Ewald, Johann von

EWALD, JOHANN VON. (1744–1813). Hessian officer. Germany. Born in Kassel, Germany, in 1744, Ewald, the son of a bookseller, entered the Hessian army at the age of 16, taking part in the closing campaigns of the Seven Years' War. He lost his left eye in a duel in 1770. Having studied military engineering in Kassel, he published a book on military tactics in 1774 and was made captain of the Leibjäger, an unusual promotion for a commoner. As commander of the Second (jäger) Company, a unit rented by the British for service in the Revolution, he reached New Rochelle, New York, on 22 October 1776, and was in action the next day against a force of American riflemen. His unit constituted the advance guard at Monmouth and Brandywine, Ewald earning special commendation from Sir William Howe. He was conspicuous in the Charleston expedition of Henry Clinton in 1780 and, in his diary, left a valuable record of this operation. He surrendered at Yorktown, and almost died of dysentery while on parole on Long Island. He returned to Kassel in May 1784, waited four years in vain for a promotion he would not receive because of his "lowly birth," and then became a lieutenant colonel commanding a jäger corps in Denmark. He reorganized the corps, was elevated to the Danish nobility, and was a major general in 1802. Commanding forces in Holstein, again in Germany, he skirmished with French forces under Marshalls Joachim Murat and Nicholas Soult in an effort to maintain the neutrality of Denmark against the wishes of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was made a lieutenant general in 1807 after taking part in the assault on Stralsund, Germany. He died six years later, after a brief illness.

SEE ALSO Jungkenn, Friedrich Christian Arnold.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ewald, Johann von. Diary of the American War: A Hessian Journal. Translated and edited by Joseph P. Tustin. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979.

                              revised by Michael Bellesiles