Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War

(Paperback)

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Description

Between 1775 and 1783, some 200,000 Americans took up arms against the British Crownof them about 25,000 became prisoners of war. In the British prison ships of New York, captives were chronically underfed, while multitudes died of disease in fetid, cramped cells. The exact death toll cannot be known, but the evidence suggests that as many as 18,000 Americans died while incarceratedmore than twice as many as died on the battlefield. Drawing on a vast array of diaries, personal narratives, and private correspondence, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Edwin G. Burrows offers in Forgotten Patriots the first complete history of this ghastly and unacknowledged tragedy of the American Revolution.

Reviews

"Washington Post Book World"
"[A] pathbreaking examination of the treatment of American prisoners during the Revolutionary War... Burrows's book is a landmark whose significance far outweighs recent, popular biographies of the Founding Fathers. His sparkling prose, meticulous research and surprising findings recast our understanding of how the new nation was brought forth... Burrows masterfully explores a subject that had been left nearly untouched for more than two centuries."

"Seattle Times"
"[Burrows] offers riveting accounts of what prison life was like in New York...It is as if, more than 200 years later, fitting tribute has finally been paid."

Author Bio

Edwin G. Burrows is Distinguished Professor of History at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He is the co-author of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, which won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History, and has received awards also from the Municipal Art Society, the St. Nicholas Society, and the New York Society Library, among others. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani named him a Centennial Historian of New York." For the past five years Burrows has been a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, and he serves on the board of the Dyckman Farmhouse Museum in Manhattan. He lives in Northport, New York.