Recently in Revolutionary War Category

Researching history is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You take little odd-shaped pieces and try to fit them together to create a complete picture.

Along with others, I have been gathering information for years on Camp Security, where British prisoners of war were detained from 1781 to 1783.

Click here for background on Camp Security.

The camp was located on part of Daniel Brubaker's 280 acres, about four and a half miles east of York in the area of Stony Brook. That land has been subdivided since, with the two largest remaining parcels known as the Wiest and Rowe properties.

Some previously untapped sources have recently come to light.

If you are reading this, you are probably interested in York County history and know that York was the capital of the United States from the end of September 1777 through June 1778. The Revolutionary War was in full swing, and the British were occupying Philadelphia, which had been the capital of the new nation.

Congress moved west and settled in York for the duration, putting nearly a hundred miles, including the mile-wide Susquehanna River, between them and British General Howe and his troops.

It seems that many Americans of the time, when they heard Congress was meeting in York, said "York? Where's that?" John Adams wrote wife Abigail that he had to take a circuitous route of 180 miles to avoid the British on his way to York, which he estimated was not more than 88 miles from Philadelphia.

Abigail was confused and wrote James Lovell, friend of both Adamses who was also serving in Congress at York, for clarification. She said that John said they were 88 miles from Philadelphia, but she didn't know which way. Were they closer to Boston or further away? Lovell drew her a map.

Order to register prisoners paroled to Yorkers

I gave a brief overview in my recent York Sunday News column of Camp Security, the 1781-1783 Revolutionary War prisoner of war camp just east of York. The whole column is at the end of this post.

Camp Security is the last remaining prisoner of war camp in the United States that has not been swallowed up by development. The site is considered to be at the highest priority risk by the National Trust of Historic Preservation and the National Park Service. Only a few of the approximately 40 acres of the camp have been subject to full archaeological exploration.

Estimates of the number of British Prisoners interned at Camp Security vary. Records are rather sketchy in comparison with statistics we keep today, and the existing records can be interpreted differently. Some sources say many died or deserted before and after they arrived in York. Other sources say deaths and desertions have been exaggerated. As more catalogs of document collections and documents themselves become accessible online, more statistics may surface.

Just as today, during the Revolutionary War the Army needed a lot more than men who could shoot a rifle. An Army can't function without support--personnel that gathers the supplies, feeds the soldiers, and keeps the equipment running.

The following recruiting ad comes from the Pennsylvania Gazette, printed in York, PA during Continental Congress's stay here:

Lotteries have always been alluring--wager a little for the chance to win a lot. Continental Congress attempted to raise funds to finance the Revolutionary War through a lottery, with a one of the drawings held in York in May 1778. From colonial times lotteries were conducted to raise money for public works, for churches and for colleges.

Two advertisements in a December 1826 York Recorder show that even out-of-state lotteries competed for Yorkers' cash:

It was April 1777. The Revolutionary War was not going well. Desertion was rampant. General Washington had said as much in a letter he wrote to his brother John on February 24.
Click here to read that letter at the Library of Congress web site.

Deserters were described in detail in the newspapers, along with a call for apprehension and an offered reward. Descriptions of the fugitive soldiers were often detailed, as shown in the following advertisement from the Pennsylvania Gazette for William Murphy of Chanceford Township.