Autographed by the author after his presentation of 25 September 2014.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Prologue : a community at war -- "A colony of aliens" : diversity, politics, and war in pre-revolutionary Lancaster, Pennsylvania -- "Divided we must inevitably fall" : war comes to Lancaster -- "A dangerous set of people" : British captives and the making of revolutionary identity -- "'Tis Britain alone that is our enemy" : German captives and the making of American identity -- "Enemies of our peace" : captives, the disaffected, and the refinement of American patriotism -- "The country is full of prisoners of war" : nationalism, resistance, and assimilation -- Epilogue : the empty barracks.
Summary
"As the Americans' principal site for incarcerating enemy prisoners of war, Lancaster stood at the nexus of two vastly different revolutionary worlds: one national, the other intensely local. Captives came under the control of local officials loosely supervised by state and national authorities. Concentrating the prisoners in the heart of their communities brought the revolutionaries' enemies to their doorstep, with residents now facing a daily war at home.Many prisoners openly defied their hosts, fleeing, plotting, and rebelling, often with the clandestine support of local loyalists... The challenge of creating an autonomous national identity in the newly emerging United States was nowhere more evident than in Lancaster, where the establishment of a detention camp served as a flashpoint for new conflict in a community already unsettled by stark ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences. Many Lancaster residents soon sympathized with the Hessians detained in their town while the loyalist population considered the British detainees to be the true patriots of the war. Miller demonstrates that in Lancaster, the notably local character of the war reinforced not only preoccupations with internal security but also novel commitments to cause and country." [from Amazon.com]
