"Martyrdom of thirteen thousand American Patriots ..." Topic

…aboard the monstrous Jersey and other British prison ships in New York Harbor

"Certainly the truth can now be told without arousing animosity. The historian has a duty to narrate the facts, no matter how gruesome they may be. In this instance, it tells the story of unrivaled American heroism and also reveals the frightful horrors suffered by American prisoners in the disease-infested prison ships in New York harbor. It was actually one of the most tragic, but little-known, events in American history.

Actually, three times as many American Patriots were liquidated – 13,000 on the infamous British prison ships and in New York prisons-than the 4,300 killed in the American armed forces during the entire war. It is only right that the terrible fate of these early American Patriots and heroes, who preferred death to disloyalty, should be publicly known.

If there are still Americans influenced by the Revolutionary War propaganda emanating from New England, let them pause and read impartially the story of the martyrdom of I 3,000 American prisoners in the foul, overcrowded jails, in disease-infested, rotting hulks; in the loathsome warehouses and sugar factories in New York City during our War for Independence. New England was fortunate in knowing little of such horrors and atrocities, although many of their sailors died unknown in the British hell ships…"
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Amicalement
Armand

American Patriots were……liquidated? What an odd and sanitized word to use.

Packed together, poor if any clothing or bedding/blankets, no heat in winter, sweltering heat below decks in summer, not enough food or water, no medicine or doctor care, etc. It was deliberate murder by official direction.

But prisoners sentenced to the hulks by the criminal law in England suffered very similar conditions.

Rather than 'deliberate murder' it simply reflects a callous indifference to the fate of prisoners, whether for ordinary crimes or the far more serious offence of treason – of which American rebels were certainly guilty – in an age when a ten year old could be hanged for stealing property worth over £2.00 GBP

In the 18th century, it was the responsibility of each country to supply the POWs, held by the other side, with food, clothing, etc.

Since Congress had no power to raise taxes, it was dependent on each new state to send supplies to their own men held in British prisons.

This was standard 18th century policy. The fledgling USA simply did not have a government that could care for its own soldiers held by the enemy.

By the custom of the day, a belligerent was responsible for the care and feeding of its soldiers who were taken prisoner. The Continental Congress couldn't even take care of its own soldiers in the field.

On top of that, the prisoners were in the "care" of Joshua Loring, the Tory husband of General Howe's mistress. Whatever funds he received for their care, he skimmed most of it.
So, yeah. Indifference and graft.

Historygamer beat me by one minute!

Didnt the British also do this to the French soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars? George III has a lot of blood on his hands to answer for. Both he and his Tory parliament were a tyrannical team for the ages.

Someone needs to read a book.

MiniPigs + 1.

Amicalement
Armand

Okay, more than one person needs to read a book on the period.

@Tango01

Thanks man. I suppose George III has some excuse because of his medical condition but some of those out-of-control ministers of his!

Since this board is just about the American Revolution, can you educate us all by citing some specific examples? Inquiring minds want to know.

Did the British supply the Convention Army?

Yes. It didn't help that the Americans kept breaking it up and moving them around, but the Crown did supply it.

it simply reflects a callous indifference

I would suggest "calculated indifference" would be a better description. Its easy to lay the blame on Joshua Loring's venality. Its also easy to point out that the failure of the Continental Congress to provide for their own troops held captive has a role. Plus I imagine that if these rebels had been captured in arms fighting against a continental European sovereign their fate might have been much quicker.

Jersey isn't an isolated instance though. As the campaign in the south wore on Cornwallis resorted to similar steps for the prisoners he was holding in Charleston. This was in part a practical solution to deal with the slow stream of escaping prisoners who could easily blend into the local population, and it freed up troops used to guard them for other service. It was also done as a way to induce the prisoners to join Loyalist units. Cornwallis according to at least one source tried to use it to induce Greene to exchange the troops recently captured at Cowpens.

