Headless Hessian of the American Revolution: The Real Life Inspiration Behind the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

 

        On October 28, 1776 General George Washington’s Continental Army is heading northward in retreat.

The American army has been forced to flee into Westchester County after having been routed by William Howe’s combined British and Hessian forces in a disastrous attempt to defend New York City.

Now, encamped around the small village of White Plains, the Continental Army literally has its back to the wall and the fate of the American Revolution itself is hanging in the balance.

General Howe has sailed a formidable force up the Hudson River from his base in New York City and he has landed several thousand troops behind Washington’s retreating army.  Howe plans to cut off the American retreat route, smash the Continental Army and end the rebellion once and for all.

On the morning of October 28, 1776 General Howe, headquartered just north of White Plains in the town of Scarsdale, orders a large British force under General Henry Clinton and an equally large force of Hessian mercenaries commanded by German General Leopold Philip de von Heister to attack Washington’s army occupying the hills around White Plains.

The Hessian forces under General von Heister launch an attack on the American flanks.  Their assault on the American lines is relentless and the cannonade is non stop as expert Hessian artillerymen and American cannoneers occupying the high ground above trade thousands of rounds of solid ball and deadly grapeshot that spays hot shrapnel all across the battlefield.

Washington’s troops and artillerymen fight with a sense of desperation rarely seen in the war to that point.  The Hessians have a fearsome reputation among American soldiers and civilians alike.  Recruited by German states and rented out to the British in America as professional soldiers the Hessian’s thirst for battle, stoic discipline and foreign appearance cause many American’s to tremble at their approach.

In reality, despite being despised by patriots in America and despite the propaganda value of their bloodthirsty reputation, many Hessian units during the American War for Independence are plagued by low morale and desertion is common among the Germans.  Many Hessian soldiers choose to live a life in hiding in America rather than face the prospect of being sent back to Germany and rented out to fight once again in a foregin war.

But during the Battle of White Plains, sensing that the war may be concluded in that moment, the Hessians fight doggedly and ferociously, but the Americans are equally steadfast and hold their ground.

Hessian soldiers of the Revolutionary War

        There will be over 500 casualties that day on the bloodsoaked fields just outside White Plains in Westchester County New York, mostly Hessian and American.

The Continental Army will survive and live to fight another day but the British and their Hessian mercenaries will claim the field of battle.  The pages of history will record the Battle of White Plains as largely inconclusive, but for those who fought there it will always be remembered for its ferocity and for the intensity of its cannon fire.

A legend will be born out of the Battle of White Plains--the American version of the Legend of the Headless Horseman.

During the battle charging Hessian soldiers, attempting to advance largely uphill, were mowed down by American cannonballs which literally ripped through their advancing lines and took limbs, bodies and heads with them as they flew through the air or skipped across the ground.

One luckless Hessian is said to have had his head blown clean off and his brains splattered across the battlefield.  It is said that his corpse still moved and twitched on the ground for hours after he had fallen in a bloody puddle.  As night fell and the battle subsided his comrades came and retrieved his headless body and carried him for several miles to the small village of Sleepy Hollow where his body was interred in a nameless grave outside the Old Dutch Church.

Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow

        To this day the ghost of this headless Hessian soldier may still haunt the tranquil roads and byways of Westchester County in and around Sleepy Hollow, searching for his severed head, and all the while carrying a ghastly jack-o-lantern as a macabre replacement.

Before anyone dismisses this tale as a bit of quaint folklore, or the over zealous imaginings of Revolutionary War era residents, it is possible that the tale of the Headless Horseman could have a real basis in Revolutionary War fact.

On November 1, 1776 only mere days after the battle, American Major General William Heath when recounting the events at the Battle of White Plains wrote, “A shot from the American cannon at this place took off the head of a Hessian artilleryman.”

Of course, one contemporary quote from an American General proves nothing.  Legends of Headless Horsemen are common in world folklore with many dating back nearly one-thousand years.  In most of these legends the said horseman is either completely headless and searching for his head, or he is carrying it in his hands for all eternity as some sort of retribution or penance.

One of the most famous tales in English Literature of a headless horseman is that of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is one of the most well known stories of Arthurian Legend in which a mysterious green knight challenges Sir Gawain to a sort of dual with axes to see who can behead whom.  When Sir Gawain defeats the green knight, the spectral green knight ends up carrying his head in his hands and stalking Sir Gawain as a constant reminder of man’s mortality.

Medieval depiction of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

But most American’s, and many people around the world today when they hear the term “headless horseman” instantly think of Washington Irving’s classic short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  And it is Irving’s story which may well have been inspired by the headless Hessian soldier from the Battle of White Plains.

Written in 1820 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the most well known story contained in Washington Irving’s larger work of tales and essays entitled The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

The Sketchbook is one of the first masterpieces of American Literature and it draws heavily upon Dutch Colonial and American Revolutionary War era folklore.  Irving wrote The Sketchbook while staying in England and was influenced while there by Walter Scott’s novels of historical fiction and by the work of British antiquarians.

He may have wanted to recreate in The Sketchbook a work of American historical folklore with a basis in fact similar to the work he was then being exposed to in Europe.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow contains references to many real historical places and people.  The Old Dutch Church where the body of the headless Hessian soldier was brought by his comrades according to folklore, features prominently in the tale.

Irving’s version focuses on Ichabod Crane, a lovelorn school teacher, who having been heartbroken after his love was forsaken, leaves Sleepy Hollow one dark Halloween night alone on his horse and is never seen or heard from again.  It is supposed that Ichabod Crane became a victim of the Headless Horseman, or “the Headless Hessian of the Hollow” as Irving refers to the legend in his work.  All that remains of Ichabod Crane is a hat and a smashed pumpkin nearby.

In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Irving has his narrator say specifically that Ichabod Crane may have crossed paths with, “the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle of the Revolutionary War.”

Is Irving making reference to the same incident described by Major Heath at the Battle of White Plains in 1776?  Quite possibly.

Washington Irving first moved to the Sleepy Hollow region near White Plains in Westchester County New York as a teenager with his family in 1798.  The Irving’s moved from New York City to the White Plains area to flee from a yellow fever epidemic that was then gripping the nation.

As a teenager and a young man, Irving became enamored with the folklore and history of the Hudson Valley region.  Much of his writing throughout his life would be based on tales that he had heard from local residents and would hearken back to the days of Dutch colonization.

Washington Irving

Irving would regularly use the names of real people in his stories and it is interesting that as a young man Washington Irving may have been acquainted with an actual person named Ichabod Crane.

All that is known of this real Ichabod Crane is that he too disappeared for forty-five years!  United States military records indicate that a man named Ichabod Crane from Westchester County New York enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1809 at about the age of twenty and that he served in the Marine Corps for forty-five years!  

There are no other written, or verified records of this real-life Ichabod Crane in existence that are known to historians or to folklorists as far as I was able to tell.  But is it possible, that just like the character in Irving’s tale, this real life Ichabod Crane may have disappeared, not because he was fleeing from the headless horseman, but because he too was heartbroken by unrequited love and was seeking to runaway and make a new life for himself?  It’s definitely possible.

By writing The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving created a masterpiece of American fiction and he recorded a bit of American folklore that is sure to live on forever.   

And speaking of forever there may be the decapitated spirit of a headless Hessian soldier stalking the trails and forgotten byways of Westchester County, eternally carrying a Jack-O’lantern and searching the hallowed battlefield of White Plains looking for the head he lost so long ago in what for him was some long forgotten foreign war.

Plaque and Cannon Commemorating the Battle of White Plains