novel, Vergessene Helden, by Franz Treller, which gives a very interesting story of the adventures and experi- ences of the Hessian soldiers in America. Much of it is drawn from the archives and historical sources, and much seems to be the tradition that still clings to their names and memories in their own country. On the other hand, in Rohinsmi's Vermont, in the Ameri- can Commonwealth Series, published in Boston, 1892, the author cites the Account of the Battle of Benning- ton, by Glich and by Breymann, printed in the Collec- tions of the Vermont Historical Society in 1871, Volume I, and mentions the fact that " a Hessian gun with 17 bayonet, and a Hessian broadsword presented by Stark, and two of the cannon taken from the Hes- sians, stand in the vestibule of the Capitol at Mont- pelier." So the Hessian is still remembered in the Green Mountains, where his valor was shown in an unsuccessful contest with overwhelming numbers. Frederick Kapp and Dr. Charles Gross, of Harvard, have given the best account of the wealth of MS. material at Marburg, and Kapp and Lowell have made good use of it, as well as of other MSS. Even a complete bibliography of the printed books that have appeared in Germany on the subject of the German forces serving in America, is still one of the needs of our growing historical literature. ScMozer's Briefwechsel is a very good collection of contempor- ary letters, of which the most important parts have been published in Stone's book. Eivald's Belehrungen well deserves careful translation, for the author took an active part in the war, and tells his story in a very interesting way. It is noteworthy that students of special subjects, such indefatigable collectors, for instance, as General Wm. S. Stryker, the Adjutant- General of the State of New Jersey, and a careful student of all that relates to the Battle of Trenton, should be obliged, out of their own pockets, and through the intervention of American Ministers in Berlin, to have copies made at Marburg of the MSS. cited by Eelking and Kapp and Lowell. In 1882 Frederick Kapp described in the New York Nation of August 3d, a visit to Marburg and the Memorial Hall which contains the archives of the province of Hesse. Heinrich v. Sybel, the cele- 18 brated historian, is Director of the Prussian Public Records ; in Berlin are all the General State Ar- chives, Treaties, Laws, etc., but each province has the local documents referring to its own history, with a chief and a corps of assistants. Access is liberal to all documents anterior to 1840, and as they go back for the last eleven hundred years at Mar- burg, of course the part relating to American his- tory is comparatively small. There are ten folios containing particulars of the. part which the Hessian troops took in the Revolutionary War. They were found at Wilhelmshohe bj^ the Director, Dr. Kon- necke. They contain the negotiations of the Land- grave and his Minister, Schlieffen, with the English Government, the treaties, and the orders and letters of the Landgrave, and the reports and answers of his Generals and Colonels on the condition and conduct of the troops, with maps, sketches, etc. There are three volumes of proceedings before the Court-Mar- tial on the Capture of Trenton, giving the examina- tion of about fifty witnesses; Knyphausen did not send the final report until 1783. Almost an equal number of Hessian War Records are on file in the Archives of the Grand Staff of the Army at Berlin ; formerly they were at the Cassel War Office, where they were indexed by Col. Sturmfeder. They refer chiefly to the financial transactions of Hesse-Hanau with England. There are also about a hundred letters written by officers to their relatives at home, who were directed by the Prince to send them to him for perusal ; they are involuntary but very good and competent witnesses of the real state of American 19 society at the time. The original of Wiederhold's Diary is said, in a note in the copy which I own, to be in this country ; at least the son or grandson, into whose possession it passed, came here and with the MS. has been lost trace of. Copies were made for Bancroft, Irving, Lowell, and Stryker. In February, 1887, Mr. Edward J. Lowell read before the Massachusetts Historical Society a paper printed in the " Proceedings," second series, Volume III, on German MS. Sources for the History of the Revolution, in which he describes the archives at Marburg for the Prussian Province of Hesse-Nassau. He reports that Dr. Konnecke, the keeper, estimates that a catalogue could be made at a cost of 600 marks, covering a thousand documents. The archives contain thirty -seven Regimental Journals and twelve volumes (bound and unbound) of papers, besides documents scattered in other departments of the archives, especially under the heading " England." Next to the collection at Marburg is that at Cassel, in the Standische Landesbibliothek ; it has twenty- five MSS. In the archives of the War Department at Berlin are thirteen letters from German officers in America, besides documents and correspondence concerning the treaty between George HI. and the Prince of