Brunswickers captured at Bennington and Freeman's Farm did not necessarily share the same fate as the Brunswick troops of the Convention Army. A number were retained in Massachusetts where they were hired out to the locals, and where many remained. PDF link

But prisoners sentenced to the hulks by the criminal law in England suffered very similar conditions.

So did French prisoners of war during 1792-1815. It is not an excuse for the inhumane treatment and death rate in the hulks. They were also used by the Spanish at Cadiz during the Peninsular War-and the Spanish record for the treatment of French prisoners is abysmal as well.

I would suggest getting a book or two on the subject for reference, such as The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn by Robert Watson for the War of the Revolution.

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My comment was not seeking to excuse inhumane treatment, but to point out there may have been no extraordinary malice in the treatment of the rebel prisoners, as was perhaps being suggested by the use of the word 'liquidated' in the original quotation.

Today we regard such treatment of criminals as inhumane, but that was not necessarily the view then.

They weren't criminals, they were prisoners of war.

They were traitors who had taken up arms against the Crown, just like the Monmouth rebels of 1685 and the Jacobites in 1715 and 1745.

The later victory of the Americans, which subsequently legitimised their actions, does not mean they were not guilty of treason at the time of their capture and so could be treated as criminals.

Yep, nothing like abusing and starving your prisoners to win the hearts and minds of those you want to support you.

It seemed to work in 1746.

Britain has a long history of killing prisoners of war From Agincourt to The "Mutiny" to the Boer War and beyond. It usually involves some smarmy justification that the prisoners drove them to murder or that they weren't REALLY soldiers. If you look at the Napoleonic forums will find some who think the British were the only real soldiers in those wars too.

One advantage that the Americans had over the Monmouth rebels and Jacobites was that the Americans had to good sense to take prisoner British troops and British officials at the start of the revolt. It changes the rules somewhat when the rebels are holding some of your own.

And don't forget how Benjamin Martin tricked the British into releasing American prisoners with those straw dummies too.

Perfidious Benjamin Martin!

"Britain has a long history of killing prisoners of war From Agincourt…"

Sheesh, you one donkey….

Oh, wait. That wasn't us? Phew. It was a Plantagenet claimant to the throne of France? Allegedly? Whew. We wouldn't want to be associated with ugly episodes like Jaffa, Fort Pillow, Apache Pass. Fort Robinson, Wounded Knee, Wormhout, Malmedy, My Lai.

Still, not showing too over-keen if it took 400 years to clean off weapons and hide the evidence before giving it another go.

I dunno, it seems like these British "prisoner" killings are much more recent and have become broader and more efficient over time. Certainly they fixed the inefficiencies of limited prison ships with hyper development of the concentration camp.

They seem to have also orchestrated lethal disasters:

Famines in India

Between 12 and 29 million Indians died of starvation while it was under the control of the British Empire, as millions of tons of wheat were exported to Britain as famine raged in India.

In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Winston Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal.

Talking about the Bengal famine in 1943, Churchill said: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. The famine was their own fault for breeding like rabbits."

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I am pretty sure that GB does not have a lock on making poor choices in history.

And a quick read through wiki on the topic leads to some different conclusions on some of this. The link you provided is a left leaning newspaper, and proudly boasts of that.

Except that we are examining English government/military murder. If you want to start a thread about another nation's murder, feel free. But if the justification for British murder is that "All the best people are doing it" then I suppose we all do indeed still have some book learning to do.

Wow, Cromwell was especially naughty.

Total excess deaths for the entire period of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Ireland was estimated by Sir William Petty, the 17th Century economist, to be 600,000 out of a total Irish population of 1,400,000 in 1641.[42][43][44] One modern estimate estimated that at least 200,000 were killed out of a population of allegedly 2 million.[45]

In addition, the whole post-war Cromwellian settlement of Ireland has been characterised by historians such as Mark Levene and Alan Axelrod as ethnic cleansing

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So shocking.

You're mixing up a lot different historical events, some of them wildly out of any meaningful context.

