Prisoners of the Revolution

The Nightmare of 1776

2021-04-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

In last weeks of December 1776 and most of January 1777, British military commander Lt. Gen. Sir William Howe released about 2,200 American prisoners just before they died of sickness and starvation. Almost immediately, he began demanding that George Washington release a corresponding 2,200 British soldiers--an exchange of living men for virtual corpses.

This 2019 article, "1776--The Horror Show," documents the national trauma caused by the appearance of some 2,000 "emaciated spectres."

This 2020 article, "What Killed Prisoners of War? A Medical Investigation," establishes that American prisoners exhibited the classic symptoms of what 20th-century medicine identified as "famine disease:" a prolonged period of lethargy, closed by a rapid terminal phase marked, in the worst cases, by emaciation, vocal deterioration and fatal diarrhea often mistaken for dysentery.

I am grateful that the Journal of the American Revolution found these articles worth publishing. I am grateful to tell the story of a mostly forgotten American tragedy.

Whistleblower

2019-09-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

In 1776, the Continental Congress ordered Esek Hopkins, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Navy, to treat prisoners "well and humanely." In 1777, ten sailors and marines reported Hopkins for mistreating British prisoners. Congress dismissed the commodore.

Well-connected in Rhode Island, Hopkins had two whistleblowers, Richard Marven and Samuel Shaw, arrested there for libel. Congress stood by the whistleblowers.

Allison Stanger wrote in 2019, " Congress ruled that Marven and Shaw should be released. Bit the legislators went even further; on July 30, 1778, they passed the world's first whistle-blower-protection law." A professor at Middlebury College, Stanger is also a technology and human values senior fellow Harvard University's Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics.

Stephen M. Kohn of the National Whistleblower Center wrote in a 2011 Op-Ed for The New York Times, "Armed with Congress's support, the whistle-blowers put on a strong defense, and won their case in court. And true to its word, Congress on May 22, 1779, provided $1,418 to cover costs associated with the whistle-blowers' defense."

🌟Allison Stanger maintains the Continental Congress was taking a stand against torturing enemy captives and also a stand against corruption. The American Revolution gives us an example of opposing torture and corruption--and protecting whistleblowers!

Sept 11 Anniversary

2019-09-11T07:59:00.001-07:00

With our recollection of the dead and compassion for the grieving, we should make room for remembering what America should continue to be.

🌟 George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's idea of America and freedom included Muslims and Jews.

🌟For the most part, American revolutionaries considered the mistreatment of prisoners a disgrace to the nation that committed it.

Rev. John Witherspoon remarked, "The barbarous treatment of the American prisoners ... is a melancholy subject indeed, and will be a stain upon the British name to future ages." Link here.

🌟As Noah Feldman wrote in The Three Lives of James Madison, President James Madison protected civil liberties during the War of 1812. "Madison wanted to demonstrate that the Constitution could preserve freedom no matter what challenges it faced."

Toleration

2019-09-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

Check out my recent article in the Journal of the American Revolution, entitled "America's Revolution Against Toleration: The Rise of True Religious Liberty."

Welsh economist and Nonconformist clergyman Richard Price explained, "Toleration can take place only where ... a predominant sect enjoys exclusive advantages ... but at the same time thinks fit to suffer the exercise of other modes of faith and worship."

Price delivered sermons in London defending the American Revolution. Americans loved Richard Price. When Price said he disapproved of religious qualifications for public office, Americans opposed religious tests for office.

I believe Richard Price directly influenced a landmark feature of the Constitution.

As I mentioned in the article, "Even before the Bill of Rights, Article 6 of the Constitution opened federal office to people of any religious persuasion. Article 6 eliminated the insult of exclusion that was often a hallmark of toleration."

Despite Price's popularity at the time of the Revolution (1775-1783) and the Constitutional Convention (1787), we modern Americans rarely hear of this philosopher and friend of liberty.

See also
"The Debate Over Religious Tests," Center for the Study of the American Constitution, University of Wisconson-Madison.
The Founders Constitution, Volume 4, Article 6, Clause 3, The University of Chicago Press.

under God

2019-07-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Thank you also to anyone who read my article "'Under God:' Understanding Its Revolutionary Usage," Journal of the American Revolution.
The phrase was meant to avert misfortune by piously making praise conditional and making confidence humble. It functioned like the Arabic phrase inshallah, "God willing." Only in the 1950s did Americans radically change the meaning of the phrase.
My thanks also to everyone who has taken a look at my ebook, The Founding Fathers versus Tucker Carlson. Where the Fox News opinion show host wants viewers to fear "demographic chance," George Washington wanted America to welcome the poor and oppressed "of all nations and religions."

