Messed Up Things That Happened During The American Revolution

For many American students, the version of the American Revolution that's presented in school is pretty thoroughly sanitized and simplified. In some respects, that's necessary, as the colonial rebellion against Britain was actually pretty complicated and contained a dizzying array of different viewpoints, events, and political players. That's the stuff graduate theses are made out of, not middle school essays.

Yet, neither is it totally fair to present the American Revolution as a simple, two-dimensional battle between two sides. In fact, even a small amount of digging into the subject will show that the fraught, complex war had a pretty serious dark side. There's the standard horror of war, of course, but the war reached not only onto the battlefield, but into homes, rural communities, and even the then far-flung frontiers of colonial America. Practically everyone was affected.

Regardless of whether we're talking about British redcoats or rebellious colonial Patriots, both sides witnessed and committed some pretty messed-up things during the American Revolution.

Since revolutionary days, tarring and feathering has become somewhat mythical. For many modern readers, the idea of coating someone in hot tar, followed by a layer of loose feathers, sounds both humiliating and utterly painful. But how messed up was it, really?

First, there are no reports that tarring and feathering ever killed anyone. Yet, it could still be pretty brutal. Some people could suffer blisters from the hot tar, while an angry mob certainly wasn't above landing a few good kicks and blows during the process.

The main point of tarring and feathering was to inflict psychological suffering. A person who was subjected to the treatment was displayed for others to gawk and laugh at them. One man, a sailor named George Gailer, was tarred and feathered in 1769 for working with British customs. Afterwards, his captors reportedly took Gailer around Boston in a cart, parading him about and occasionally whipping him for three hours. Gailer clearly survived, given that he later sued a number of his attackers, but was also obviously upset over the humiliation of the incident.

By the 18th century, many European powers were quick to acknowledge that certain prisoners of war had rights. They were to be treated decently well, at least as far as the generally accepted code of conduct went. In the American Revolution, however, captured colonists were understood to be traitors. This means that their treatment varied quite a bit, sometimes veering into brutal territory. One British general even ominously said that captured Patriots were "destined to the cord" — that is, that they would surely be hanged (via The New York Times).

The issue went both ways. While Americans captured by the British could face harsh, even squalid conditions that threatened their health, some Loyalists could experience much of the same. Or, at least they said they did. In the "Asgill Affair," captured British Captain Charles Asgill was ordered executed by George Washington after Loyalists had hanged Continental Army Captain Jack Huddy. Asgill was never killed, but he later alleged that his time as a prisoner was one of very poor treatment indeed. Washington vehemently denied the assertion.

Colonial troops also reportedly fired on British and Loyalist soldiers throughout the war. Patriot soldiers in South Carolina fired upon surrendered British troops, while a 1778 mob in Georgia killed another small group who wouldn't speak out against King George III.

When a military figure in the American Revolution earns a nickname like "Bloody Ban," you know the origin story of that name has got to be pretty messed up. And for Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, it's been so notorious that his name became shorthand for brutality.

In May 1780, Tarleton was commanded to stamp out any remnants of rebellion in the colony of South Carolina. On May 29, near Waxhaws, Tarleton and his troops surrounded and defeated a group of Patriots under the command of Colonel Abraham Buford. The group, consisting of about 350 men, surrendered. After that surrender, however, British soldiers continued shooting, killing people who had already officially given up. Ultimately, 113 colonists were killed and 203 captured in the Battle of Waxhaws, compared to 19 British dead.

The event became emblematic of British brutality for the rest of the war, used by pro-Patriot sources to bolster their cause and further the perception of the British as bloodthirsty, heinous overlords. Most strikingly, it gave rise to the term "Tarleton's Quarter," a darkly ironic phrase that meant a victor would give no mercy at all but would instead vengefully kill everyone despite the rules of engagement.

If you were a rebellious colonial, undoubtedly you didn't want to be captured by the British and subject to a wide range of different conditions. During the American Revolution, some prisoners of war could be treated pretty humanely, if they were lucky and perhaps of a higher profile than the rest. But the truly unlucky would be put in prisons so harsh that the barbarity of their conditions remains notorious more than two centuries after it all happened.

The worst of the worst were the prison ships anchored near Manhattan. Rebels were more likely to die aboard one of these floating prisons than they were on the field of battle. Specifically, an estimated 11,000 people died on prison ships alone during the American Revolution. Living conditions aboard the ships were, frankly, atrocious. Prisoners were packed belowdecks, leading to overheating, the spread of disease, and criminal neglect. Some aboard the ships reported that the dead would lie amongst the living for days and, when they were finally discovered by British soldiers, would simply be tossed overboard. Nearby people in Brooklyn would sometimes recover the remains on shore and give them a proper burial.

Food was especially heinous, it seems, with meals made up of rotten, moldy ingredients and foul water drawn directly from the East River. The HMS Jersey became especially notorious for its conditions, to the point where prisoners nicknamed it, simply, "Hell."

While conditions on British prison ships could be downright horrifying, some colonists trapped there were presented with a way out. However, for many, their release from the rancid conditions came with a pretty big price — turning their back on everything they'd been fighting for.