All it "proves" is you have an axe to grind, never mind historical facts.

@Virginia Tory

You're mixing up a lot different historical events, some of them wildly out of any meaningful context.

All it "proves" is you have an axe to grind, never mind historical facts.

Not at all, it's been said on here in defense of Britain that there were specific and perhaps isolated justifications for these killings. I am merely rebutting these statements with a series of past and subsequent events that, with or without rationalizations portraying the killed as criminals, the only true constant in English/British policy was, in fact, wholesale killing.

These are a few of the statements made:

They were traitors who had taken up arms against the Crown, just like the Monmouth rebels of 1685 and the Jacobites in 1715 and 1745.

The later victory of the Americans, which subsequently legitimised their actions, does not mean they were not guilty of treason at the time of their capture and so could be treated as criminals.
But prisoners sentenced to the hulks by the criminal law in England suffered very similar conditions.

Rather than 'deliberate murder' it simply reflects a callous indifference to the fate of prisoners, whether for ordinary crimes or the far more serious offence of treason – of which American rebels were certainly guilty – in an age when a ten year old could be hanged for stealing property worth over £2.00 GBP GBP

I see my examples as entirely on point to rebut the idea that theses genocides (or martyrdoms) are only visited on those persons the crown deemed prisoners. That is unless the term "prisoner" is so elastic as to wield a somewhat convenient and arbitrary application.

Let's accept that Cromwell, a religious bigot, was engaged in some sort of ethnic cleansing in Ireland in the 1650's.

How does that prove that it was government policy in the 1770's to deliberately cause the deaths of American rebels held prisoner, and not the same callous indifference to the fate of imprisoned criminals that led to similar deaths in British prisons and hulks?

The points I made, which you quote, and apparently categorise as "specific and perhaps isolated justifications for these killings" were indeed specific to the case of the American prisoners, the original subject of this thread.

The British government – and I imagine all other European governments at that time (unless, of course, you can produce evidence to the contrary?) – of the time regarded the execution of traitors as justified, though they may not today, when many countries have abolished capital punishment.

I never suggested that deliberately causing the deaths of prisoners by keeping them in unhealthy conditions without adequate food was 'justified'; simply that such deaths were common in jails from the indifference towards criminals shown by society at that time, and that the deaths of the Americans were probably the result of that, rather than of an actual intent to kill them.

I don't think that introducing the idea that Britain – in your opinion – 'orchestrated lethal disasters' disproves my original points. If you wish to discuss that idea, may I suggest you start another thread on that subject?

@arthur1815

I am not suggesting that you are personally responsible for these acts or are excusing them. You merely opened up an interesting angle which I thought was worth testing. It seems that the British/English government has killed large numbers of disarmed soldiers and civilians over time. The only constant seems to be that the British government/army (what have you), kills and in large quantities. True it seems the justifications differ from time and place. However, the justifications do seem to always involve either blaming the victims or engaging in whataboutisms.

Be hard to divert food to Greece in 1943, seeing as it as occupied by the Axis. You don't want to believe everything you read in the newspapers.

This can be the premise for at least two scenarios:

Scenario 1: One of the narrow ends of the wargaming board is water with a prison hulk. On the hulk are the equivalent of two Continental units. Guarding that hulk are four Hessian units and a Hessian battery. They cannot move more than 18" from the edge of the hulk.

Down the center of the table is a long road leading to the British town/camp guarding the coastal hulk. Starting at the opposite end of the table, 3 British foot units and some mounted light dragoons are escorting 5 disarmed continental or militia units to the hulk.

The American player has 5 units, two continental, two militia, one rifle and one battery and enters from the center point of one board side with the mission to engage the escort and free the marching prisoners. Every time an escorted unit is contacted by a continental one it is freed and then a die roll is made to see if that prisoner unit is able to arm itself to join the fray or is too unfit to be anything more than a burden to the unit that frees it. If it can arm itself, determine whether it is with firearms or just melee weapons. If, due to unfitness, that freed unit cannot fight, it must stay within an inch of the liberating unit, slows both units down to half movement and prevents that unit from freeing any other continental units.

