Colonel Carl von Donop

Carl Aemilius Ulrich von Donop (1732-1777) was a member of a noble, military family.  He had seen action in the Seven Year's War and was a personal adjutant to the Landgrave of Hesse-Kessel, which no doubt helped when he lobbied the Landgrave for a decent command position with the American expeditionary force.  By this stage he was Chief of the jaeger corps.  Three of the Hessian grenadier battalions were brigaded together under von Donop's command.  In that capacity, he fought at Brooklyn, Haarlem Heights and White Plains, and was then effectively given command of the New Jersey garrison. 

Von Donop drew criticism for his failure to assist Colonel Rall when the Trenton garrison was attacked at Christmas 1776. Von Donop's brigade of approximately 2,400 men should have been stationed at Bordentown, some 9 miles from Trenton. However, Von Donop's command had been moved to Mount Holly in New Jersey after a small Continental force of around 600 had arrived there and set up some artillery. After a bit of skirmishing over the course of 22-23 December, the Americans slipped away. This move diverted von Donop's command away from the Trenton area, Mount Holly being 10 miles further away than Bordentown. It was alleged that von Donop was being comforted by a "beautiful young widow" and was in no hurry to return back to Bordentown.

He met his end in the Battle of Red Bank (or Fort Mercer) in October 1777. Fort Mercer was situated on the New Jersey side of the Delaware. Cornwallis wanted to eject the American garrison and von Donop, who seems to have wanted to redeem the performance of the Hessian corps after Trenton, volunteered to lead the attack. Despite support from five British ships anchored in the Delaware, the Hessian assaults were beaten back with heavy casualties. Von Donop was wounded in the thigh and died three days later. Despoite the Trenton/Mount Holly affair, von Donop seems to have been widely respected. Colonel William Harcourt, commander of the 16th Dragoons and an aide-de-camp to King George, wrote that von Donop was "very justly the pride of the Hessians, and undoubtedly an excellent officer."

In the Caliver/"British Grenadier"! scenarios, von Donop appears as a brigade commander at Long Island, Haarlem Heights, Brandywine, Bound Brook and Whitemarsh. So he's a useful chap to model. This figure is another mounted Russian officer from Eureka's Revolutionary Wars range. I painted this figure twice. Initially, I had assumed that he would be wearing the uniform of the Von Donop Regiment. But then when I started doing some proper research into Carl von Donop's life, I realised that the chief of the regiment was a completely different von Donop, Lieutenant-General Wilhelm Henrich August von Donop! So I had to paint over the blue with straw-yellow coat and change it to the green faced red coat of the jaeger corps. The uniform isn't quite right for an officer of jaegers. There probably should be a plume in the tricorne. In fact, Brigade Games do a mounted jaeger officer, which I haven't seen "in the flesh" but might be more suitable for von Donop. To be honest, the Brigade Games figure looks nothing like von Donop, given that a couple of portraits of him do exist (see here).

1 figure. Painted August 2024.