Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence by Ken Miller (review)
- Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence by Ken Miller
On 9 December 1775, 250 men wearing the uniform of the 7th Regiment of Foot (Royal Fusiliers) tramped into the market town of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. These British soldiers came to the largest urban centre in Lancaster County to undergo confinement as prisoners of war. One hundred and thirty more Redcoats from the 26th Regiment of Foot arrived at Lancaster two days later. All these men had been captured during the ill-fated American effort to conquer Canada. The Continental Congress sent its first large batch of military prisoners to Lancaster because it lay far enough in the interior to prevent their easy recapture. The town also possessed an empty barracks to serve as a prison. An exchange freed the Redcoats in late 1776, but subsequent American victories turned Lancaster into the hub of an extensive detention system. By 1781, Continental authorities had lodged 13,000 British and German prisoners at sites scattered through the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia countryside.
In Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence, Ken Miller, an associate professor of history at Washington College, skillfully assesses that conflict’s impact on Lancaster. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, Miller weaves a compelling story of a community at war. While the author gathers many threads into his finely crafted analysis, he concentrates primarily on the process of identity formation. Miller argues that what happened at Lancaster mirrored a dilemma that confronted a new republic as it struggled to achieve independence. Having to deal with enemies placed at their doorsteps, Pennsylvanians of differing faiths and ethnic backgrounds embraced a brand of patriotism that enabled them to view each other as Americans.
Carved out of Chester County in 1729, Lancaster County filled quickly due to a steady infusion of German and Scots Irish immigrants. It counted [End Page 143] 30,000 residents by 1770, with nearly 3,000 of them living in Lancaster borough. Roughly 70 percent of the county’s families spoke German. Although English-speakers constituted a minority, they occupied a disproportionate share of local offices.
Lancaster stood close enough to the frontier to dread possible attacks by Frenchmen and Indians during the Seven Years’ War. The county’s residents resented the pacifism of Pennsylvania’s Quaker-dominated assembly, and they made increased contributions toward colonial defense. By the 1760s, some German speakers had embraced Anglicization, forging new friendships, business associations, and family connections.
The imperial crisis that eventually erupted into open rebellion accelerated the dilution of ethno-cultural differences in Lancaster County. An increasingly broad segment of the population joined in Whig resistance to British policies. The eruption of fighting in the spring of 1775 saw militia units swell with recruits and the mobilization of companies for the new Continental Army. German speakers who supported the rebellion enjoyed greater access to public office. At the same time, supporters of the Revolution moved to neutralize the Loyalists in their midst.
General George Washington’s surprise attack on Trenton, New Jersey, on 26 December 1776, prompted the Continental Congress to turn Lancaster into a detention centre once again. The 800 Hessians taken at Trenton were followed by thousands of other British and German prisoners who passed through or resided in the Lancaster area during the remainder of the war.
Initially, Whig authorities favoured benign treatment for prisoners of war. By permitting Redcoats and Hessians to mix freely with their hosts, Congress hoped that the former would become enamoured with the revolutionary cause and advertise its moral superiority. In addition, captive manpower could benefit the local economy.
This conciliatory approach garnered mixed results. Most British prisoners delighted in defying the king’s enemies. They caused disturbances, tempted fence-sitters to reaffirm British sovereignty, and staged repeated escape attempts with the connivance of local Loyalists. Such behaviour led to the Redcoats being subjected to close confinement. Tensions inspired by the proximity of what Washington called “dangerous guests...
