Camp Security: British Prisoners of the Revolution

In seventeen eighty-one, the Continental Army built a prison camp less than a mile from here to hold British troops who had surrendered to General Gates at Saratoga, New York, along with their families. Later arrivals included prisoners taken at Yorktown, Virginia. The camp was made up of log huts enclosed within a large stockade and guarded by militia and Continental troops.

It operated until seventeen eighty-three, when the American Revolution ended and the prisoners were released. The site was largely lost to memory until archaeological excavations confirmed its exact location. Camp Security was a reminder that even in a war fought on the frontier, someone had to manage the human machinery of surrender.