Nicholas Haussegger

rdf:langString Nicholas Haussegger

rdf:langString Nicholas Haussegger

rdf:langString Nicholas Haussegger

rdf:langString unknown

rdf:langString ?–1756

rdf:langString Dutch Republic

rdf:langString Great Britain

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString Infantry

rdf:langString July 1786

rdf:langString Colonel

rdf:langString Nicholas Haussegger (1729 – July 1786) was a native of Bern, Switzerland who arrived in the British Colonies in North America about 1744 as a subaltern officer in the British army during the French and Indian War. After the war he purchased a farm in Lebanon county and became a leader in the local Pennsylvania German community. At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War Haussegger joined the 4th Pennsylvania Battalion as a field officer. He was placed in command of the German Battalion, a unit of ethnic Germans from Pennsylvania and Maryland, on July 17, 1776. He led his battalion at Trenton in late December 1776. A week later, he was taken prisoner at Assunpink Creek and investigated over allegations of desertion and attempting to persuade American prisoners-of-war to join the British army. Evidence credible enough to bring him to trial apparently never materialized, but he felt "neglected and injuriously treated" by the incident and eventually resigned his commission in 1781. He is believed to have died at his farm in Pennsylvania in 1786, however there were also contemporaneous claims made that he went to Canada with his wife.