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The Convention Troops
The surrender of General John Burgoyne to General Gates at Saratoga, NY, on October 18, 1777,
placed nearly 6,000 British, Hessian, and Canadian prisoners of war in the hands of the
Continental Congress, then in session at York, Pennsylvania. An official report states that
5,800 troops surrendered at Saratoga, of which there were 2,400 Hessians and the remainder were
British citizens. According to the terms of their surrender, written in a document entitled the
“Convention of Saratoga,” the prisoners were to be marched to Boston, and shipped
back to Great Britain. If any of the prisoners desired to remain in America, they were permitted
to escape.
When the prisoners of war arrived at Boston, they were quartered on winter and Prospect Hills.
Congress, wanting to ensure that none of the officers returned to the battlefield, asked that
General Burgoyne write a descriptive list of each of the officers under his command. This request
was not specified in the Convention of Saratoga, and General Burgoyne became personally offended
and refused to heed the request. On the 8th of January 1778, Congress resolved to suspend the
terms of the Convention of Saratoga, and kept the prisoners in custody.
After remaining in Boston for the winter, the decision was made to relocate the prisoners to
Charlottesville, Virginia, where they could be more closely watched and better supplied. It was
not until November 1, 1778, that General William Philips marched the prisoners southward. Many
of the British officers had their wives and children with them, and wagons were provided for their
transportation, but the men had to march on foot. They traveled through Lancaster and York, PA
in December of the same year, and finally reached Charlottesville, 700 miles from Boston, in
January 1779.
They constructed a rectangular camp there, but in 1780 General Philips became a traitor to the
colonies, and joined with General Benedict Arnold and the British army. The Continental Congress,
fearing that General Philips would soon release his prisoners and have them rejoin the battle,
immediately ordered that the prisoners in Charlottesville be relocated to the north, to Fort
Frederick, in western Maryland. The march northward began in October 1780, and they reached
Frederick soon afterward. The march was along what is now the Appalachian Trail, and the horrid
conditions of a winter march in the mountains caused many to die during the relocation.
Congress then ordered the prisoners to be moved again, this time into the heart of well-controlled
Pennsylvania. There were by this time about 3,000 of Burgoyne’s officers and men held. Joseph
Reed, then President of Pennsylvania, objected to the number of prisoners being brought into his
state. In response to his objection, the Board of War asserted that Congress would not change
its decision and that Pennsylvania must begin looking for a suitable site to house these prisoners.
At the same time, Governor Thomas Lee of Maryland wrote to President Reed, to inform him that
Governor Thomas Jefferson of Virginia had told him that the British that had been captured at
Cowpens, South Carolina, were also on their way to Pennsylvania and the British prisoners at the
town of Frederick, 800 in number, were also being relocated to York.
Although President Reed again protested about being the main location for the British prisoners in
the country, Congress would not budge. The British prisoners began to reach Lancaster, PA in early
June 1781, and were quartered at the Lancaster Barracks there and on the village green. On June 30,
1781, President Reed was instructed to separate the men, and move the Hessian troops to Reading and
the British to a camp near York.
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