T. Cole Jones - Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution

EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES

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Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial,
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Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and
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with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600
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Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution

T. Cole Jones

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA

Copyright 2020 University of Pennsylvania Press

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ISBN 978-0-8122-5169-2

To my loving parents, Randy and Connie Jones

I have made a concerted effort to accurately reproduce the often inconsistent eighteenth-century spelling, capitalization, and punctuation used in the sources I have consulted. When necessary for comprehension, I have added punctuation or clarifying words, which are clearly denoted in brackets. Throughout the book I have referred to those inhabitants of Great Britains North American colonies who embraced the struggle against the Crown as revolutionaries or simply Americans and those who supported reconciliation with Britain as loyalists. I have eschewed the laudatory or derogatory terms patriot, rebel, and tory. Additionally, I have referred to those subjects of the Holy Roman Empire who served as British military auxiliaries as Germans or Britains Germanic allies. Only when I am sure the soldiers in question came from Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Hanau have I called them Hessians, despite the widespread American practice of referring to all German auxiliaries as Hessians. Similarly, I have referred to the indigenous inhabitants of North America as Native Americans or Indians except in instances where the sources allowed me to name the specific group or nation to which an individual belonged.

Map 1. Principal internment sites for British and German prisoners of war, 177583.

This is a story about the violence of war, the rules societies make to control it, and what happens when they abandon those restrictions. It is a story of an infant nation that enshrined the rules of war in its founding documentthe Declaration of Independenceonly to repudiate them in thought, word, and deed. It is a story of a cycle of violence, retaliation, and revenge so gruesome that it begged to be forgotten. At its center, this is a story about how a colonial war for independence became the American Revolutionary War.

* * *

In early December 1775, the elected representatives of the thirteen British colonies in America resolved to remind the government in London that even armed conflict has rules. Already aware of Thomas Jeffersons persuasive pen, the Continental Congress looked to the thirty-two-year-old Virginia delegate to draft a declaration protesting the British abuse of American prisoners of war and enunciating the stance that violence should be restricted to the field of battle. As Jefferson phrased it, Congress was determined that this conflict would not be decided by reeking vengeance on a few helpless captives, but by atchieving success in the fields of war. Jefferson was the ideal choice for the declarations draftsman. Few in Congress could boast either his depth of knowledge or his breadth of reading on the prevailing European conceptions of how war should be conducted. Like most of his fellow delegates, Jefferson believed that, though clearly misled by a tyrannical ministry, the British people remained brave and civilized.

To Jeffersons horror and indignation, however, in late 1775 it appeared as if the British had abandoned the contemporary European rules of warin other words, the cultural norms of warwhich emphasized restraining violence and treating enemy prisoners humanely, according to their military rank and social station. While these norms reflected the hierarchical social structure of monarchical Europe, enemy prisoners of all ranks benefited. Once captured, they were to be objects not of violence but of compassion. In his stern reproof, Jefferson reminded his British readers that it is the happiness of modern times that the evils of necessary war are softened by refinement of manners and sentiment, and that an enemy is an object of vengeance, in arms and in the feild [sic] only. By contrast, royal forces seemed determined to revive antient barbarism, and again disgrace our nature with the practice of human sacrifice. Time and again, British generals had made it clear that in their eyes the American conflict was not a war but a rebellion that had to be suppressed, violently if necessary. As Jefferson crafted his declaration, American prisoners starved in pestilent prisons under the constant threat of execution for treason, while British prisoners in American custody enjoyed every comfort for which captivity and misfortune called. In deference to General George Washingtons negotiations with his British counterpart, Jeffersons declaration was never sent, but Congress echoed his sentiments when it resolved on January 2, 1776, to indict the British for the execrable barbarity, with which this unhappy war has been conducted. Despite deep provocation, Congress could take pride that the American cause had not been stained by such inhumanity.

Three years later, as governor of Virginia, Jefferson penned a very different declaration on the conduct of war. In the intervening period, British and Native American raiding parties had plagued Virginias frontiers; bands of armed loyalists had plundered its countryside; thousands of its enslaved Africans had fled to British lines, many taking up arms against their former masters; hundreds of Virginias soldiers and sailors had perished in British jails and prison ships; and the Royal Navy had terrorized its coastline. To compound the governors concerns, Congress had saddled Virginia with the responsibility of housing and feeding thousands of enemy prisoners anxious for an opportunity to rejoin their comrades. With a British army ensconced in Georgia and poised to march northward, it looked as if they might soon get their chance. In late 1779 Jeffersons Virginia was surrounded by enemies from both within and without, enemies who evinced no intention of observing the usage of polished Nations; gentle and humane. Instead, as he apprised John Jay, they were guilty of committing ravages and enormities, unjustifiable by the usage of civilized nations. This was the context in which Jefferson expressed a fundamentally different vision of the conduct of war from that which he had espoused in the waning days of 1775. As he noted to a Virginian officer in enemy custody, the British had transformed the conflict into a contest of cruelty and destruction, and henceforth Americans would contend with them in that line, and measure out misery to those in our power. This was not an idle threat of proportional retaliation for British misdeeds as sanctioned by the European laws of war. This was the deliberate articulation of a radical alteration in the revolutionaries conduct of the war, now to be carried out with a severity as terrible as universal.