Forgotten patriots : the untold story of American prisoners during the Revolutionary War / Edwin G. Burrows.
2008
E281 .B87 2008 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
Forgotten patriots : the untold story of American prisoners during the Revolutionary War / Edwin G. Burrows.
ISBN
9780465008353 (alk. paper)
0465008356 (alk. paper)
0465008356 (alk. paper)
Publication Details
New York : Basic Books, c2008.
Language
English
Description
xii, 364 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm.
Call Number
E281 .B87 2008
Dewey Decimal Classification
973.3/71
Summary
Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crown, and just over 6,800 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. New York City was the principal base of the Crown's military operations. Beginning with the 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. This book is the first-ever account of these hell-holes, a sobering commentary on how much we have forgotten about our struggle for independence.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Table of contents only
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Table of Contents
Brooklyn
Destined to the cord
The stool of repentance
A cry of barbarity & cruelty
Sweet liberty
War ad terrorem
The war of words
Dead reckonings
Forgotten patriots.
Destined to the cord
The stool of repentance
A cry of barbarity & cruelty
Sweet liberty
War ad terrorem
The war of words
Dead reckonings
Forgotten patriots.