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| Source: Amazon.com |
From the book’s cover:
Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown. Just over 6,800 of those men died in battle. About 25,000 became prisoners of war, most of them confined in New York City under conditions so atrocious that they perished by the thousands. Evidence suggests that at least 17,500 Americans may have died in these prisons—more than twice the number to die on the battlefield. It was in New York, not Boston or Philadelphia, where most Americans gave their lives for the cause of independence.
New York City became the jailhouse of the American Revolution because it was the principal base of the Crown’s military operations. Beginning with the bumper crop of American captives taken during the 1776 invasion of New York, captured Americans were stuffed into a hastily assembled collection of public buildings, sugar houses, and prison ships. The prisoners were shockingly overcrowded and chronically underfed—those who escaped alive told of comrades so hungry they ate their own clothes and shoes.
Despite the extraordinary number of lives lost, Forgotten Patriots is the first-ever account of what took place in these hell-holes. The result is a unique perspective on the Revolutionary War as well as a sobering commentary on how Americans have remembered our struggle for independence—and how much we have forgotten.
Synopsis:
Forgotten Patriots deals with an oft overlooked aspect of the American Revolutionary War: specifically the fate of captives who fell into the hands of the British during the Revolution. This is an aspect of the war that I had not thought much about before, and so the book was quite instructional about the subject. The book covers the variety of places that American POWs might end up during the war, such as the much feared Provost prison, and the also the Jersey, which was a really bad prison hulk (more on hulks in a moment).
The conditions that American captives found themselves in when they were taken by the British were really horrible. The descriptions of the filth and disease that both enlisted men and officers were left in, often to die, were wrenching, even given the fact that most writers of the period tended not to put things in really blatant terms like we are accustomed to in our present day. If you can decipher the language of the time, the “effluent vapors” that came from the holds of the prison ships must have smelled... well, really awful. Not to put it in too banal a manner, but that is about the best I’ll give, for decency's sake. Either use your own imagination to figure out what a bunch of men with little food, much disease and poor sanitary conditions would smell like if they were crammed into the dirty hold of a ship, or read the book and see the descriptions for yourself.
The Americans were also subjected to what they considered quite rude treatment, being not seen as enemy combatants, but as “damned rebels,” and not given the same respect that soldiers of that time period were expected to be afforded. The British seem to have taken great effort to be barbaric to the men who fell into their hands. For one thing, they practiced something that I thought was only a modern invention, i.e.:, mock executions, which I have learned leave pretty strong emotional scarring on those who undergo them. I was under the false impression that these mock executions, or the practice of getting a prisoner ready for execution - even, up to the point where the guns are pointed and all that remains is the call to fire - were an invention from the twentieth century. But no, the Brits did it to the Americans back then, according to Forgotten Patriots.
I could go on and describe further the contents of the book, but I found an article that details the conditions that Americans faced when in British captivity (specifically in this case on British prison ships), and I’m going to fall back on an old cop-out and give you a link to it. If you want a short version of what Forgotten Patriots has to offer, read some of this article for yourself. Or better yet, read the book and find out more about this almost entirely neglected side of one of the United State’s most crucial periods in its history.
Long Island Genealogy website's article on American prisoners during the Revolutionary War
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| The author, Edwin G. Burrows / Source: Brooklyn.Cuny.Edu |
The book described a lot of things about the war that I hadn’t known prior, such as the fact that Americans who were not actually combatants were sometimes hauled off by the British to spend time in prison for supposed “subversive” behavior. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the sheer amount of spite put in by the Brits who were running things in these operations was beyond belief.
Also surprising (though in retrospect, it shouldn’t have been) was that Scottish troops were part of some of the major battles that were fought during the war, and specifically that they were in many ways more savage than the English troops themselves. The author indicates that the Scots had learned from their own rebellions against the Crown that the way to crush revolt was to be almost entirely without mercy or pity. Burrows also points out the atrocities committed by the Hessians German mercenaries, although he also includes a few stories of kindnesses given by these men in unexpected and sometimes touching circumstances. Unfortunately, the mental image of children being run through with bayonets is sadly more memorable in the mind than these kind acts, so I can’t recall any specifics for the good things that occurred on occasion.
In summary, the book was quite informative and fairly well written, though I had a hard time with it due to an error I made, which I’ll explain shortly. I’m glad to have been exposed to the book’s content, as I feel I gained some knowledge I wouldn’t have thought to seek out if I hadn’t put in the time to read it.
What I didn’t like about it:
This is a sticky one. I inadvertently introduced a bias against the book due to my own stupidity. I had previously been listening to random music on my player using the shuffle option, and forgot to turn it off when I switched to this book. The result was that, when I reached the first chapter break in the audio file, the book became somewhat disjointed. But the chapter break was big enough that the problem wasn’t immediately obvious, and so I found myself thinking that the book had just been poorly edited. The unfortunate result was that, even after I fixed the problem, the book still seemed a bit scrambled in my head, as I didn’t go back and start it over from the very beginning (I had already read nearly half by that time). One of the flaws to my scheme of reading audiobooks while at work, I’m afraid. But with this in mind, I’ll try not to be more critical than the book truly deserves.
As for the content of the text itself, Forgotten Patriots was, at times, sorta dull. Not the biggest page-turner of a historical text I’ve read recently, to be sure. The material, couched in its eighteenth century trappings, could be kinda slow in places, and this let my attention wander. The problem, in my opinion, was that the author spent too much time going over some of the material he had unearthed for the book. It almost felt at times as though Burrows had done lots of research on a topic he felt was under-represented (and with good reason, as it seems from my slight acquaintance with the subject that it is in fact under-represented), and so he was for sure going to make every bit go to use. I thought he might have speeded up his narrative and skipped over some of the less germain information. This does play into the accidental bias I came in with though, due to the mistake I made and mentioned above.
What I learned, if anything:
I did learn one small tidbit that was unexpected. I learned what a “hulk” is. And I’m not talking about this guy:
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| "Hulk smash British redcoats!" / Source: TheAvengers2012-Movie.com |
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| An artist's rendition (probably from the period that the hhulk was in use) of the Jersey, an infamous British prison ship that held numerous unfortunate American prisoners during the war. / Source: LongIslandGeneology.com |
Recommendation:
This book is highly recommended to those who have an interest in the Revolutionary period. It seems to me that Forgotten Patriots sheds an informative light on the subject of American POWs and others who were put under British yoke of captivity during the Revolutionary War in America. The author did his homework (sometimes too well, if you noted my comment in What I Didn’t Like), and the material is thorough and, for the most part, quite fascinating. On the other hand, if you aren’t passionate about the specifics of the period, or just happen to be a nascent historian who is soaking up all the information he can get his ears around, as I am, than you probably won’t find this a really striking read, and could easily skip it. Your choice. I’m personally glad I did get through it, but I wouldn’t read it twice without a really good reason.
Learn more about Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
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| Source: Zimbio.com |
"Miniature Hulk smash puny riot police." The best part is the way all the people in the background are looking on. And the kid... he's a few years short of a gamma burst and a major case of anger management issues, but he's got style, just the same.
Sad.
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