Hesse-Hanau, and several reports on strictly techni- cal and military matters. In the Library of the Prince of Waldeck at Arolsen is a fragment of a journal of the Waldeck Regiment, dealing with the adventures of that regiment in Florida, and the forgotten siege of Pensacola by the 20 Spaniards. Eelking used two MSS., but does not give their whereabouts. The archives of the M^ar Department at Brunswick were burned. The Li- brary at Wolfenbiittel has no MSS. concerning this war. The Historical Society of Anspach has a MS. journal of an officer of the Anspach Regiment. There are, therefore, between seventy-five and one hundred MSS. in the various German Archives, and of these only a small part would be needed to perfect the collection made by Mr. Bancroft as part of his MSS. Mr. Lowell, in an address before the New. York Historical Society, in November, 1888 — it is still in manuscript, and I owe to the author's kindness an opportunity to refer to it — spoke first of printed ma- terial, especially the Life and Letters of the Ried- ■ esels, the knightly soldier and the heroic wife, the Journal of Captain Pausch, and Eelking's Hiilfstrup- pen, of which an abridged translation has been printed by Munsell, Albany, No. 19, of his " Histori- cal Series." He also mentions the autobiography of Schlieffen, the Minister of the Landgrave of Cassel (Einige Betreffnisse und Erlebungen Martin Ernst von Schlieffen, Berlin, 1810, hei G. Reimer), privately printed for the family and very rare. Forty quarto pages of text and notes are given to the details of the negotiations with Great Britain for the service of the Hessians in the American War. Schlieffen claims that his sovereign lessened the taxes one-half by means of the handsome returns for the troops hired to the British King. Seume's first account of his experiences as a foreign recruit in the Hessian army, dated Halifax, 1782 21 was printed in Archenholz's Neue Litteratur und A^olkerlvunde for October, 1789— a translation is in the Proceedings of tiie Massachusetts Historical Society for November, 1887. His second account is given in his autobiography, written in his old age, and it is curious to note the changes made in it from the original. Schlozer's Briefiveclisel, 1776 to 1782 (and his Staats- Anzeigcn that followed it), reprinted in ten volumes, contains papers of interest concerning the Revolu- tionary War in everj'- volume; a remarkably valua- ble series of letters by an ofl&cer who took part in the campaigns of Carleton and Burgoyne, was taken pris- oner at Saratoga, and marched to Cambridge and later to Virginia. The German periodicals closely watched the war in America, and the Frankfort Die Neuesten Staatsbegebenheiten gave long accounts of the debates in Parliament, reports of English generals and admirals, and occasional State papers on the American side. It published a letter of several pages by a German officer, describing the Battle of Long Island. Among other printed books described by Lowell are Melsheimer's Tagebuch von der Reise der Braunschweigischen Auxiliar-Truppen von Wolfen- buttel nach Quebec, Minden, 1776 (two parts) ; the Hochfurstl. Hessen- Casselischen Staats- und Adi-ess- Kalender, containing .the army lists of the forces sent here ; the Boston Athenaeum has a pretty full collec- tion ; Christian Leiste, Beschreibung des Brittischen Amerika, Wolfenbilttel, 1778; JReimer's AmerikaniscJies Archiv, 3 volumes, Brunswick, 1777-8; Sprengel's Geschichte der Revolution von Nord- Amerika, Frankcn- 22 thai, 1788; Pfister's Der Nord-Amerilmnische Unab- hdngigkdtskrieg, Kassel, 3864, with a bibliography, pp. 13-38, of value. Eivald, who played a creditable part here, published at Schleswig, in 1798, 1800, and 1803, three small volumes, Belehrungen itber den Krieg, etc., with anec- dotes of soldiers from Alexander and Pompey to Frederick the Great and Napoleon, and of his own personal experience in America. Born in Cassel in 1744, he came here as Captain of Light Infantry, a body of troops frequently used in small detachments to accompany all military expeditions, act as sharp- shooters, skirmishers, foragers, and partisans. Ewald, therefore, had good opportunities to see and hear much of interest, and he kept a journal, which en- abled him subsequently to give names and dates accurately. He had been employed in New Jersey and around New York, in the Brandywine Cam- paign, at the Siege of Charleston, in Virginia under Phillips, Arnold, and Cornwallis. His anecdotes are fair, accurate, and candid accounts of what he had seen and heard. Of the German officers who served in this coun- try, several made permanent contributions to its history. Schopf, who had been here as a surgeon in the Hessian troops, returned after the war and wrote a capital account of his travels and observations. •Captain v. Wangenheim published in Gottingen, in 1781, a modest little volume of 160 pages, 12mo., dated at Harlem, New York, May, 1780, and dedi- cated to General Miinzen. After his return to Ger- many he republished his account of the Trees of 23 America suitable for the German Forests, in a hand- some folio volume of 130 