Death barges of Wallabout Bay: during the War for Independence, the British kept many captured American soldiers and privateers in horrid conditions onboard overcrowded prison ships.

She began life in 1736 as a 60-gun frigate, a man-of-war built for battle on the high seas. For over 30 years HMS Jersey plied the Mediterranean and Atlantic in defense of British interests, seeing hard action in the bitter colonial wars of the 18th century.

By 1775, however, her days of glory were well behind her. The British Navy, second to none, had added newer ships to her fleet, and the Jersey slid quietly into obsolescence. Stripped of her spars and masts, she was classed as a hospital ship and eventually found herself wallowing in the mud flats of New York's Wallabout Bay, near the present-day site of the Brooklyn Shipyard. There she became known not as a refuge for sick or wounded soldiers, but rather as the most notorious British prison ship during the American War for Independence.

Along with a motley assemblage of at least 16 other obsolete vessels, the Jersey served as a floating prison for Continental soldiers and privateers from about 1776 to 1783. Characterized by almost unspeakable conditions, these ships signified the political peculiarities of a war where disputed distinctions between national sovereignty and illegal rebellion reduced American prisoners of war, especially seagoing privateers, to the status of political pawns.

Fate of Prisoners

Although their status was neither precisely defined nor consistently enforced, 18th-century prisoners of war could expect the observance of certain protocols and treaties that provided for parole or exchange, and other basic privileges. Unlike their predecessors in previous centuries, the late 18th-century soldiers or sailors were generally given quarter when they surrendered. Similarly, wounded prisoners could expect minimal care.

An economic factor further served to reduce the length of time spent in prison. During the 18th century, governments were expected to provide for the care of their soldiers held in enemy prisons. This was accomplished by private resources, through the government, or by siphoning supplies from the military. Countries holding prisoners were forced to dedicate manpower resources and to provide supplies when their enemy could not, or would not, do so.

In any case, maintaining a sizeable prisoner of war population diverted much needed resources from the battlefield effort. Typically, captives spent a brief period in prison before being exchanged by the formal agreement known as a cartel. Cartels generally provided for the exchange of men of equal rank, or for the exchange of several men of inferior rank for one of superior status. Parolees, usually officers, were given limited freedom or were released on their word of honor promising not to take up arms again.

The system worked reasonably well for sovereign nations engaged in war, but the peculiar political nature of America's War for Independence produced legal problems that were not easily overcome. Britain did not recognize America's sovereignty. Consequently, the taking of American prisoners presented an embarrassing conundrum for His Majesty's government and its forces in the field.

Regarded not as soldiers of an independent nation but rather as subjects in open rebellion, Americans could not legally be held as prisoners of war. Furthermore, Britain's refusal to deal with, or even recognize, Congress prevented the adoption of a formal cartel arrangement. The Crown initially resolved the problem by holding "rebel prisoners" illegally, and then later by suspending habeas corpus, in effect allowing British authorities to hold Americans on probable cause at the pleasure of the king.

British legal minds may have been satisfied with the arrangement, but their commanders in the field and even some members of Parliament were not. Prisoners were an impediment, and British forces in America were facing an opponent that could scarcely provide for its own forces in the field, let alone men held captive in British-held urban enclaves or prison ships. The last thing the British Army wanted was the additional burden of providing supplies to a growing prisoner of war population.

By February 1776, British commander General William Howe was instructed by Lord George Germain to find a way to effect exchange "without the King's Dignity [and] Honor being committed or His Majesty's Name used in any Negociation." From this, Howe and his field commanders fashioned a partial exchange system that served on a limited basis for the remainder of the war. It was not a perfect system, and many Americans languished in captivity for extended periods of time. Britain did eventually grant Americans legitimate POW status, but not until six months after Cornwallis' capitulation at Yorktown in October 1781!

Strictly Second-class

Unfortunately, no such recognition or exchange system protected American sailors and privateers. The latter in particular were dealt with harshly. Privateers operated as commerce raiders under commission by Congress or by individual states. Britain considered both privateers and sailors to be nothing more than pirates. Exchange was rare, due in part to Britain's attitude toward American sailors and George Washington's reluctance to trade British soldiers for sailors, preferring instead to receive soldiers for soldiers. If captured, American seamen could expect a much longer stay in prison than their counterparts in the Army.