You can find the book on
Kobo
Apple Books
Amazon Kindle
Barnes & Noble Nook
and other sites selling ebooks.

Murdered

2019-02-19T10:51:00.001-08:00

On December 1, 1777, James Lovell, a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, informed fellow-New Englander John Adams, "Genl. Howe will not exchange prisoners till those murthered at New York are paid for with fresh and good Soldiers."

Robert J. Taylor, editor of that volume of the John Adams Papers, was puzzled by the reference to murdered prisoners. "The allusion here remains obscure," Taylor wrote.

The prisoners "murthered" in British-occupied New York City were prisoners of British commander military Sir William Howe in the winter of 1776-77.

Howe's forces captured 4,114 Continental soldiers in the last half of 1776. About 1,000 died in Howe's prisons and prison ships in New York. Another 2,000 or so of the prisoners died in the first months of 1777, after Howe released them. Please check the post, "2000 Corpses."

In the words of Continental Private William Darlington, his fellow-prisoners "began to die like rotten sheep" from "cold, hunger, and dirt."

The massive prisoner die-off at the end of 1776, and the prisoner exchange dispute that followed between Howe and George Washington, remains obscure to many researchers. For more information, please consult my article for Journal of the American Revolution, "1776--The Horror Show."

JAR: Journal of the American Revolution

2019-02-03T12:18:00.001-08:00

The Journal of the American Revolution chose haunting artwork to accompany the article I wrote, "1776--The Horror Show."

The art includes a heart-rending detail from a sketch of Continental personnel held prisoner on board the prison ship Jersey. The illustration is by John Trumbull of Connecticut, a state deeply affected by prisoner abuse in nearby British-occupied New York City.

The artist John Trumbull was the son of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull Sr and the first cousin of poet John Trumbull. Click these initials to visit the homepage of the JAR.

Coercive Treatment

2018-05-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

The pattern was clear by 1778. Henry Laurens remarked the British Navy exercised "every species of cruelty" against American maritime prisoners "to compel them to enter into their service." After "thousands have died languishing miserable deaths," British naval officers "exchange the emaciated survivors" for "healthy, well fed fellows." Only desperation to alleviate the suffering of American captives has compelled American revolutionaries to acquiesce to such inequitable exchanges.

Historian Philip Ranlet reminds readers that British forces, naval and army, were desperate for recruits.

Ranlet traces this coercive method of prisoner recruitment to Lord George Germain's approval of the enlistment of the crew of the captured American ship The Washington, Sion Martindale, captain. The crew enlisted while confined to a ship as smallpox spread among them. Ranlet speculates that perhaps Martindale negotiated hospital care for the sick in exchange for the enlistment of his crew by the British.

Henry Larens to Rawlins Lowndes, August 18, 1778, in Letters of Delegates to Congress, Volume 10, page 479. Philip Ranlet, "The Fate of the Washington, 1775-1776: A Precedent for Future British Conduct," The American Neptune, Volume 54 (1994): pages 194-198. See also, Philip Ranlet, "In the Hands of the British: The Treatment of American POWs During the War of Independence," The Historian, Volume 62, issue 4 (June 2000): 731-758.

Henry Laurens was a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress, serving as President of Congress, November 1, 1777 to December 9, 1778. Rawlins Lowndes was the president (governor) of South Carolina, March 6, 1778-January 9, 1779. Lowndes was born on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.

Islam

2016-12-13T11:21:00.001-08:00

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, U. S. Army (ret.) was an adviser to candidate Donald J. Trump and remains an adviser to the President-Elect. Interviewed Business Insider in July 2016, Flynn said, "Islam is a political ideology based on a religion."

In 2010, residents opposed to the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee made a similar claim. Joe Brandon Jr., an attorney for mosque opponents, tried to argue that First Amendment guarantees of freedom of religion, like the freedom to build a house of worship, should not extend to Muslims because Islam is not a religion.

In the 2010 court case over the mosque, the United States Department of Justice submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief asserting that Islam is a religion. In an October 18, 2010 press conference, U. S. Attorney Jerry Martin remarked, "Presidents as far back as Lincoln and Jefferson...have publicly recognized Islam as one of the world's largest religions."

In her 2013 book, Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders, Denise A. Spellberg proposed that USA Founders like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington "defended Muslim rights for the sake of 'imagined Muslims,' the promotion of whose theoretical citizenship would prove the true universality of American rights."

