Of course you are right about the respective princes and how the "Hessians" were brought into the revolution or any war where the princes could earn an extra buck buy renting out their armies. The Hessians were known to the crack troops, well trained and highly skilled soldiers and that might be why (in the time of the revolution) the name Hessian was applied to all of the Germanic soldiers who were fighting on both sides.
It is very hard to give this group of Germanic people a single designation because Germany did not exist as a country and all of the duchies and principalities had different names and different rulers.
We, working in the 19th century, call them Prussians - Hessians - etc and then Germans after the 1870 war with France and the unification of Germany under Prussia.
I didn't mean to get quite so far into this subject here as this is a thread about Alix's Engagement and Wedding, but the question had been asked and I just finished reading some material about the "Hessians" and the Trenton, New Jersey campaign of Geo Washington and Co.
When I was in school and learning about this, I didn't know much about my European Heritage except that some of my ancestors had come from "Germany" and I never put the whole set of facts together back then. Mostly, my dad talked about those who came after the 1848 upheavals.
I found all of the information on those who became New Jersey citizens at a much later stage of life and, of course, with the Internet, research is so much faster and easier that it was when I was a kid.
I have a fascinating family tree with direct and indirect relationships to people and families that I never suspected. And, yes, I am verifying all of this, not just taking someone else's posting and information for granted.
I think that everyone probably has a family with a lot of interesting and maybe even famous people included if they look hard enough for them. But for someone like me who has had ancestors who were here before the Revolution and who fought in just about every war (I can verify the Revolution - the War Between the States - and World War II) and it is an important part of who I am and what it means to me to be an American. In this era of "illegal immigration" problems and heritage "communities" instead of "melting pot Americans" I find comfort in knowing that my family, like all families, came here for a better life, but didn't wait for it to be legislated to them. They worked hard and fought hard and earned the rights we all have.
