by Logan Beirne
In summer of 1775, the war escalated and prisoner counts along with it. Reports abounded that the British were mistreating their American captives. “His Excellency,” as Washington was called, raised the matter with his British Army counterpart, General Thomas Gage, a high-browed, beady-eyed aristocrat. The two men were no strangers. Ironically, the now bitter rivals had once been rather friendly. Gage had commanded Washington in the Seven Years’ War and respected the young man’s bravery after he organized a successful retreat that saved many of Gage’s troops. In fact, the British general had sympathized with Washington when he was passed over for promotion in the British Army many years before and the two had maintained cordial relations following the war. However, after two decades, time and distance had severed their ties and their relationship had cooled, to say the least.
Washington was shocked and horrified by reports that Americans captured during the siege of Boston were left “languishing with Wounds, and Sickness; that some have been even amputated” by British troops under Gage’s command.16 He yearned for all prisoners to be treated with humanity and had ordered his men to care for the enemy combatants in their custody. But Gage was not reciprocating. To Washington, this conduct was a terrible offense, and it was very personal. Both honor and pragmatism demanded retribution.
Washington was not a detached general but one who fought alongside his men. Battle after battle, he led the charge, sometimes having multiple horses shot out from under him as he continued to fight. Although none of his several horses were actually white, popular tales often depicted him as a princely leader atop a great white horse in the thick of battle. While aloof in his mannerisms and occasionally gruff with his subordinates, he suffered alongside his troops, and it fostered mutual respect. So when his captured brethren were abused, he wanted not only to avenge them but also to protect other Americans from future harm. Using his British captives as leverage achieved both objectives.
Washington’s personal motto was Exitus acta probat, Latin for “the outcome justifies the deed.” He was an extremely principled man, but history has lost sight of his very practical side. While he earnestly endeavored to raise America’s treatment of her prisoners above the barbarity of previous European wars, it became clear to him that the only way he could save his captured countrymen was to potentially mutilate the redcoats in his custody.17 Washington was morally opposed to mistreating prisoners. But he was even more opposed to letting Americans suffer. He was a practical man and if he could use British captives to defend his countrymen, he would. When it came down to saving Americans, the outcome justified the deed.
Retribution was the primary means by which armies remedied enemy breaches of the laws of war. And so Washington warned Gage, his friend-turned-foe,My Duty now makes it necessary to apprize you, that for the future I shall regulate my Conduct towards those Gentlemen, who are or may be in our Possession, exactly by the Rule you shall observe towards those of ours, now in your Custody.
If Severity and Hardship mark the Line of your Conduct (painful as it may be to me) your Prisoners will feel its Effects.18
In the broadest reading, this letter expressed the view that the enemy’s actions justified amputating limbs of British prisoners. And these were not empty threats, since Washington held a number of British troops captive early in the war. While it was unlikely that he truly intended to go to that extreme in order to protect American prisoners at this stage, the British indeed complained that the American side was already mistreating British captives in other ways.
One report of abuse comes from when Washington’s forces attacked the lighthouse on an island in Boston Harbor that summer of 1775. Their mission was to disrupt British night shipping by extinguishing the warning light. And so on a steamy July night, with the darkness and crashing waves masking their advance, three hundred American minutemen boarded whaleboats and stealthily made their way towards the small rocky island and its thirty-two unsuspecting British guards.19 In a fierce 2:00 A.M. ambush, the stench of gunpowder pierced the salty sea air. The patriot muskets quickly killed a third of the redcoats and the remainder surrendered before the Americans triumphantly ignited the lighthouse into a towering inferno.20 But the Americans’ jubilance was short-lived. The tide had receded, beaching their getaway boats. Trapped on the island, the Americans watched the British gunboats race to the scene.