In 2010, Brandon answered such claims by saying, "The federal government cited Thomas Jefferson in their press conference, and he owned slaves. Is that who they want to cite as an authority?" While Jefferson did not free his slaves, Washington did leave instructions in his will for the eventual liberation of all his slaves, and offering immediate liberation to William Lee for his "faithful service" throughout the American War of Independence. Whatever their foibles, Jefferson and Washington are authorities on religious liberty and what we might call American ideals.

Courtesy and Kindness

2016-09-11T18:25:00.004-07:00

In the 1930s, the California resort at Byron Hot Springs drew legendary Hollywood stars like Clark Gable and Mae West. After the USA entered World War 2, however, the resort hotel and spa became "Camp Tracy."
American interrogators welcomed Japanese Prisoners of War to the California spa and offered meals prepared by Japanese chefs.
US Army Major Alexander Corbin researched the interrogations at Byron Hot Springs. As reported by Brentwood, California newspaper The Press, Corbin told a crowd gathered at the remnants of the resort hotel in 2010, "Courtesy and kindness overcame the most reticent prisoner."
Alex Corbin wrote the book, The History of Camp Tracy: Japanese WWII POWs and the Future of Interrogation.
During the course of World War II, the forces of the Empire of Japan became notorious for religious extremism and gruesome decapitations. Near the end of the war, Japan even employed kamikaze suicidal pilots. The cruelty of an indoctrinated enemy, however, was no excuse for unkindness to prisoners.

Fortune of War

2016-03-02T20:48:00.001-08:00

George Washington repeatedly referred to Prisoners of War (POWs) as people whom "the fortune of War" had thrown into their enemy's hands. Captivity was not a moral judgment on the prisoners.
In a March 1777 letter to British military commander Sir William Howe, for instance, Washington wrote of "my wish that every reasonable indulgence and act of Humanity should be done to those whom the fortune of War has or may put into our hands."
Unfortunately, 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump spoke of military captivity as a mark of failure in a soldier, sailor or airman. Especially unfortunate is the fact that Trump's remarks came at the expense of Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona).
Born in 1936, McCain represents a generation of Americans with a marked aversion to torture.

All Nations & Religions

2015-07-04T18:19:00.004-07:00

George Washington repeatedly spoke of the United States of America as a home for "all Nations & Religions."
George Washington's idea of America included Jews and Muslims.

St Patrick's Day

2015-03-16T16:56:00.001-07:00

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association honors Saint Patrick's Day by posting George Washington's General Orders of March 16, 1780, giving the Continental Army the day off March 17. Referring to himself in the third person as he customarily did, General Washington wrote,

The general congratulates the army on the very interesting proceedings of the parliament of Ireland and the inhabitants of that country which have been lately communicated; not only as they appear calculated to remove those heavy and tyrannical oppressions on their trade but to restore to a brave and generous people their ancient rights and freedom and by their operations to promote the cause of America.

The actions of the Irish Parliament prompted many Americans to hope that Ireland's independence was imminent. On February 24, 1780, Philadelphia newspaper The Pennsylvania Packet published a November 17, 1779 letter from an unnamed crewman or officer from L'Orient, a ship commanded by John Paul Jones. The writer exulted, "The Parliament of Ireland have acted with a degree of spirit, that surprizes every body. On their meeting, instead of echoing back the Lord Lieutenant's speech, as is usual, they in their address to the King, demanded a free trade in every respect; and if this is refused them, there is no doubt but that they will declare themselves independent."
During the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), Britain detained some captured American sailors in Ireland. In December 1783, Washington assured an association of Irish immigrants that "the Hospitality and Beneficence of your Countrymen, to our Brethren who have been Prisoners of War, are neither unknown, or unregarded."
Washington's letter is available online courtesy of PBS. Read about the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association at their website, mountvernon,org. For background on the office of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the British monarch's representative in the Kingdom of Ireland and the executive authority there, please read the entry at Wikipedia.

Infamous Decapitators Treated Kindly

2014-12-12T10:43:00.004-08:00

During China's War Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945), China's part in World War Two (1939-1945), Japanese soldiers became notorious for beheading helpless victims.

For the Allies, Japan's brutality was not an excuse to abuse Japanese Prisoners of War.

US interrogators hosted Japanese prisoners at "Camp Tracy," actually a luxury resort hotel at California's Byron Hot Springs. US interrogators treated Japanese prisoners kindly, providing them meals cooked by Asian chefs and spa baths.

In 2010, former interrogator Al Nipkow told The San Francisco Chronicle that "as far as brutalizing anyone--there wasn't any question about that. It wasn't allowed."

