Prison Ships in Wallabout Bay

The British anchored decommissioned vessels in Wallabout Bay (present-day Brooklyn Navy Yard) to hold American prisoners of war. Conditions on the ships — particularly the infamous HMS Jersey — were horrific. Prisoners were packed below decks with inadequate food, water, and ventilation. Disease was rampant. The dead were buried in shallow graves along the Brooklyn shore.

An estimated 11,500 American prisoners died on the prison ships during the war — more than twice the number killed in all the battles of the Revolution combined. The prison ship dead were largely forgotten until the early nineteenth century, when their remains were reinterred at what is now the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn.