. . . again the rebels rushed furiously on our men. —a Hessian soldier, Panel 8, Inscription: No 10 RED COATS, 1954, Jacob Lawrence, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross, © 2019 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
On August 31, 1777, a German-born mercenary soldier fighting on behalf of the British army wrote this letter describing the brutal loss to the American “rebel” forces at the Battle of Bennington. The American government allowed the defeated Hessians to take up residence in Massachusetts and New York following the war, but denied veteran soldiers of color the same pathways to full citizenship.
This 19th-century painting by Alonzo Chappel depicts Continental Army General John Stark as the sole hero of the Battle of Bennington. He issues orders to a group escorting away prisoners at the painting’s left, as well to the doctor attending a fallen soldier in the foreground. For his Struggle painting, Lawrence visualized a multitude of rebel troops and British loyalists, rather than a single individual.