Herr Tournier’s tour of the Americas
Dragoon, Dragoner-Regiment Prinz Ludwig, 1777. The only mounted Brunswick unit sent to the Americas, they left their horses in Europe and were supposed to get mounts in Canada but only about 30 were supplied, leaving the rank and file to fight on foot. [SOURCE: Uniforms of the American War of Independence. A series of 24 collector cards. Illustration by R. J. Marrion. Fellow of The Company of Military Historians of America. Victoria Gallery, London, England. 1992.]
An interesting piece over at the Journal of the American Revolution by Todd W. Braisted of one Carl Tournier/Charles Turner who, a private soldier in the Prince Ludwig Regiment of Brunswick Dragoons (Dragoner-Regiment Prinz Ludwig), was sent to the Americas under British employ, captured by the Colonials at the Battle of Bennington in August 1777, spent a few months in a POW camp then cast his lot with the Americans of Col. Samuel Brewer’s battalion at West Point, then paroled himself in the summer of 1779 to return to the British.
He then was turned over to Friedrich de Diemar, a Hannoveran captain late of the 60th Regiment of Foot, to join Diemar’s “Black Hussars” troop of the Queen’s Rangers, which had to be raised as a provincial unit to get its collection of 180 odd escaped former German POWs paid.
As noted by Braisted:
So Charles Tournier had the distinction of being a soldier of the Principality of Brunswick, serving in a Loyalist establishment, commanded by a Hanoverian holding a commission in the British Regular Army, officially being placed in the new troop of hussars on September 21, 1779.
More on Herr Tournier’s tour of the Americas over at All Things Liberty.