pages, Gottingen, 1787, dedicated to Frederick William theSecond, of Prussia, with a preface dated Cassel, 1785. It is illustrated by a series of plates of value and interest for botanists and students of natural history. In his introduction he mentions the great care taken in England to test American trees, and mentions the recent experiments in the same direction at Tegel, near Berlin, at Carls-" ruhe and Cassel, under the care of experienced for- esters. The eight years spent by the author in America were well used in gathering the material for this stately volume, and it is of itself an evidence of .the lively interest taken in the new world that its resources should be thus brought home to the old world in its pages. The Hessians in America, a play printed in Cassel in 1781, has a certain local interest from its scenes being laid in Philadelphia, and its action turning on the events occurring to the Hessian soldiers here. Even when such books are of little literary or historical value they still have an interest as showing what the Germans thought of America then, and in proving that their interest in this country long survived their return home. A characteristic product of the times is Geisler (Adam Friedrich, des jiingeren) Geschichte und Zu- stand der Koniglichen Grossbritannischen Kriegs- macht zu Wasser und zu Lande, von den friihesten Zeiten bis an's Jahr 1784, nebst einem Abriss des letzten Amerikanischen Krieges, und anhangsweise, Schilderungen einiger in diesem Kriege sich vor- 24 ziiglicli ausgezeiclmeten britischen Offiziere, wie audi Verzeichnisse einiger deutschen in diesem Kriege riihmlichst zur Hillfe gewesenen Offiziere. Mit ausgemalten Kupfern. Dessau u. Leipzig, 1784. Dedicated to George the Third of England, the Dulce of Brunswick, the Landgrave of Hesse- Cassel, the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, the Markgrave of Anspach-Bayreuth, the Prince of Waldeck, the Crown Prince of Plesse-Cassel, Count of Hanau, " who liad broken off abroad a new laurel to add to Germany's heroic crown," — it is clear on which side was the author's sympathy. Geisler calls himself "dev Staatswissenschaften und Rechte Ergebener zu Leipzig." In his long list of subscribers, along with many royal and noble per- sonages, there was in Philadelphia Mr. Streitkrone. At page 354 begins the Fourth Part, a sketch of the American AVar. A manuscript note in the copy in the Historical Societ}^ of Pennsjdvania especially calls attention to v. Bose, and the commendation by Cornwallis in his report of his defeat by Greene, on March 15, 1771, and to Lt. Ebenhauer, of the An- spach Rangers. Emmerich is mentioned in the list of distinguished officers, and Lt. Francesco Bonaface is named as Emmerich's interpreter with the Indians. Emmerich himself is noteworthy not only for his services here, but for his tragic end ; having taken part in an effort to free his native country from the tyranny of Jerome Bonaparte, then King of West- phalia, as a result of the victorious career of Na- poleon, he was tried by court-martial and shot in Cassel. 25 Of the German regiments in the French army in America, that of the Royal Zweibriicken is better known by its French name of " Deux Fonts." The diary of its commander, the Count of that name, has been translated and edited by Dr. Samuel A. Green, the learned librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Lafayette, in a letter to Washington, written after his final return to France, speaks of visiting the Zweibrucken brothers at their home in the Pfalz, and of meeting at their house " Old Knyp," and says General Knyphausen joined them in sending kind and friendly messages. It seems well authenticated that at Yorktown the English force of German soldiers met neighbors and friends serving in the German regiment in the French allied army, and that the sentries on both sides challenged in German, while after the surrender there were many hearty greetings of the Germans serving on opposite sides, and many of them remained in this country or re- turned to it later on. Wiedvrhold's Diary, of which I show you a copy, covers the period from October 7, 177G, to December 7, 1780 — seventy-six pages, with seventeen colored maps, plans, pictures, etc. At the end this MS. copy is dated January 12, 1855, with the following note : " Here ends the Diary of Captain Wiederhold, died (?) 