Sunday, July 22, 2012

Servant Attends Captured Officer

On 23 July 1776, William Atlee, Chairman of the Lancaster Committee, wrote to Richard Peters, Secretary of the Board of War of the Continental Congress.  Atlee wrote that British prisoner John Brown was permitted to accompany his fellow-prisoner Captain William Goodwin from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Fredericktown, Maryland, John Brown serving as Captain Goodwin's servant.

Atlee explained, “As Captain [Thomas] Gamble experienced the like indulgence at Philadelphia, and had his servant from among the prisoners, upon signing the parole and engaging for him, and as Captain Sterling assured us the Congress would have permitted all the prisoners to have had their servants had they not absolutely refused signing the parole, we ventured to favour the application of a gentleman who was represented to us by Captain Sterling as a worth good man, with a family in a distressed situation.”

For more on parole, please visit the post here.  Captain James Stirling was the American officer who accompanied a number of British prisoner from Burlington, New Jersey to Lancaster, PA and Frederick County, Maryland.

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