Nicholas Haussegger

Nicholas Haussegger was born in Switzerland and fought in the British army during the French and Indian War. After the war he became a leader in the Pennsylvania German community. At the beginning of the American Revolutionary War he 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. He led his battalion effectively at Trenton in late December 1776. A week later, he was captured at Assunpink Creek under questionable circumstances. He apparently defected to the British and George Washington had him watched after he was sent home on parole. He was stricken from the Continental Army in March 1777. Evidence suggests that he was in contact with the British during the war. In 1782 he was declared a traitor and his property forfeited. He died in July 1786.

Haussegger was born in 1729 in Bern, Switzerland. By 1756 he was a sergeant in the Struler Swiss Regiment, which was in the pay of the Dutch Republic. That year Jacques Marcus Prevost enlisted him and 48 others in the newly formed British 60th Foot, the Royal Americans. During the French and Indian War, he was in action during the Forbes Expedition in 1758 and received promotion to lieutenant. When Pontiacs War broke out, he marched with Henry Bouquets column to recover Indian captives in 1764.

Source: Wikipedia