Please check Kevin Fagan, "Army official touts WWII's nisei interrogators," The San Francisco Chronicle, 24 January 2010, http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Army-official-touts-WWII-s-nisei-interrogators-3201614.php [accessed 12 December 2014]. The treatment of Japanese prisoners by Chinese guerrillas is mentioned in the second section of this post, "Treating Enemy Wounded."

Torture Endangers American Lives

2014-12-08T22:36:00.001-08:00

In a November 28, 1782 sermon of thanksgiving, Rev. John Witherspoon remarked, "The barbarous treatment of the American prisoners...will be a stain upon the British name to future ages."
The United States tightened security at embassies around the world in preparation for the December 9, 2014 release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on torture committed by CIA personnel in the years following the mass murder attacks of September 11, 2001.
It is helpful to remember that it is not the Senate Intelligence Committee report that might inspire violence. Advocates of torture claimed the torture and perverted sexual degradation would somehow save American lives. Instead, torture is still endangering American lives, years after the torture happened.

The [un-]Islamic State used Waterboarding

2014-08-29T06:02:00.004-07:00

The Washington Post reports that ISIS or ISIL (now calling itself IS) apparently waterbaorded four captives, including the late journalist James Foley. Reporters Adam Goldman and Julie Tate write, "President Obama has condemned waterboarding as torture."

More importantly, US courts treated the technique as torture, as did the post-World War II war crimes court, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, in which the US participated.

Judge Evan Wallach's research demonstrated this. Wallach is a veteran of the Nevada National Guard, having served in the JAG Corps (military lawyers).

Wallach's scholarly essay appeared in The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. A shorter version appeared as an Op-Ed for The Washington Post.

nonsectarian revolution

2014-07-07T08:02:00.001-07:00

In response to an August 1776 address from the Association of Baptist Churches in Louisa County, Virginia Governor Patrick Henry remarked, "I am happy to find...that those religious distinctions which formally produced some heats are now forgotten. Happy must every friend of virtue and America feel...to perceive that the only contest among us, at this most critical and important period, is, who shall be foremost to preserve our religious and civil liberties."

In a May 1776 sermon, Presbyterian pastor John Witherspoon, the sixth President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), said, "Nor was there ever perhaps in history so general a commotion from which religious differences have been so entirely excluded."

The prison ships operated by the British off occupied cities like Charleston and New York held American Revolutionaries of various religious and ethnic backgrounds. On a prison ship off Savannah, Georgia, for instance, Jewish-Americans Mordecai Sheftall and his fifteen-year-old son Sheftall Sheftall were messmates with Congregationalist minister Moses Allen.

John Witherspoon, "The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men," 17 May 1776, in The Selected Works of John Witherspoon, ed. Thomas Miller (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990), page 142.

O Khaled, Thou Butcher

2014-06-14T16:53:00.001-07:00

In 1764, Benjamin Franklin quoted the Prophet Muhammad, who condemned a commander for the butchering of Prisoners of War: "O Khaled, thou butcher.... If thou possessedst a heap of gold as large as Mount Obod, and shouldst expend it all in God's cause, thy merit would not efface the guilt incurred by the murder of the meanest of those poor captives."

On June 14, 2014, Peter Bouckaert, of Human Rights Watch, Tweeted, "#ISIS on @twitter claims 2b taking truckloads of captured soldiers to their executions in Tikrit today...."

https://twitter.com/bouckap/status/477944305164632064

surprised by kind treatment

2014-03-15T18:38:00.004-07:00

“Japanese prisoners taken by the United States forces in the Solomon Islands fighting...were so surprised by the humane treatment they have received that many have expressed a desire never to return to Japan, according to an announcement today by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's Pacific Fleet headquarters.”
—The New York Times, 15 September 1942

“We learn from Pennsylvania, that many of the Hessian prisoners have offered to enlist in our army, but that their offer was declined for the present. They express great joy at being released from their late masters, and were greatly surprised to find themselves treated with clemency and kindness.”
—The Norwich Packet (Norwich, Connecticut), 3 February 1777

The Revolutionary Generation of Americans, as well as the World War Two generation, embraced humane sentiments about the kind treatment of captive enemies. Perhaps the influence of popular culture fostered magnanimity, associating mercy with bravery.

Defending Bob Dole

2014-03-10T19:54:00.003-07:00

Reporter Andrea Mitchell asks Senator (and former Prisoner of War) John McCain about recent remarks from Senator Ted Cruz about World War II veteran Bob Dole. Serving in Italy in 1944, Dole was severely injured by German shrapnel and still suffers paralysis in his right arm.

