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three-man committee to �devise a plan for encouraging the Hessians and other foreigners�to quit that iniquitous service�. The result was a resolution, believed to have been drafted by Thomas Jefferson, offering fifty acres of land, freedom to practice their religion, and civil liberties to German deserters. Copies were translated into German and distributed among the Hessian soldiers.
Benjamin Franklin, who joined the committee to implement the operation, arranged for the leaflets to be disguised as tobacco packets to make sure they would fall into the hands of the ordinary Hessian soldiers. Franklin was also involved in fabricating a letter which appeared to have been sent by a German prince to the commander of his troops in America, inflating German casualty figures and encouraging officers to humanely allow their wounded to die, rather than to save men who might become cripples unfit for service, thus entitling the prince to a greater amount of �blood money� which was paid for each of his men who were wounded or killed.4 

Another favorite tactic of Washington was that of sending a Philadelphia baker by the name of Christopher Ludwick to infiltrate the enemy camps. Posing as a deserter, he would make contact with the Hessians and encourage them to defect, and is in fact credited with the defection of many from the German ranks throughout the war. 
Two other successful practices that the Congress utilized were that of exposing the German prisoners to the prosperous lifestyles of their emigrant cousins, and of purposely marching them in times of inclement weather.5 

March into Captivity

The defeat at Yorktown had effectively ended the war. The resulting surrender had been so humiliating for General Cornwallis that he had refused to meet his victors personally. So between three and four o�clock on the afternoon of October 19, 1781, it was Brigadier General Charles O�Hara who led the British and German troops in a procession of surrender in front of their enemies. The troops marched carrying their knapsacks and equipment along Williamsburg Street among great pomp and circumstance, to a level place where the Hussars of the French were drawn up in a circle, and there they laid down their weapons and armor, surrendering to the French and American troops under the command of General George Washington.6

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4 CIA files, Revolutionary War Propaganda, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/warindep/intellopos.html.
5 P. Kirby Gull, M. DIV., MSW, A Captor�s Conundrum: The Management of German Prisoners After Yorktown, A Maryland Perspective, p. 34.
6 Stephen Popp, The Diary of Stephen Popp. Translated from Original Text by Reinhart J. Pope. 1953.