Few troops in the American Revolutionary War have carried a heavier burden of myth than the so-called "Hessians." In American memory, they often appear as the ready-made villains of the Revolution: foreign mercenaries sold by greedy princes, shipped across the Atlantic to crush liberty, defeated at Trenton because they were drunk after Christmas revelry, and then conveniently absorbed into the story as a cautionary tale about tyranny, hirelings, and national awakening. It is a powerful image. It is also too simple.
