In 2021, Gloucester County purchased a small, quarter-acre parcel adjacent to the Red Bank Battlefield Park in southern New Jersey. This was not unusual. Small historic parks often buy private land adjacent to the park when it becomes available.
The purchase was significant because it included an undisturbed trench that was part of Fort Mercer’s fortifications. Fort Mercer and Fort Mifflin, located along the Delaware River, protected George Washington's supply lines and prevented the British from using the river as an avenue of attack. The Battle of Red Bank was fought in the fall of 1777 as part of the Philadelphia campaign.
General Howe moved on Philadelphia, fighting a climactic battle with the Continental Army on September 11, 1777, at Brandywine and defeating it. Howe continued on and took Philadelphia on September 26. Then, to open his own supply line, he ordered a Hessian brigade to attack Fort Mercer.
Col. Christopher Greene (third cousin of Gen. Nathanael Greene) commanded two regiments of Rhode Island regulars and gave the Hessians a pounding. More than 100 Germans were killed on the battlefield and dozens more were wounded. The defeat was one of the first victories for the Continental Army over the mercenaries in the war.
Archaeologists surveyed the new quarter-acre parcel at Fort Mercer in 2022, and a dig began that summer. Volunteer enthusiasts lent a hand for a few days in June, assisting the professionals.
Tentatively, one of the volunteers walked up to the archaeologists and quietly said, "I think I found a bone."
“We had begun to archaeologically survey the site, never expecting that this unassuming parcel would become among the most significant spots in the park,” Jennifer Janofsky, professor of public history at Rowan University, and Wade Catts, adjunct professor of history at Rowan University, wrote in The Conversation.
The day after the battle, Col. Greene ordered the bodies of the Hessians to be unceremoniously dumped in a ditch outside the fort, and 249 years later, a young volunteer, a lover of history, found a bone in that ditch that led to one of the most significant Revolutionary War battlefield discoveries in decades.
The Conversation:
After the discovery of human remains, our team of archaeologists and volunteers worked tirelessly over the long, hot summer. Eventually we recovered the remains of 15 individuals believed to be Hessian soldiers. The project has benefited greatly from the resources committed by the New Jersey State Police Forensic Anthropology Unit.
The work of removing the human remains was delicate. The bones were not in good condition; there were no fully articulated skeletons. The team recovered pieces of people: craniums, jawbones and femurs. As the work progressed, it became very clear from the artifacts of battle – the buttons, buckles and musket balls – that these were Hessian dead.
As the team worked, they numbered the remains from 1 to 15.
The bones tell stories. And the stories of how these Hessians died tell us about the brutality of war in any age and at any time.
Bones are artifacts and can share powerful stories that are sometimes missed in traditional primary sources. This was the case with No. 7, whose remains told a particularly sad story. He was found face down at the base of the fort wall. We believe he was hit by a lead musket ball in his right hip, a lead canister shot in the center of his back and iron grapeshot, which is like a mini-cannonball about the size of a golf ball, in his left arm.
Other injuries revealed more grim realities of a Revolutionary War battlefield, such as the Pennsylvania Navy’s use of bar and chain shot as ammunition. Bar shot looks like a heavily weighted dumbbell. Chain shot is two cannonballs linked by a chain. Once fired from a cannon, both spin as they sweep through the air toward the target.
Profs. Janofsky and Catts believe that the discovery is "an opportunity for more nuanced interpretations of who and what constitutes the enemy."
"Rather than seeing the battle as good guys versus bad guys, we encourage people to consider the space in between," the archaeologists wrote. "These men never anticipated being dumped in a New Jersey ditch so far from home."
Not so. Hessians were professional soldiers. They may not have anticipated dying in New Jersey, but they were all professional soldiers, among the best, most disciplined warriors in the Western world. That meant they were fully prepared to die, knowing that their families would be cared for.
A "nuanced" view of the Hessians would have to include why Americans hated them more than they hated the British.
- Following the Battle of Long Island, Hessian forces were reported by both American soldiers and British observers to have routinely refused quarter to Continental troops. Hessian grenadiers reportedly bayoneted surrendering soldiers and riflemen pinned to trees, earning them an immediate reputation for brutality.
- During the British advance across New Jersey, Hessian detachments carried out widespread looting, destruction, and plundering of civilian homes and farms — targeting Whigs and Loyalists alike. Their aggressive pillaging in towns like Trenton and Princeton alienated the local population and drove neutral colonists to join the Continental cause.
- Contemporary accounts, including entries in local church records (such as those of Lutheran pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg), documented instances of Hessian soldiers assaulting, terrorizing, and robbing non-combatants, including women and children, in occupied areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
It's true that 18th-century warfare was particularly hard on civilians and enemy soldiers, especially rebels. Soldiers viewed enemy civilians' property in rebel territories as fair game for plunder. But the killing of prisoners was condemned even then, and the killing of civilians was also frowned upon.
American leaders like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson actively highlighted these atrocities in wartime propaganda — and specifically cited the use of foreign mercenaries in the Declaration of Independence — to unite the colonies against the Crown.
Some Revolutionary War battlefields are disappearing as nature reclaims them. Digs like the Red Bank Battlefield help preserve our history and our nation's collective memory.