1805, at Cassel, a Major. The original, in two small 8vos., descended to his son, Oekonomie-Rath, who died in 1863, at Peikelsheim, Marburg ; from him it passed to his son, who went to America in 1880, but since then has not been heard from. The original has been lost or is at least no longer accessible. Bancroft 26 and Washington Irving used copies (without the maps, etc.) made for them, and speak of it as very valuable." Bound up with it are extracts from Letters of Adjutant Henel, of 1776-8-9, of Lt. Ilenlrlmann, of 1777-8-9, of Captain Ries, of 1776, giving an ac- count of the capture of Fort Wasliington, and the orders complimenting General Knypjhausen by neiming the Fort after him; a list of the Hessian Begiments and their successive commanders, with an account of their movements from Germany to the place of em- barkation, and a Meinora)iduni that each Battalion was ordered to keep an exact journal in duplicate, of which one copy on its return was to be deposited in the State Archives; a copy of the Bepori of Col. Block, of his arrival at Staten Island on August 8, 1776, and the acknowledgment of Elector Frederic; Lists of the Troops sent to America and their organiza- tion in Brigades, Divisions, etc., and of the General and Field Officers ; lists of the casualties at the Capture of Fort Washingto7i, November 16, 1776, signed by Knyphausen, and a Bibliography, including ii/fener, Befreiungskampf Stuttgart, 1835 ; Baumer^s Europa, 1839 ; Epliemeriden ilber Aufkldrung, Litteratur v.. Kunst, Marburg, 1785, Volurde II, pp. 1-61, con- taining Campaign of the Hessians in America ; v. Ochs, Betrachtungen, Cassel, 1817. [The Memoirs of v. Ochs give a characteristic picture of tlie German soldier ; he served under Kapoleon.] v. Scnden, Tagebuch, in Zeitschrift fiir Geschichte des Krieges, Berlin, Mittler, Eighth and Ninth Parts 1839 ; [Ochs and Senden were General officers at the time of their deaths.] Zeitschrift fur Kunst des Krieges, Berlin, Mittler, 1828, Volume XII, No. 3, Extracts from the Diary of a Hessian Officer in the American War, 1776-7, by Lt. V. Heister, of the Guard Eegiment; Soldatenfreimd. Berlin, 1836, Nos. 138-9, 141-2-3, contains a brief account of the American Revolutionary War; Neuc Militdr-Zeitung, 1789, Nos. 33 and 34; the Battle of Brandywine, No. 36 ; Operations in America in 1776-7-8 (General-Stabs-Bibliothek 12, B. 5). The other papers included in the Wiederhold volume are a fragment of a letter from Capt. Henhelmann, of Jan. 1, 1777 ; Extracts of Reports of Kriegsrath Lorenz, New York, 1776-7, acknowledging gifts from a charitable committee in London for the Military Hospitals ; Copy of an anonymous letter to the Elector of Hesse- Cassel, dated Dec. 9, 1779, in French, suggest- ing that better terms could now be obtained for troops needed by England; A fragment, apparently original, of a Diary of the journey of a soldier in 1776 ; Copy of the Diary of Caspar Rechnagel; Extract from the Jour- nal of .Col. V. Donop, Dec. 10, 1776, to Dec. 31 : Extract from the Court of Inquiry on the Battle of Trenton, ivith reports of the Regiments of Lossberg, Knyphausen, and Rail, of Dec. 26, 1776; of Schaffer, dated Phila., ]\lay 19, 1778; Matthaeus; Staff Captain Baum, Phila., March 20, 1778 ; Engineer Capt. Pauli, Phila., April 14, 1778; Lt. £^e^, Phila.. April 24, 1778; Engineer Capjt. Martin, Aug. 29, 1778 ; Extract from the finding of the Court, dated April 23, 1782, and a fragment of itx report. The author of this Diary, Andreas Wiederhold. was a Lieutenant in Rail's Regiment, and afterward a Captain in the Knyphausen Regiment. Lowell, 28 who uses the Diary very frequently in his excellent book on the Hessians in the Revolution, says (note p. 77) that Ewald mentions that Wiederhold had already distinguished himself in 1762, so that he could not have been a very young man when he came to this country. Lowell used a copy in the Library (Standische Landesbibliothek) at Cassel, and notes that " it is made from the original by the hus- band of Wiederhold's granddaughter and that it contains several interesting appendices." There still remains in Germany a great mass of material to be catalogued. Readers of Kapp's books will recall with a smile his stories of the difficulties thrown in his way at the State Department in Wash- ington, when he was in search of the original MSS. preserved there, and similar experiences in Germany have often been recounted. But fortunately all that is changed now, and government officials are nearlj' always ready to give free access to all who have a serious purpose in seeking to master the details of the events of our history. Mr. Bancroft deserves a monument for his History of the United States, and the best form that it can take will be the preser- vation of his remarkable collection of MSS. in the National Library at Washington, where it will encourage students to continue their researches and to make known the wliole story of our history. In the November (1892) number of the Forum,the able Librarian in charge of the Library of Congress, Mr. A. R. Spoflford, gives a general summary of the important historical material already housed in the Library of Congress, over which he presides wnth 29 marked ability. Of its 650,000 volumes and 250,000 pamphlets, many MSS. and maps, only a ^ small proportion are the original papers such as those gathered by Mr. Bancroft. There are seventy volumes of original military papers and letters mainly of the period of the American Revolution, by general and other army officers, statesmen, etc. There are eleven volumes of original papers of Commodore Paul Jones, two volumes of General Green's papers, two original journals of General Washington, about thirty orderly books of the Revolutionary Army, the original papers of the Marquis de Rochambeau, MSS., maps, and plans by British, French, and American engineers, of camps, battles, and campaigns