Following the American withdrawal from Long Island and then the fall of Fort Washington on northern Manhattan Island in September 1776, about 4,000 American prisoners were marched into New York City and held in buildings ranging from warehouses to sugar refineries to nonconformist churches. There they were placed under military authorities disinclined to provide adequate rations and accommodations. The makeshift prisons were soon overcrowded with the poorly clothed veterans of Washington's Army. Here they were denied adequate space and fed insufficient and sometimes rotten rations. Lack of fuel forced many to eat their food raw, and diseases such as dysentery and smallpox ravaged their weakened ranks. While on parole from the prison ship Mentor, Captain Jabez Fitch, captured at Long Island in August 1776, described the condition of his comrades held in the erstwhile prisons in November of the same year:

   Their appearance in general Rather
   Resembled dead Corpses than living
   men. Indeed great numbers had already
   arrived at their long home, and
   ye Remainder appeared far advanced
   on ye same Journey: their accommodations
   were in all respects vastly Inferior
   to what a New England Farmer
   would have provided for his Cattle.

British authorities, bruised by early American battlefield successes, and guided by the belief that the Continentals and the state militias were simply "d****d rebels," often failed to adhere to prisoner of war policies. Some Americans were summarily executed during the night on orders from the sadistic British provost, William Cunningham--the same man who destroyed Nathan Hale's last letters home just before hanging him. The brutal practice was abandoned only after women loyal to the British cause complained that the cries of the condemned men disturbed their evening rest.

Americans complained bitterly to their superiors while British commander General Robertson denied the accusations as a "parcel of d****d lies." In addition to the usual complaints about lack of fuel and poor rations, prisoner affidavits included charges of arbitrary brutality on the part of British authorities. During the first year of confinement, approximately 1,500 Americans perished in New York's makeshift prisons. Still, nothing could compare to the hellish nature of the prison ships moored in the sheltered bays of New York.

Groups of prisoners began to arrive onboard the rotting hulks of the prison ships almost immediately after the American defeat at Long Island. The numbers of Americans eventually quartered onboard these ships is unknown. Contemporary accounts, although sometimes of dubious worth, indicate that American prisoners numbered in the thousands. In April 1782, a commander of a Continental artillery unit named Captain Stephen Buckland wrote of the Jersey, "There were on board this ship almost seven hundred prisoners, and increasing almost every day." Built to hold no more than 400 during its operational days as a frigate, the Jersey and others like her routinely kept upwards of 700 to 1,000 prisoners onboard.

The level of discomfort was maddening. Fresh air below decks, where the men were quartered like sardines in a can, was almost nonexistent. Jersey's portholes had been closed and replaced by two tiers of 20-inch square holes secured by two iron bars. The effect was suffocating. Years later, prisoner Ebenezer Fox, a Continental seaman, described the nights spent crammed between decks aboard the Jersey: "We passed the night amid the accumulated horrors of sighs and groans; of foul vapor; a nauseous and putrid atmosphere, in a stifling and almost suffocating heat."

Overcrowding was common to all the prison ships and presented the perfect environment for the spread of disease and verminous infestation. The "Patriot Poet" Philip Freneau, wrote of the sense of desperation he experienced while being quartered below decks on the Scorpion:

   At sundown we were ordered down
   between decks to the number of nearly
   three-hundred of us. The best lodging
   I could procure this night was on
   a chest, almost suffocated with the
   heat and stench. Desperate to die before
   morning.

Some of the prison ships had served as cattle transports, and the lower decks were filthy with dirt and animal feces. There was little or no attempt to provide even minimal sanitation aboard the prison ships, and obtaining fresh water was nearly impossible. The accumulated filth of nearly a thousand men was routinely thrown overboard, where it remained on the mud flats until carried away by the tide. A hellish cocktail of urine, human excrement, and dead bodies combined to provide a breeding ground for diseases that preyed easily on the underfed and underclothed prisoners. It was impossible to maintain any level of ordinary cleanliness. One unfortunate Jersey captive wrote, "We bury 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 in a day. We have 200 more sick and falling sick every day."

