Hessian Prisoners of War - Where to send them?
From the start of the Saratoga campaign in June 1777 until the October 17 surrender, the Americans had taken 731 British and Hessian prisoners of war. In the intervals between the major battles, there was constant skirmishing and taking of prisoners until a cease-fire was negotiated on October 13. In addition, on October 8 after the Battle of Bemis Heights, Burgoyne moved his camp and abandoned his field hospital leaving behind over 300 wounded soldiers and medical staff. All became American General Gates’ prisoners and were then moved to the hospitals in Albany and Schenectady.
It was clear by early October that Burgoyne’s surrender was imminent. General Gates was then facing the prospect of dealing with Burgoyne’s entire army as prisoners of war on top of the prisoners and deserters already being dealt with. The two jails in Albany were of limited capacity. Even as early as August 12, 1777 officials with the Commissary General of Prisoners of the Continental Army were concerned about the lack of secure locations in New York State to house POWs. There were no good options nearby to keep many prisoners. Gates, it seems, was under pressure to place prisoners wherever he could.
Hessian Prisoners to Schoharie
This early in the war, lack of coordination and cooperation on the part of American officials in charge of POW’s may have contributed to the problem of finding places to secure prisoners. George Washington’s first Commissary General of Prisoners for the Continental Army was Elias Boudinot, appointed in May 1777. Boudinot appointed John Adam (not the president) as his deputy for New York State. Meanwhile, Major General Gates, apparently impatient with the Continental Army bureaucracy, appointed Daniel Hale to deal with POW’s taken by his Northern Army. By October 1777 Hale was busily finding places to “dispose” of prisoners of war, probably at Gates’ direction.
There must have been a sense of urgency as the surrender of Burgoyne neared, bringing with it thousands more POW’s. John Adam, Deputy Commissary General of Prisoners for the Continental Army, having met with Gates in Albany on October 24, wrote to his superior, Boudinot, and said that Daniel Hale had been orchestrating prisoner movements, with at least some directly to Schoharie.
“…the British prisoners of war were sent down/who were in health/ to New England, the Hessians to Schoary [sic] up the Mohawk River, amongst the Dutch…”
In this letter, John Adam would be referring to Hessian prisoners taken before Burgoyne’s surrender because those men would have been under his jurisdiction as Deputy Commissary General of Prisoners. The rest of Burgoyne’s troops who surrendered October 17 were handled totally separately from other POW’s and were marched to Massachusetts according to the unique terms negotiated by Gates and Burgoyne.
Gates’ Orders
John Adam’s letter to Boudinot is evidence that some Hessians ended up in Schoharie by military orders and not voluntarily. More evidence for this is found in Revolutionary War pension applications of Schoharie Patriots. Private Nicholas Zeh of the Schoharie Valley community of Breakabeen states this in his 1842 affidavit about his 1777 Revolutionary War service in Captain Christian Brown’s Company:
“…some Germans belonging to Burgoyne’s army had been taken prisoners, and he, the said applicant (Zeh) with the company to which he belonged went to escort eighty-five of them from Albany to Schoharie [sic] and that he formed a part of such escort. That the prisoners were there placed out among the farmers.”
Other accounts have mentioned POW movements to Schoharie and prisoners hired out on farms in the Albany area.
It is important to note that in early October 1777, local men of the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys were being called to leave their farms as the militias were ordered out to assist General Gates at Saratoga and in the defense of Albany. And many men of the Valleys had also left their farms vacant to join the British ranks as Loyalists. At the same time, help was needed to move grain from these fertile valleys to Saratoga to keep the massive American Northern Army supplied with food. No evidence has so far been uncovered that shows the Schoharie Committee of Safety was consulted or notified before prisoners were sent to them. The question remains as to how comfortable Schoharie residents were with enemy POWs in their midst, yet we do know that some Schoharie residents came to value their relationships with these German prisoners because the locals vouched for some when they sought permission to stay in Schoharie in 1778. The Horatio Gates Papers reveal that even several weeks after Burgoyne’s surrender, Gates was still finding places for some Hessian prisoners. Two lists of “German prisoners” are designated as being ordered to Tryon County, which at that time encompassed practically the entire Mohawk Valley.
Prisoners Turned Deserters – The Convention Army
The Saratoga surrender agreement or “Convention” negotiated by Major General Gates and Lt. General Burgoyne was carried out on October 17, 1777. According to the agreement, Burgoyne’s remaining men, 2442 British and 2198 German, were to be marched as prisoners of war to Boston where they would be paroled and sent back to Europe, agreeing not to engage in the Revolutionary conflict again. They indeed marched to the Boston area but were not paroled until years later when the war ended simply because the Continental Congress could not stomach the lenient terms of the Convention that Gates had granted to Burgoyne. These prisoners, known as the “Convention Army” were held by the Americans for the rest of the war and marched during that time over several states where POW barracks were constructed. Each march and POW facility was another opportunity for escape, parole for work, and desertion. Many Hessians deserted on their first march from Saratoga to Massachusetts in October-November 1777. There is evidence that some of these Convention Army deserters also found their way to the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys.
Summary
Several factors during the latter part of the British Saratoga campaign in September and October 1777 contributed to the movement of some of Burgoyne’s Hessian troops to the largely German communities of the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys. Prisoners or deserters, some surely were not welcomed and left the valleys leaving little trace in the local historical record. We know others managed to stay and somehow fit in. We know this because they and their descendants have left a mark on the history of the Mohawk and Schoharie Valleys.
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