Washington's POW Problem

By T. Cole Jones

Prisoners of war are universally problematic. At the most basic level, they present their captors with a series of logistical difficulties—they have to be housed, fed, clothed, and treated for any wounds or ailments. Once confined, they must be securely guarded to prevent escape and to protect the local civilian population. Predictably, it does not take long for POWs to become burdensome.

The problem of POWs doesn’t end with logistics. If allegations of mistreatment emerge, prisoners become pawns in a struggle for the moral high ground between the belligerent powers. In the ensuing propaganda war, unsettling questions often emerge. Where does the line between POW end and enemy detainee stand? What constitutes legitimate enhanced interrogation versus sadistic torture? Can there be negotiation for prisoner release without legitimizing the enemy’s cause? We are all too familiar with these questions in the 21st century, but they were equally pressing and thorny in the 18th.

When he took command of the Continental Army in June 1775, George Washington had a clear idea about how to treat British POWs. He had served with the British army during the French and Indian War and was well-read in military history. Thus, Washington knew the strict code of conduct, known as the laws of war, that had developed in Europe over the past century for the express purpose of limiting the violence of warfare and protecting prisoners. Once surrendered, an enemy combatant merited mercy and humane treatment according to his military rank and social station.

Officers, as gentlemen, could offer their parole of honor to not engage in hostile actions while prisoner, and thus return to their own homes to await an exchange for an officer of equal rank. Enlisted prisoners were not so fortunate, but even common soldiers could expect adequate food, housing, and the promise of a quick release through an exchange for prisoners in enemy custody.

Washington wrongly assumed that his British adversaries would follow these rules, but to the ministry in London, disloyal American colonists were nothing more than rebels, and traitors. Throughout the 18th century, Britain’s military had put down rebellions by force around the globe, and this uprising would be no different. The British would deny American captives prisoner-of-war status for the remainder of the war. Although the British declined to execute the men for treason, American POWs endured years of miserable captivity in disease-infested jails and prison ships on both sides of the Atlantic. Historians estimate that as many as 18,000 POWs may have perished in British hands: more than all of the American battlefield fatalities of the war combined.

Washington was determined not to follow the negative British example. He believed that Americans had to demonstrate to the world that they were a civilized people who were being oppressed by barbaric British tyranny. The mistreatment of American prisoners was just one more example of Britain’s descent into savagery. When he captured more than 900 Hessians at Trenton in 1776, Washington ordered that they not be harmed or even plundered by his troops. The men were shuttled off to a comfortable captivity in Pennsylvania, where they were allowed to work for local farmers for wages instead of idling away in jails.

Washington’s policy of humanitarianism, however, soon came under fire from his superiors in Congress and from the American populace at large. Infuriated by continual British abuses, angry Revolutionaries wanted to know why America’s limited resources were being spent to care for their captured oppressors? The Revolutionary press castigated the British as barbarians and demanded retribution. After all, even the European rules of war allowed for proportional retaliation in cases of blatant abuse. How long could Americans be expected to turn the other cheek?