Brunswick hunter
Brunswick hunters is the colloquial name of Brunswick-wolfenbüttel rule Light Infantry - Battalion "from Barner," which on the part of the British on the American Revolutionary War took part. The battalion consisted of a total of five companies , including one company of hunters ; derived from the hunter company, the battalion was also referred to as the "combined" or "hunter battalion".
history
As early as 1760, during the Seven Years' War , the small principality had set up a hunter battalion, which was disbanded at the end of the war in 1763. When the British King George III. , Elector of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, asked his allies in Germany for support through subsidiary troops for the war in the American colonies in 1776 , two divisions of 3,964 infantry and 336 cavalry were also set up in Braunschweig , including the light infantry battalion " from Barner ”. The second company under Captain Schottelius was a hunter company, composed mainly of foresters and experienced shooters. This special unit, equipped with short, rifled hunter rifles and deer catchers , had the task of leading the army as skirmishers and scouts , to alarm the enemy and above all to eliminate their officers with targeted shots.
At the end of 1776, the Brunswick hunters took part in the successful prevention of the American invasion of Canada , took part in the Saratoga campaign and were finally captured by the Americans in the Battle of Saratoga . While the majority of the Braunschweig troops were in captivity until the end of the War of Independence, a remaining unit remained in Canada and was regularly reinforced by newly recruited recruits. There these Brunswickers - including a small hunter unit - were used by the British to secure the border until 1783 and consequently helped to prevent further ambitions of the Americans to advance to Canada from the outset. After the end of the war, the troops were disbanded after their return to the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, but residual formations remained so that there are no clear data on the disbandment of the hunter unit.
See also
literature
Unprinted sources
- There is extensive source material on the history of the Braunschweig hunters. In the Lower Saxony State Archives in Wolfenbüttel there are not only cards, plans, recruits slips and equipment instructions (drafts for uniforms), but also letters with reports from Friedrich Adolf Riedesel , the general of the Brunswick subsidiary troops in North America, to Duke Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand .
Printed sources
- Friedrich Adolf von Riedesel, Friederike von Riedesel: Professional trip to America: Letters and reports written by General and General Riedesel during the North American War in the years 1776 to 1783 . Ed .: Thomas Ostwald. New edition after the 1801 edition. Ed. Corsar, Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-925320-00-8 ( reader.digitale-sammlungen.de - edition from 1801, diary entries by Friederike Riedesel zu Eisenbach , who took part in the Saratoga campaign at the side of her husband Friedrich Adolf Riedesel ).
Representations
- Max von Eelking: The German Auxiliary Troops in the North American War of Liberation 1776 to 1783. Photomechanical reprint of the Hanover 1863 edition, Kassel 1976, ISBN 3-920307-24-0 .
- Stephan Huck : Soldiers against North America, life worlds of Braunschweig subsidiary troops in the American War of Independence (= contributions to military history, 69) Oldenbourg, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-486-59742-4 .
- Claus Reuter: History of the old Brunswick light infantry battalion "Von Barner" in North America from 1776 to 1783. Scarborough, Ontario 1995, ISBN 0-9698169-7-9 .
- Thomas Ostwald : On our Carl's orders: Novel the Braunschweiger Jäger in the American War of Independence of 1776. Braunschweig 2006, ISBN 3-925320-05-9 .