The tide returned just in time for the Americans to jump into their makeshift armada with their captives and get to the opposite shore before the British cannon could blow them to pieces. The infuriated British were able to hit only two Americans before the rest made it to safety. Once ashore, the Americans promptly put their new captives to work, forcing them to carry a cannon up a hill.21 Word traveled back to the British lines that this was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
After Gage had received Washington’s warning, he spat off an angry rejoinder. His intelligence, he said, had indicated that Americans were abusing captured redcoats, using extreme forced-work tactics and even starvation in order to compel the captured British troops to help the American side:My intelligence from your army would justify severe recrimination. I understand there are of the King’s faithful subjects, taken some time since by the rebels, laboring, like negro slaves, to gain their daily subsistence, or reduced to the wretched alternative, to perish by famine or take arms against their King and country. Those who have made the treatment of the prisoners in my hands, or of your other friends in Boston, a pretence for such measures, found barbarity upon falsehood.23
Neither Washington’s threat to General Gage nor the Americans’ possible abuses were based on any congressional resolution regarding the treatment of enemy captives. Washington led the way, informing Congress of his actions only after the fact.24 Likewise, no state legislative body instructed the commander on the matter of prisoner treatment. Instead, the Continental Army informed the Massachusetts legislature that “Gage is resolved to know no distinction of Rank among our Prisoners in his Hands, which obliges Genl. Washington (very contrary to his disposition) to observe the same Rule of Treatment to those Gentlemen, . . . which otherwise may appear harsh and cruel.”25
Washington considered it within his powers as commander in chief to decide the treatment of enemy prisoners without any need for a congressional resolution. He determined the best course of action based on his understanding of the laws of war. And his views on the matter did not always align with those of Congress.
9
American Fortitude
In August 1775, mere days after Washington’s hostile exchange with General Gage, the Americans ambushed the British transport ship HMS Hope as it sailed up the Delaware River.1 The outnumbered British quickly surrendered, and the Americans captured a British officer named Major Christopher French. Approximately fifty years old, described as “small of stature” and having coarse, stern features, he was imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut.2 While there was little indication of serious mistreatment, the prissy Major French began complaining to Washington about the “Incivility or Contempt” with which he was treated by the townspeople.3 They mocked and insulted him, leaving him outraged that such rabble should dare speak to a British officer in such a manner.
Like a disgruntled customer who sends a note to the corporate office about an unpleasant cashier, French dashed off several angry letters to Washington, who diligently replied to each. At first the general responded cordially, pledging that “suitable Provision shall be made for you and your Companions, and shew you every civility.”4 But as the war dragged on and the British continued to abuse their captives, his tone shifted.
Referring to the mistreatment of Americans by the British, Washington curtly told French, “I should illy support my Country’s Honor, and my own Character, if I did not shew a proper Sense of their sufferings, by making the condition of the Ministerial Officers, in some Degree, dependant on theirs.”5 Major French escaped before Washington educated him in the sufferings of American prisoners, but the commande
r’s thinly veiled threats conveyed his emerging belief that abusing British prisoners was justified.
In December 1775, over seven months after the outbreak of war, Congress finally passed a resolution concerning prisoner treatment. However, it was largely at odds with Washington’s declared stance. As he held the British forces in Boston, the Continental Congress resolvedThat such as are taken be treated as prisoners of war, but with humanity, and allowed the same rations as the troops in the service of the Continent; that the officers being in pay should supply themselves with cloaths, their bills to be taken therefor, that the soldiers be furnished as they now are.6
With this edict, Congress sought to take the high road and elevate the nation’s conduct above less-noble struggles of the past.
As a matter of principle, Washington agreed. He was morally opposed to mistreatment, in theory, and had initially preferred to “err on the side of mercy than that of strict Justice.”7 Experience taught him, however, that the high standard he sought was not practical, and that harsh measures might be necessary to save American lives. Just weeks after Congress’s decree that prisoners be treated humanely, Washington again threatened to abuse a British captive.8 This time, he needed to protect a captured national hero.
