Hell on the East River: British Prison Ships in the American Revolution

Glorious names like Concord, Saratoga, Valley Forge and Yorktown still ring proudly in American history and are universally recognized.  Far fewer people have heard of Wallabout Bay on the Brooklyn shore of the East River or know the terrible story of American sailors who were imprisoned there on wretched hulks like the Jersey.  Probably more Americans died there than in all the battles of the War for Independence.

Hell on the East River uses the prisoners’ own accounts to describe the agony of imprisonment, analyzes the number of deaths, examines the reason for the tragedy, and describes the 100-year struggle to erect the present Prison Ship Martyrs’ monument in Fort Green Park, Brooklyn.