This event has been POSTPONED – the new date will be announced as soon as
possible.
The Old Barracks is pleased to host lectures and discussions by leading
historians and authors on a variety of subjects sponsored by the Society of
Sons of the Revolution in the State of New Jersey. Lectures are free to
attend, and pre-orders for books are encouraged. Pre-orders available soon.
Join the Old Barracks Museum on Monday, April 20 at 7 PM for a lecture by
T. Cole Jones on his book “The Problem of Prisoners of War in the American
Revolution.” Doors open at 6:30 PM.
This lecture will examine how the founding generation of Americans grappled
with the problems of prisoner treatment. During the eight-year conflict,
American forces captured over seventeen thousand British and allied
Germanic soldiers, as well as thousands more loyalist civilians and British
mariners. The number of enemy prisoners in American custody often exceeded
that of American soldiers in the Continental army. These prisoners proved
increasingly burdensome for the new nation as the war progressed. What was
to become of these men? How should they be confined? Who would pay to house
and feed them? When and how should they be released? A series of thorny
political issues compounded these logistical difficulties. This talk will
take the audience from the meeting rooms of the Continental Congress to the
prison camps of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, revealing the factors
that coalesced to transform the conflict into a war for vengeance,
escalating its violence precipitously.