William Clements acquired a series of letters, diaries, and other documents created by Hessian officers hired by the British during the Revolutionary War, a collection that was discovered after having been locked in a trunk in Castle Hueffe in German Westphalia for nearly 150 years. These manuscripts had never been available to historians until they became part of the library’s collection in 1937, and director Randolph Adams remarked that they would shed invaluable new light on the Revolutionary period. The collection included 432 letters from Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen, commander of the mercenary troops, addressed to Baron Friedrich von Jungkenn, minister of war of Hesse-Cassel.