Washington was enraged by reports that the British had abused the popular American patriot Colonel Ethan Allen. Allen was a flamboyant farmer-turned-statesman-turned-land-speculator best known as the charismatic leader of a “merry band” of militiamen called the Green Mountain Boys.9 Allen was born into a relatively prosperous farming family in the sparsely populated hills of northwestern Connecticut. But farm life was not enough for this fiery character. Like many ambitious youth at the time, he journeyed to the frontier to find his fortune and eventually made his way to the wilderness of Vermont. Not yet a state, it was a hotly disputed area over which New York landowners attempted to assert control while the squatters living there sought independent statehood. The “wild west” of New England, this region was dominated by a rambunctious lot. Allen fit right in.
With a long face, narrow-set eyes, big nose, and bushy brown hair, Allen matured into a loud man with a penchant for taking the law into his own hands. Married to an uneducated and rigidly religious woman who did not care for her husband’s debaucherous streak, he faced constant criticism at home.10 This made Allen rather eager to escape the house.
He escaped to the local taverns and town hall, where he became not only a connoisseur of cheap rum but also a raucous figure in the community. Standing over six feet tall, he was impossible to ignore as he shouted and his large face grew ruddy with passion. With his incendiary oratory, Allen had a knack for whipping his audiences into action. He soon emerged as the grandiloquent leader of the frontiersmen seeking to forcefully secure their Vermont land claims against wealthy New Yorkers. Many of these Green Mountain Boys, including Allen himself, had outstanding arrest warrants in New York for beating anyone who challenged their claims. Enjoying a good fight almost as much as a good drink, this guerilla force readily followed Allen into battle time and again.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, the unhappily married thirty-seven-year-old Allen was ready to leap into the center of the struggle. Even though most of the action was in Massachusetts, Allen led the unruly Green Mountain Boys into the backwater of upstate New York to take part in America’s first offensive of the war. Their target was the formidable, granite-walled Fort Ticonderoga. Known as the “Gibraltar of North America,” this imposing British fortress secured the waterway connecting Canada to New York. Overlooking Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga was in a heavily wooded and largely uninhabited area, then just beginning to enjoy the effects of spring’s slow march northward.
Allen’s men set out on a midnight raid on a rain-soaked May night in 1775, under orders to seize the boats of wealthy British merchants so that the American forces might use them as ferries across the lake.11 Stumbling upon “choice liquors” in a Loyalist’s cellar, however, the Vermonters took to drinking instead.12 At three o’clock in the morning, they decided to make do with just the single boat they had secured to ferry as many men as possible before they lost the cover of darkness.
After two trips across the choppy, cold water, only ninety men were in place. Two-thirds of the American troops were still stranded on the other side of the lake, but Allen decided to attack before daybreak anyway. His force a less-than-optimal mixture of drunk and hung over, the brazen Allen and his dysfunctional militia charged the fort.
Luckily for Allen, the British had only one sentry on duty, and he was helping himself to an unauthorized catnap. Taken by complete surprise, the undermanned fort put up little resistance, as the half-naked British soldiers did not even have time to put on their pants, let alone ready their muskets.13 In a stunning blow to the British, the fort fell to the Americans, thereby thwarting Britain’s plan to invade through Montreal. Perhaps more importantly, the Americans acquired the gunpowder and artillery that Washington needed to rain hell on the British in Boston. Washington was rather pleased.
Drunk with confidence—and booze—after this triumph, Allen began lobbying Congress to expand the war, writing, “I will lay my life on it, that with fifteen hundred men, and a proper artillery, I will take Montreal.”14 Eager to spread the Revolution to the French Canadians, Congress agreed to a daring invasion of Canada. Washington, though not technically authorized by Congress to do so, was so enthusiastic about the plan that he sent up his own separate brigade.15
As usual, Allen was among the first to charge to the front lines of the fight. Patience not being one of his virtues, he led approximately one hundred men in a foolhardy attack on Montreal ahead of the main American force.16 Outnumbered two to one, his rogue team fought ferociously but was quickly defeated and Allen was captured. Now wise to the plans for a larger assault, the British repelled the American invasion of Canada. Allen was trapped.