Cruz attempted to discredit Dole as a voice of reason in his party. Dole, however, has a long record of public service even after his military career. Dole served in the United States House of Representative from 1961 to 1969 and the US Senate from 1969 to 1996. In 1996, President Bill Clinton won reelection over Ross Perot as the Reform Party candidate and Bob Dole as the Republican nominee.

Stand Up for Bob Dole

2014-03-07T21:18:00.001-08:00

This blog repeatedly featured salutes to the generation that endured World War Two. Americans born in the 1930s, the 1920s and earlier are the group with the highest proportion to say torture is "never justified." In their rejection of torture, they beat every economic, educational and religious category considered by the Pew Research Center surveyors.

In this clip from 1996, Author and Comedian (now a United States Senator) Al Franken defends World War II veteran Bob Dole from critics who called him "too old." Please watch and enjoy.

Battle of Fort Washington (16 Nov. 1776)

2013-11-16T16:42:00.001-08:00

On November 16, 1776, Hessian and British forces took 2,607 American soldiers prisoner after the Battle of Fort Washington, on Manhattan. In his memoirs, American Major General William Heath recalled the shocking news of what befell so many of the prisoners taken at Fort Washington. "The prisoners were marched to New York; where, being crowded in prisons and sugar houses...they fell sick, and daily died in a most shocking manner. It was common, on a morning, for the car-men to come and take away the bodies for burial, by loads!"

William Heath, Memoirs of the American War (Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 2009 [originally published in 1798]), pages 97-98. For Ethan Allen's description of the carts that carried the dead to mass graves, please consult the posts here and here.

Torture Survivors Suffer Years Later: Tel Aviv University Study

2013-11-08T05:39:00.002-08:00

In November 2013, researchers at Israel's Tel Aviv University found that survivors of torture suffer a heightened perception of pain, years after the torture.
Researchers, including lead author Ruth Defrin, believe psychological torments, like mock executions, contribute to a long-term distortion of neurological perception of pain.
Several of the physical and psychological torments suffered by Israeli soldiers in 1973 were also suffered by Americans in British custody in occupied New York City--starvation, mock execution, and overcrowding.
Researchers studied 104 veterans of the Yom Kippur War (1973), comparing 60 people who became Prisoners of War (POWs) to 44 who did not. Read a great story on the findings by Sarah Griffiths at UK paper The Daily Mail. You can read a summary of the European Journal of Pain article, or purchase access to the full article at the Wiley Online Library.
For accounts of mock executions by British soldiers in 1776, please check Edwin G. Burrows, Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2008) pages 6-7. For overcrowding, check posts like "December 12, 1776: Prisoners in New York City." For accounts of starvation, and Americans returning from British military hands in an "emaciated" condition, please consult posts in this blog like "October 23: French Prisoners" or "Memories of a Prison Ship," for the story of one prison ship survivor who fought a fellow-prisoner over which of them would have the privilege of eating "the putrified carcase of a starved RAT!"

Fort Washington POWs

2013-11-04T06:00:00.001-08:00

On November 16, 1776, the American garrison at Fort Washington on Manhattan surrendered to Anglo-Hessian forces. The surrender followed intense fighting with the Hessians.
The British reported they took 2,607 American enlisted men prisoners at Fort Washington, 197 commissioned officers and fourteen staff. The British eventually transferred the privates who were prisoners, and some of the officers, to a series of detention centers and prison ships around New York City.
In the next month and a half, many of the American prisoners taken at Fort Washington died in the hands of the British military personnel and their Loyalist functionaries. In early-January 1777, some returning POWs estimated that 1,100 of the privates who surrendered at Fort Washington died in British custody.
The American commissioners in Paris--Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee--estimated that two-thirds of the prisoners from Fort Washington died in captivity. According to that estimate, about 1,738 soldiers taken from Fort Washington died in less than two months.

October 28 1779

2013-10-18T08:08:00.001-07:00

On Monday, November 1, 1779, two Boston newspapers reported the arrival of 238 American prisoners of war from British-occupied New York City. The Independent Ledger, and the American Advertiser and The Boston Gazette, And The Country Journal reported a British exchange ship arrived in Massachusetts on Thursday, October 28. The prisoners' voyage from New York to Boston lasted seven days.
The prisoners "have been in captivity several months, and have been used very inhumanly" by Tory and British captors. American successes in Georgia and possible fear of reprisals, however, "contributed greatly to abate their inhumanity."
Most of the prisoners were Americans from "the Westward," that is, not from the New England states of the American northeast. Even though two ships from Massachusetts waited in New York to exchange prisoners, British personnel insisted on sending to Massachusetts men from distant states, "in order more effectually to harrass them."*

*The report, identical in both papers, misspelled "harass" as "harrass;" it is not a difficult error to make.