Every unit freed is 2 points for the American victory conditions and every unit freed but unfit to fight is only one point. Every unit kept from being freed by the continentals is 3 points for the British. British escorting units (and the British player) can control the movement of a prisoner unit if the British unit is both in good order and within 6" of that prisoner unit.

Extra credit consists of the Continentals marching to the hulk, contacting it and freeing the two prisoner units within using a similar rolling method to the one mentioned above.

The wildcard could be a card drawn every turn, after initial fire contact is made between the sides, to determine if a local Tory brigade of mixed foot and horse come to the rescue at a random entry point on the map. If the card drawn at the start of every turn by the British player is a heart, the brigade appears immediately. if the card is a black joker, two brigades appear.

Cheeky Fellow Option: If all the prisoner units forming the British escort are liberated, any remaining British units become prisoners of the Continentals. These British prisoners can be used as a one time bargaining chip with the Hessian commander. At the beginning of the turn after all escorted road units are liberated, roll a d6 once. If it is a 6, the remaining units in the hulk are let go by the Hessians. Those continentals are rolled for for fitness and weapons status and join the Continental force. The British units join the Hessians. If this roll fails, the the continentals must try to free the prisoners from the hulks until the game's end.

The Americans have 12 turns to complete their mission.

Scenario Two:

Someone mentioned a left leaning newspaper.

OK. The table is set up with some terrain, crossroads and a town of several houses in the center representing a colonial "city". One of the buildings is a printing press, one a university and one is a library. Objective markers are three printing presses, three stacks of books and three professors each placed around the area of their associated buildings. There should be a line around the town of whatever barriers, real or imaginary, denoting the town's turf. Alternatively, one could have a large roughly circular bit of felt in a slightly contrasting color underneath all of the town's terrain to denote "town turf"

The British get a Hessian, a loyalist, two British brigades, some artillery, a howitzer and some light dragoons. Their mission is to shut down rebel free speech defamatory to the crown.

The town is occupied by unknown forces. Once the Crown's forces are within 12" of any house composing the town (from any direction) make a roll on a d6.

1. 12 militia foot to be placed anywhere on the towns turf
2. 12 militia foot and three militia batteries to be placed anywhere on the towns turf
3. 12 foot placed anywhere on town turf which roll a d6 for their type every time they are first fired on. 1-4 they are militia, 5 they are continental, 6 they are elite continental
4. 6 elite continental, a rifle unit, two continental dragoons and three batteries being organized for a campaign elsewhere are billeted on the town turf
5. 6 foot units in the town which make a roll when first under fire as in 3. above to determine their status with the added reinforcement of 4 continental units, a battery and a light dragoon unit coming to their rescue on the 5th turn from a randomly determined corner of the board.
6. 6 foot, half militia half continental and two batteries placed anywhere on the town turf with a force of 6 French foot, two batteries and one hussar unit coming to relief of the town from a randomly determined board edge from the 5th turn on. They enter the board on a roll of 5 or 6 on a d6.

Units in contact with a victory marker can smash printing presses, bayonet academics or burn books on a D6 roll of "6" which can be made once a turn while in contact.

British units get a +1 roll modifier because of their expertise with burning books, stabbing intellectuals etc.

One direct hit by a battery or howitzer destroys the objective marker. The British get a point for every objective marker they destroy, the Americans get one for every one they preserve. Each marker must be placed around the town turf but no closer than 8" to each other.

The three houses themselves can be destroyed if occupied by a Crown unit for three straight turns (Honey, how do we get that awful smell out of the carpets?) or three direct hits by artillery. At game's end, each destroyed house counts a 3 victory points for the Crown if destroyed and 3 points for the Americans if not destroyed.

The Crown has 12 turns to suppress freedom of Speech.