Robert P. Watson - The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution

T he treatment of prisoners of war throughout history has been unimaginably horrific. Those soldiers and civilians unfortunate enough to be captured during times of conflict have been subjected to a bewildering array of abuses, including forced labor, starvation, torture, rape, and solitary confinement. Others were simply murdered. Tragically, every country, culture, and conflict has suffered such crimes. Some have been worse than others. The Aztecs, for instance, tied prisoners to stone slabs and cut out their hearts while the prisoner was still alive. In the Second Sino-Japanese War, Imperial Japanese forces murdered tensand possibly hundredsof thousands of Chinese civilians in what became known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking. The Chinese would later return the cruelty, beheading captured Japanese soldiers and using their heads as soccer balls. And during the Nazi reign, Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, conducted savagely cruel medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Such incidents are all too common in the annals of history and are far too numerous to list.

On the other hand, there have been efforts by the international community, individual governments, and human rights groups to limit such barbarous behavior. One such example is the Geneva Convention, a series of international treaties and agreements on the status and treatment of prisoners of war, first developed in 1864. The subsequent record has been mixed. In the wake of historys bloodiest conflict, when approximately 3.3 million Soviet prisoners taken by the Axis powers died in captivity and Joseph Stalin and the Red Army, in turn, killed countless German prisoners and millions more of their own citizens, the world community came together in 1949 to ratify two new conventions. Sadly, none of this stopped the mistreatment of prisoners.

Americans have been among those prisoners who have suffered during conflicts. This includes the Civil War, when the Confederacy treated Northern prisoners with neglect, disdain, and brutality. Perhaps the most reprehensible example was when roughly thirteen thousand Union soldiers incarcerated at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia died from malnutrition, poor sanitation, disease, exposure to the elements, and abuse at the hands of individuals who had, until only a few years prior, been their fellow countrymen. In the twentieth century, the crimes against American servicemen in Germany, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam were particularly loathsome and numerous.

The ensuing years have been plagued by campaigns of genocide around the world in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, and elsewhere. As I write this preface, the headlines are dominated by news of public beheadings of prisoners by groups such as the self-proclaimed Islamic State and abuses directed at prisoners of war and political prisoners in China, Russia, parts of Africa, and much of the Middle East.

Yet, long before the Geneva Convention, concerns over the mistreatment of prisoners arose during the Revolutionary War, when some of the most odious and vile crimes in American history occurred at the hands of the British and were directed against American soldiers and sailors fighting for independence. While the stories of the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, and Paul Reveres midnight ride are well known by any American schoolchild, the plight of American prisoners during the Revolution remains largely unknown. In particular, history has forgotten the struggles that occurred on an old, rotting prison ship moored off the coast of Brooklyn, despite the fact that as many as 11,500 prisoners may have died in her holdsa number roughly twice the total number of American lives lost in combat during the entirety of the war!

This little-known story is shocking and grisly, but the struggles of those who escaped and, against all odds, survived are nothing shy of inspiring and heroic. They are also important, for they compel us to rethink our inaccurate view of how the British prosecuted the war, to remember the sacrifices made by so many forgotten patriots, and to explore one of the worst tragedies in American military history, one involving a wretched and cursed ghost ship that the British believed would frighten patriots into submission. It did not. It had the opposite effect and unintentionally ended up helping the colonists win the war.

A note to the reader: The words of the prisoners aboard the hellish ship as well as the war records and letters of prison wardens and generals are all quoted verbatim in the following pages. Some of the spelling reflects the time period and varying degrees of literacy of the men and boys in the book.

The book would not have been possible without the assistance of several people. First, I would like to thank my incredible literary agent, Peter Bernstein. I am also fortunate to have Robert Pigeon as my editor. It has been a pleasure to work with such a talented editor as Bob and the entire team at Da Capo Press and Perseus BooksLissa Warren, Justin Lovell, Skyler Lambert, Michael Clark, Sue Warga, Jack Lenzo, and too many others to mention.

I would like to acknowledge Jared Wellman, a librarian at Lynn University, for his help in tracking down old and obscure documents, and both Juan Tirado (who passed away in 2016 after a long and courageous struggle with cancer) and David Garcia for making photocopies of them for me. Nancy Katz and George Goldstein, M.D., read an early version of the manuscript and provided me with valuable feedback. Thanks also to Julie Stoner and Bruce Kirby of the Library of Congress, Joanna Lamaida of the Brooklyn Historical Society, Dr. Daniel Rolph and Steven Smith of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Alicia Parks of the Museum of the American Revolution, the reference staff at the New York Public Library, and many other archivists and librarians for their help with accessing historic documents.

Mostly, however, I would like to thank my familyClaudia, Alessandro, and Isabellafor their constant support. Lastly, this book is dedicated to all the men and women who have suffered the misfortune of being a prisoner of war. Your sacrifices are not forgotten.