Like their counterparts on the mainland, captives aboard the prison ships were fed deficient and often rotten food. Americans could expect two-thirds of what a British seaman received. Normally, this would be sufficient to sustain life, but the food was generally of poor quality. Ebenezer Fox described the bread aboard the Jersey as "mostly moldy" and the pork as having the appearance of "variegated soap." A strict shipboard schedule dictated when rations were to be allotted and cooked, but the lack of fuel often compelled the prisoners to eat their pork raw. So hungry were the prisoners that many resorted to stealing bran from the hog troughs located on the gun deck. Water was rationed and of poor quality. Sometimes the only fresh water available came from an occasional rain shower.

In addition to physical privations, prisoners could expect their captors to undertake psychological efforts to break their spirits. British authorities routinely disseminated false accounts of British victories and American defeats. But perhaps more insidious was the constant attempt to coerce prisoners to enlist in His Majesty's service, compelling one prisoner to write: "There is nothing but death or entering into the British service before me." For some Americans trading allegiances was the only way to escape the pestilence and certain death of the prison ships. Also, British guards assigned to prison ships felt no compunction in robbing newly arrived prisoners, often stripping them of everything including the buckles on their shoes and the buttons on their jackets. Although of little value, the stripping of these articles served to establish the fact that the prisoner no longer controlled his destiny.

Prisoners were also subjected to arbitrary and wanton violence from the guards. British regulars. Marines, and Hessian troops each took turns guarding prisoners. Feared most were the British regulars who harbored an intense hatred of the "rebels." On one occasion aboard the Jersey, the British regulars attacked with swords a group of prisoners engaged in an evening July 4th celebration.

The final indignity came when a prisoner died. Every morning dead bodies were removed to the upper deck. Most were piled high "'like sticks of wood" on the main deck, then transported to the mainland where they were buried in shallow graves under the eyes of their disinterested captors. For dozens of years afterward, the bones of the dead washed from their shallow graves, reminding local inhabitants of the horrors of war and the sacrifices of patriots.

Excepting a few rare recorded instances, escape from a prison ship was virtually unknown and exchanges were almost equally as rare. The plight of Americans interned on prison ships did not go unnoticed by Congress and George Washington. Each filed protests on behalf of the prisoners, but neither were successful in alleviating their suffering.

Washington first wrote to Admiral Richard Howe as early as January 1777, "on the Subject of the cruel Treatment, which our Officers and Men in the naval Department, who are unhappy enough to fall into your hands, receive on board the Prison Ships in the Harbour of New York." Howe's reaction to Washington's missive is unknown, but what is known is that the intervention led to nothing in the way of improvements. In January prison 1781, Washington renewed his effort to effect change by suggesting to British Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot that representative officers of both sides might be permitted to inspect the prison ships in order to satisfy the veracity of the complaints coming from the prison ships. Again, his entreaty was essentially ignored, the British providing dubious certificates from American prisoners attesting to the fine conditions aboard prison ships.

To his credit, Washington never gave up trying to secure better conditions for the unfortunate prison ship captives. He wrote again in 1782, this time to Admiral Robert Digby expressing concern for the overcrowded conditions aboard the prison ships. Washington's frustration is clearly evident as he wrote:

   If the fortune of War Sit'! has thrown
   a Number of these miserable people
   into your Hands, l am certain your
   Excellency's feelings for fellow Men
   must induce you to proportion the
   Ships (if they must be confined on
   Board Ships) to their Accommodation
   and Comfort, and not, by crouding
   them together in a few, bring on
   Disorders which consign them by
   half Dozens a Day to the Grave.

As expected, Digby did nothing, and General Washington was reduced to accusing the British of attempting to "suffocate all our Seamen who will not enlist in the service of his Britannic Majesty." Congress adopted a weak reprisal policy, establishing two prison ships of her own, both anchored at New London, Connecticut. Together they housed no more than 200 men. Neither ship approached the horrors found on the Jersey, and although one was christened Retaliation, it did not relieve the suffering of the captured Americans. Thousands of American seamen continued to live and die aboard the death barges of Wallabout Bay, waiting for their day of freedom.

Michael E. Telzrow is a historian/museum professional living in De Pere, Wisconsin.