Schleswig-Holstein Battalion of Light Infantry Military command of Hamburg Johann von Ewald (20 March 1744 – 25 June 1813) was a German army officer from Hesse-Kassel.

Serving first in the army of Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, the regiment saw action at Corbach and Warburg before besieging Kassel in 1761, then held by the French.

According to Ewald, the landgrave refused to punish him for this (even though it took more than a year to recover from the injury), saying "When a horse has run out of the stable, one closes the door".

As a result of these studies, Ewald published his first treatise in 1774, dedicated to Frederick II: Gedanken eines hessischen Officiers über das, was man bey Führung eines Detaschements im Felde zu thun hat (Thoughts of a Hessian officer about what he has to do when leading a detachment in the field).

[6] In late 1775 Frederick II signed an agreement with King George III of Great Britain to supply him with troops for use in North America in suppressing the rebellion that had broken out in the Thirteen Colonies.

Sent forward to New Rochelle, his jäger company was given a lead position in the army of General William Howe, and was first engaged in the 28 October Battle of White Plains.

Ewald served with some distinction in the New Jersey and Philadelphia campaigns, where he was involved in (among others) battles at Mount Holly,[7] Brandywine, and Germantown.

On the direction of General Charles Cornwallis, Ewald developed a plan of attack against a Continental Army position at Bound Brook, New Jersey in March 1777.

Ewald analyzed the debacle in his journal, pointing out that the garrison should not have been summoned to surrender (removing the element of surprise), and that the main thrust of the attack was misplaced.

"[10] In 1779 Ewald's company was involved in British operations to capture key American defenses at Stony Point, New York.

Most of 1779 was spent on guard duty, until December, when his unit, specifically requested by Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, was selected for the expedition to take Charleston, South Carolina.

After waving his handkerchief, he approached an enemy outpost, and inquired whether the unit, which he ascertained to be Pulaski's Legion, had a supposed acquaintance of his serving in it.

[11] After the successful siege, Ewald's company returned to New York with General Clinton, leaving Cornwallis the task of taking control of South Carolina.

He spent the remainder of 1780 on guard duty around New York, until he learned in December that his company had been chosen to be part of Benedict Arnold's expedition to Virginia.

Landing in Virginia on 31 December 1780, the expedition moved up the James River, Ewald's company and the Queen's Rangers of John Graves Simcoe in the lead, and raided Richmond on 5 January 1781.

These were from a larger detachment of the Marquis de Lafayette's army led by General Wayne that was chasing after Simcoe, hoping to bring him to an engagement.

As the American and French forces began to concentrate around them, Ewald and his jägers continued to be on the edges, making forage raids and skirmishing with the enemy; however, sickness took its toll on his unit.

[15] As the siege neared its end, Cornwallis released all of the former slaves that had accompanied his army, intending to force them to become a burden on the Americans.

His depression over the circumstances was lifted by a letter from Frederick II, specifically citing Ewald for "fine conduct" and rewarded him with "my extraordinary satisfaction and the assurance of my entirely special favore and grace.

In October of that year, Ewald left New York with a friend to visit West Point, due to its reputation as the most important American stronghold of the war.

Over the next year, he worked on another military treatise, Abhandlung über den kleinen Krieg (Essay on partisan warfare), that was published in 1785.

Ewald was again in the vanguard of the military forces, responsible for the defense of the Duchy of Holstein, which represented Denmark's southern frontier.

Combined with Dutch forces, the revolt was put down in the decisive Battle of Stralsund; the rebel leader, Ferdinand von Schill, was killed by a Danish soldier.

Ewald's performance in the battle was lauded: Frederick promoted him to lieutenant general, and he was awarded the Dutch Order of the Union and the French Legion of Honor.