Conquering an Unforgiving Countryside: How America’s Environment Shaped Confining Prisoners of War in the American Revolution

• In Event: War and Environmental History

Abstract

This paper addresses the question how America’s immense wilderness and geographical space shaped prisoners of wars’ confinement during the American Revolution. An examination of British Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s army’s unexpected incarceration in rural Charlottesville, Virginia, reveals how for the first time large numbers of prisoners adapted to their environment and in the process created a productive farming community. The paper argues that nearly four thousand prisoners of war known as the Convention Army utilized Virginia’s countryside to construct their own community and survive within a harsh environment. For nearly two years, the prisoners more than their captors worked to sustain their encampment known as Camp Albemarle by practicing a wide range of agrarian techniques and using the area’s natural resources. Historians who have examined the prisoners’ captivity at Camp Albemarle have largely focused on the captives’ hardships and not how the immense rural environment shaped their incarceration and experiences. A close reading of the correspondence and journals of the Convention Army captives and their captors reveals the limitations of the revolutionary government and how prisoners of war can change their confinement environment in wartime.

Author

• Sean Halverson, Alabama A&M University