British Brigadier Prescott ordered that Allen be tightly shackled and chained within the dark hull of a prison ship moored in Montreal’s harbor. Prescott was an odious character, whose large, almost serpentine eyes were suited to his oppressive disposition. He became known for his “many acts of petty tyranny,” and Allen felt the brunt of his wrath.17
Rather than languish in defeat in his dank wooden prison, however, Allen was defiant, much to his dour captor’s vexation. Choosing to “behave in a daring, soldier-like manner, that [he] might exhibit a good sample of American fortitude,” the colorful Allen challenged each of his guards to a manly fistfight as they passed by.18 While not one of them accepted his challenge, Prescott found Allen’s bravado infuriating and ordered that he be treated “with much severity.”19
The British beat Allen, deprived him of adequate water and rations, and repeatedly threatened him with hanging.20 For weeks he was held almost naked, wearing little more than the heavy iron chains that cut his wrists and weighed him to the ground.21 “I have suffered every thing short of death,” he reported.22 The large man withered as his health deteriorated. But the plucky Allen survived. Unsure of what to do with this defiant troublemaker, the British shipped him off to England, where he was imprisoned in a dark old castle in Cornwall.23 Like an exhibit at the zoo, he slept in hay infested with vermin as locals bribed guards for a peek at the giant who had taken Ticonderoga.
Everyone expected that Allen would be swiftly hanged. But when word reached Washington that Allen was “thrown into Irons and suffers all the Hardships inflicted upon common Felons,” the commander was incensed, to put it mildly.24 He felt bound by his strong sense of honor to employ all means necessary to protect Allen. And Washington was prepared to go to great lengths to save an American life.
10
Necessary Evil
In a lucky twist of fate, the Americans captured Ethan Allen’s tormentor, Brigadier Prescott, during a subsequent battle. Washington now had his bargaining chip. And he used it. He promptly contacted the new commanding British general, William Howe, who had assumed leadership
of the British forces after Parliament recalled Thomas Gage. The British government had lost faith in Gage after he had failed to finish off the colonists’ insurrection in Boston, and had transferred the reins to Howe in hopes of a speedy end to the war. Washington was now negotiating with a more sympathetic character.
General Howe was a British aristocrat who, although a capable commander, nevertheless benefitted from his family’s money and connections. His grandmother had an affair with King George I, and so his family tree—more resembling a twisted bush—positioned Howe as King George III’s illegitimate uncle. Having begun his military career as a teenager, Howe gradually rose through the ranks to achieve his current lofty rank. Now forty-seven years old, he was a brawny six feet tall, with a broad nose and black eyes that sparkled almost as much as his stellar reputation.1 While fond of merriment—“a glass and a lass” in particular—Howe also had a darker side and “suffered from the Howe family fits of gloom.”2 And he was a bit gloomy about his present appointment as well.
Ironically, Howe sympathized with the American cause, and he took up arms against the colonists only because he “was ordered, and could not refuse.”3 Even as he plotted to trounce them, he nevertheless hoped for reconciliation.
Washington was not so conciliatory, however, when he warned Howe that “whatever Treatment Colonel Allen receives; whatever fate he undergoes, such exactly shall be the Treatment and Fate of Brigadier Prescott, now in our Hands. The Law of Retaliation, is not only justifiable, in the Eyes of God and Man, but absolutely a duty, which in our present circumstances we owe to our Relations, Friends and Fellow Citizens.”4 He seemed to go beyond Congress’s resolution on the subject, which had merely “Ordered, That General Washington be directed to apply to General Howe on this matter, and desire [Prescott] may be exchanged” for Allen.5