The Convention Army was an army of British

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 and allied troops captured after the Battles of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

.

Convention of Saratoga

On October 17, 1777, British General John Burgoyne

John Burgoyne

General John Burgoyne was a British army officer, politician and dramatist. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several battles, mostly notably during the Portugal Campaign of 1762....

 surrendered his army according to terms negotiated with American General Horatio Gates

Horatio Gates

Horatio Lloyd Gates was a retired British soldier who served as an American general during the Revolutionary War. He took credit for the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga – Benedict Arnold, who led the attack, was finally forced from the field when he was shot in the leg – and...

 following the October 7 Battle of Bemis Heights. The terms were titled the Convention of Saratoga, and specified that the troops would be sent back to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 after giving a parole that they would not fight again in the conflict.

Cambridge

A total of about 5,900 British

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

, German

Germans in the American Revolution

Ethnic Germans served on both sides of the American Revolutionary War. Many supported the Loyalist cause and served as allies of Great Britain, whose King George III was also the Elector of Hanover...

, and Canadian troops surrendered at Saratoga. Under guard by John Glover's troops, they were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, where they arrived on November 8. The rank and file were quartered in crude barracks that had been constructed during the 1775 siege of Boston

Siege of Boston

The Siege of Boston was the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War, in which New England militiamen—who later became part of the Continental Army—surrounded the town of Boston, Massachusetts, to prevent movement by the British Army garrisoned within...

, while most of the officers were billeted in houses. The army ended up spending about one year in Cambridge, while negotiations concerning its status took place in military and diplomatic channels. During this year, about 1,300 prisoners escaped, often because they became involved with local women while working on farms in the area.

The Continental Congress

Continental Congress

The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....

 ordered Burgoyne to provide a list and description of all officers to ensure that they would not return. When he refused, Congress revoked the terms of the Convention, resolving in January 1778 to hold the army until King George

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

 ratified the convention, an act they believed unlikely to happen, as it represented an acknowledgment of American independence.

Virginia

In November 1778, the Convention Army began marching south 700 miles (1,100 km) to Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...

, arriving in uncharacteristically snowy weather in January 1779. Approximately 600 men escaped during the march. They were held at the hastily and poorly constructed Albemarle Barracks

Albemarle Barracks

Albemarle Barracks was a prisoner-of-war camp for British prisoners during the American Revolutionary War.Following Gen. John Burgoyne's defeat at the Battle of Saratoga, in 1777, several thousand British and German troops, of what came to be known as the Convention Army, were marched to...

 until 1781.

During the army's years in Virginia it had an important economic impact on the Blue Ridge

Blue Ridge Mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southern-most...

 area of Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. The Virginia troops assigned to guard duty were generally better fed and equipped than any other forces, so that prisoner letters would reflect a strong Continental Army

Continental Army

The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...

. Money sent by the prisoner's families in Britain and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 provided a lot of hard currency

Hard currency

Hard currency , in economics, refers to a globally traded currency that is expected to serve as a reliable and stable store of value...

 and coin for the back-country area. The presence of the POWs created new demands for food and other goods - items for which they had to pay steep prices. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 estimated that the presence of the prisoners increased the area's circulating currency by at least $30,000 a week.

High ranking officers, and sometimes their wives, such as the Major General Riedesel

Baron von Riedesel

Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, Freiherr zu Eisenbach was the commander of a regiment of soldiers from the Duchy of Brunswick among the German units hired by the British during the American War of Independence...

 and his wife

Frederika Charlotte Riedesel

Frederika Charlotte Louise von Massow, Baroness Riedesel zu Eisenbach was the wife of General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel of Brunswick. She accompanied him during the Saratoga Campaign in the American Revolutionary War and kept a journal of the campaign.-Early life:Frederika was born in 11 July 1746...

 and Major General William Phillips were sought as guests on the social scene. The rank-and-file, however, dealt with miserable living conditions as the small amount of money appropriated to build the barracks proved inadequate. "Each barrack," observed Lieutenant August Wilhelm Du Roi, "is 24 feet long, and 14 feet wide, big enough to shelter 18 men. The construction is so miserable that it surpasses all that you can imagine in Germany of a very poorly built log house. It is something like the following: Each side is put up of 8 to 9 round fir trees, which are laid one on top the other, but so far apart that it is almost possible for a man to crawl through ... The roof is made of round trees covered with split fir trees..." And then, "a great number of our men preferred to camp out in the woods, where they could protect themselves better against the cold than in the barracks."

In 1781, when British forces became active in Virginia, the army was again moved, this time being marched north to Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster is a city in the south-central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lancaster County and one of the older inland cities in the United States, . With a population of 59,322, it ranks eighth in population among Pennsylvania's cities...

. Except for specific officer exchanges, they were held there until 1783. When the war formally ended, those who survived the forced marches and camp fever

Fever

Fever is a common medical sign characterized by an elevation of temperature above the normal range of due to an increase in the body temperature regulatory set-point. This increase in set-point triggers increased muscle tone and shivering.As a person's temperature increases, there is, in...

s were sent home.