of the Revolutionary War. Now that a new Library building is approaching completion, with room for fi ve million volumes, and a central reading room large enough for an army of readers, it is right that the Librar}' of Mr. Bancroft should be secured for their use. and as part of the National Archives for the National Library. The various departments and bureaus of the government are now the custodians of many important collections, which will no doubt in due time find their final resting place in the new Library, and it will ultimately be by law the Library of the United States. Fortunately', in Mr. Spofford the government possesses a Librarian tho- roughly equipped for his work, enjoying the confi- dence of Congress, and well entitled to it. His long friendship with Mr. Bancroft must have made him well acquainted with the contents of his Library, and although his ofiicial position may prevent his giving 30 his active support to the proposed purchase by the government, he will undoubtedly gladly welcome its addition to the Library which, under his care, is rapidly growing in national importance. To this end I suggest that this Society adopt a series of resolutions, to be sent to Congress, and to be made public, to enlist interest in, and attract atten- tion to the purchase of the Bancroft Collection, to be placed in the National Library at Washington, and inviting the co-operation of kindred societies, in thus quickening and securing favorable action by Con- gress ; then to join in a plan for forming an associa- tion, consisting of representatives of special, local, and State Historical Societies, Libraries, and students, to provide for the expense of having complete descrip- tive lists of the MSS. in Marburg and Berlin, as well as in private collections, bearing on American history, to be made and printed with a view to enabling students to- secure manuscripts, and in time to have copies made to be deposited in the National Library at Washington. 31 At a meeting of the Pionier Verein, held at the Hall of the German Society of Pennsylvania, the following resolutions were adopted : Whereas, The late Plon. George Bancroft by his will gave the Nation the opportunity to become the owner of his large and valuable collection of historical MSS. Resolve 1st. That Congress is urgently requested to make the necessary appropriation for the purchase of the Bancroft Collection, that it may be placed in the National Library at Washington, for the use of students, and as a memorial of Mr. Bancroft. 2d. That this resolution be sent to other tlistorical Societies, inviting them to take similar action and to co-operate in enlisting the personal interest of mem- bers of Congress, and the help of the press, in urging that prompt measures be taken to secure the owner- ship by the Nation of this great collection, valuable both from its intrinsic worth and as a memorial of the foremost American historian, whose life-long labor is best attested by the success with which he gathered the vast amount of manuscript material now offered to the government. 3d. That this Society invite the co-operation of kindred societies and students interested in histori- cal research and the collection of historical material, in forming a plan for co-operating in raising a fund with which to defray the expense of having made full descriptive catalogues of the MSS. preserved in the Archives at Marburg, Cassel, Berlin, Anhalt, Bayreuth, and in private or public collections, abroad and at home, with a view to procuring copies of such Journals, Eeports, Letters, etc., as are not found in 32 the collections of Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Sparks, and other historians, and that the owners of such MSS. be urged to deposit them in the National Library at Washington, so that the historical archives formed there may be freely accessible to students. 4th. That a committee be appointed to act with committees to be formed by other societies, to meet at a time and place to be agreed upon, with a view to adopting a plan for carrying out succcssfullj^ the objects aimed at in these Resolutions, viz., the prompt and favorable action of Congress in the purcliase of the Bancroft MSS. for the National Library at Wash- ington, and the formation of an association for se- curing a list of all historical MSS., aljroad and at home, in order to have the originals or copies placed in the National Library, so that it may be the de- pository of .National Historical Archives free to the use of students. 5th. That such committee be authorized to meet at Washington under the auspices of the American Historical Association, in order to bring home to Congress and to the President the great importance of securing the Bancroft Collection and of supplement- ing it by the preparation of descriptive catalogues of similar historical MSS. in foreign collections. The undersigned were appointed a Committee, under the foregoing Resolutions : J. G. ROSENGARTEN, 0. SEIDENSTICKER, S. W. PENNYPACKER. J. M. MAISCH, President. P. EHRLICH, Secretanj. Hall or the German Society op Penna., Spring Garden and Marshall Sta. Phila. '^%fiMi