"The Disagreeable Situation in between the Civil in the Military": Prisoners of War and Local Governance in the American Revolution

Abstract: This article examines the administration of British-allied prisoners by civil and military authorities during the American Revolution. It focuses on how revolutionary governments echoed private and provincial interests regarding prisoners in the early years of the war, 1775-1777, before the establishment of the Department of Prisoners. Elias Boudinot, who served as the first United States commissary general of prisoners, attempted to centralize and standardize prisoner administration during his tenure. The dissolution of committees of safety and provisional colonial governments that amplified popular Patriot sentiment aided this effort, shrinking the number of legal avenues through which early Americans could pursue their interests relative to prisoner populations. However, despite the shift to constitutional rule, inhabitants in and around detention centers used extralegal means of influencing prisoner allowances for the remainder of the war. These private interests coupled with state interests, created as a byproduct of the creation and reform of state governments, to hinder the efforts of Boudinot and the Department of Prisoners. The misalignment of private, state, and continental interests with respect to prisoners during the war created civil-military tensions.