Public announcement: Funeral for American Revolutionary War Soldiers

2006a-276

Public announcement: Funeral for American Revolutionary War Soldiers

Historic Event

Black framed announcement of the "Arrangement for the Grand and Solemn Funeral Procession which is to take place on the 26th of May inst. 1808, at interment of the remains of eleven thousand five hundred American Seamen, Soldiers and Citizens, who suffered martyrdom on board the Jersey and other British prison ships, in the harbor of New York, during the American Revolution...." According to Bob Randal, Military Historian and Vice President of the Historical Society, in the early days of the Revolutionary War the American militia comprised very untrained, ordinary men from the age of 16 to 60 who were, if not killed by the British, taken prisoners. Because there were so few British soldiers taken prisoner there was little hope of an exchange of prisoners. These 11,500 men were put on a ship hulk in the harbor of New York City. They were there until they died a horrible death of either freezing, of hunger, thirst, or heat. Some years after this brutality in the Revolutionary War there was a funeral procession for their remains. These men were unknown.
This artifact is currently on display in the south Vestibule of the Historical Society building.

Document

38.1 x 45.7 cm (15 x 18 in)

1808-05-26

Worthington Historical Society

2006-08-24

Paper

swu

Publication - Poster, Announcemnt "Arrangement for the Grand and Solemn Funeral Procession"

Worthington Library Rice Room

2007-03-27

2012-12-05

On Display

Public announcement: Funeral for American Revolutionary War Soldiers

Paper