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

Author:T. Cole Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Destruction

When he received his orders from Congress, General Heath was wracked by competing emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved to be rid of the onerous burden; the convention prisoners and all their complaints, peccadilloes, and misdemeanors were now somebody else’s problem. “The trouble & difficulty which I have had with the troops of the Convention,” he told Washington, “are almost inconceivable.” Yet he could not hide his surprise at the decision. It was one thing to delay the troops’ embarkation; it was another thing altogether to dismiss the convention outright, sending the men on an arduous trek of over six hundred miles so late in the year. The general knew that many of the conventioners would not survive the march. Moreover, despite his dislike of General Phillips, Heath had grown fond of many of the senior officers of the Convention Army, having treated the Roxbury farmer with the respect due to his rank. He may have failed as a battlefield commander, but Heath had managed to keep Burgoyne’s army largely intact with very little support from either local or congressional authorities. And yet in one stroke, Congress had erased the greatest achievement of his military career. But like so many good soldiers before and since, Heath followed his orders.67

The officers and soldiers of the Convention Army were equally shocked by the news. According to Ensign Anburey, “when this resolve of Congress was made known, every one was struck with amazement.” Corporal Lamb believed the orders for relocation were “universally considered by the privates as a very great hardship, and by the officers as a shameful violation” of the convention. Not only had the Americans abandoned any pretense of upholding the treaty, but Anburey thought that they also intended to destroy the army by “marching the men eight hundred miles in the depth of winter.” The senior officers pleaded with Heath to delay the march until the weather improved, or at least until they had had an opportunity to convey their desperation to General Clinton in New York. All he could do, however, was pass on their lamentations to his superiors. The general apprised Laurens that “they appear much affected at this order to remove so great a distance…. [T] he Germans in particular appear much dejected.” Compounding their distress, the men still had not received their yearly issue of clothing. In the late fall of 1778, the prisoners were still wearing the threadbare, patched, and cut-down coats of 1776. As if to torment the prisoners further, a British ship carrying a fresh supply of clothing from New York arrived just as the men prepared to march. Under strict orders not to delay, Heath had no choice but to deny the prisoners’ request to reclothe; the uniforms would have to be sent to Virginia by sea. One German officer despaired, “we shall have to make this wearisome march in our rags and find our uniforms in a climate where on account of the heat we may make little use of them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.