During the American Revolutionary War, management and treatment of prisoners of war were very different from the standards of modern warfare. Modern standards, as outlined in the Geneva Conventions of
The Middle Dutch Church in New York City near Nassau and Cedar Streets is where hundreds of the enlisted men captured at the Battle of Long Island were imprisoned. The Sugar House next door also became a prison for thousands as the British captured more of Washington's troops from Fort Washington and other engagements during the retreat from New York. The site today is the location of One Chase Manhattan Plaza. (Image from about 1830.)
Interior of the British prison ship Jersey
The prison ship Jersey as moored at Wallabout Bay off Long Island, in 1782
Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument Fort Greene Park
HMS Jersey (1736)
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HMS Jersey was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment of dimensions at Plymouth Dockyard, and launched on 14 June 1736. She saw
Prisoners of war in the American Revolutionary War
…at Fort Washington – somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 men in the space of two months." During the war, at least 16 hulks, including the infamous HMS Jersey, were placed by British authorities in the waters of Wallabout Bay off the shores of Brooklyn, New York as a place of incarceration for many thousands…
The Jersey Prison Ship as moored at the Wallabout near Long Island, in the year 1782
A 1733 ship plan in the Royal Museums Greenwich
An illustration of Jersey during her time as a prison ship.