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

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.