A pretty significant portion of captured enemy combatants were actually privateers. As the emerging United States didn't yet have its own navy, the Continental Congress instead gave the go-ahead to private vessels to capture and otherwise harass British ships. When the crews of these privately-owned ships were captured, they were sometimes given a choice between serving time on a prison ship (widely rumored to be hell on earth) or joining up with the British.

Tempting as the offer may have seemed, reports indicate that few people actually became turncoats, though it wasn't always for lack of coercion aboard the prison ships. Some British representatives offered cash incentives to prospective recruits. Some abusive officers were even said to let prisoners starve in an attempt to recruit them to the British side, according to the account of Ebenezer Fox (via History), a prisoner on the HMS Jersey.

If you were a supporter of the Patriot cause but weren't necessarily interested in fighting on a battlefield or joining up with the crew of a privateer's vessel, then you might choose the home front, so to speak. After all, what danger could there be in vocally supporting the cause from your own town, at least compared to what others were risking?

Turns out, you could risk quite a lot. Take the case of Falmouth, Massachusetts (now Portland, Maine). This colonial stronghold was attacked by Royal Navy ships in 1775, which bombarded the town and destroyed over 400 buildings. To be fair, Lt. Henry Mowatt, commander of the squadron, gave the townspeople warning that he was about to attack, reading a formal notice that accused them of "unpardonable rebellion" (via the Maine Public Broadcasting Network). The attack soon became a powerful symbol for the Patriot cause. And why Falmouth, and not one of the many other settlements along the coast that were deemed just as rebellious? The weather simply made it easier for the group of ships to make it to Falmouth. 

A similar attack happened in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1779. There, 97 homes and 48 businesses were burned. Residents were offered land in Ohio, then owned by Connecticut, which came to be colorfully known as the "Fire Lands."

Though many of us now remember George Washington as a stern-looking, white haired old man on the dollar bill or the cover of American history textbooks, the real George Washington was, of course, more complicated. And, for some people, he was no noble leader or founder of a new nation. He was a devourer of villages.

Washington was initially called "Conotocarious" by Tanacharison, a leader of the Seneca tribe, itself part of the larger Iroquois Confederacy. This nickname, which translates to "town taker" or "devourer of villages," was actually first granted to Washington's great-grandfather, John Washington, who was part of an attempt to suppress a Native rebellion that left five chiefs dead — after they had already agreed to negotiate.

While George himself didn't have anything to do with his great-grandfather's misdeeds, he arguably earned the Conotocarious name later in the American Revolution. During the war, Washington gave the go-ahead to General John Sullivan to take Continental soldiers and devastate Iroquois settlements after indigenous people sided with the British. Soldiers destroyed their crops, burned down structures, took prisoners, and violated graves. Washington himself was at the forefront of the plan, telling Sullivan (via The New York Times) to make sure he accomplished "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible."

Throughout the course of the war, quite a few enslaved people living in the colonies sided with the British. That's because the British were largely seen as potential liberators, to the point where one man even renamed himself "British Freedom." For Black Americans, the Patriots were more frequently enslavers who wanted to keep them in bondage seemingly forever, to the point where they would fight a war over the matter.

The British were more amenable to freeing enslaved people, though they didn't outlaw slavery in most of their territories until 1833. Still, for many enslaved people, it must have looked far better over on the British side. That was made all the more attractive when some British officials began promising freedom for enslaved people who fought for their side.

Quite a few left for the supposed enemy, including people enslaved by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. After the war ended, they were faced with the undoubtedly depressing prospect of returning to their old lives. Both Washington and Jefferson took steps to reclaim their enslaved people in the aftermath of the Revolution.

Many sources will tell you that the winter of 1777-1778 was, for the Continental Army soldiers encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, especially bad. Yet while the winter was tough and conditions at Valley Forge that winter were brutal, so were conditions for the Continental Army in many other places. Perhaps the most messed-up thing about that season at Valley Forge was the fact that its hardships were just as bad as anything else a rebel soldier might experience.

During that winter, the soldiers were consistently hit with disease, most often contagious diseases that spread in unhygienic conditions, such as typhus, dysentery, and influenza. The men also lacked suitable clothing to protect themselves from the elements, including even shoes. And then, there were the supplies. Washington and his officers were constantly negotiating for more supplies throughout the winter, to the point where soldiers and officers alike were sent out into the countryside to scavenge or practically beg for food.

Though it's been traditionally associated with Native American attacks, the truth is that both colonists and British forces used scalping throughout the war to terrorize the other side. Or, at least, they used the threat of scalping. Nonetheless, here are some accounts from soldiers on both sides that the enemy scalped deceased combatants. Some of the more horrific stories maintain that some soldiers were scalped while still alive, while others are more vague about the type of mutilation that was said to have occurred.

There is a good chance, however, that scalping was more a horrifying rhetorical device and may not have happened nearly as often as those accounts suggest. Whether or not it actually happened on the battlefield, the idea that the enemy (either the Patriots or the British, depending on who was telling the tale) scalped others was held up as an example of their brutality. Printers went wild with the accusations, printing pamphlets and newspapers purporting to carry true accounts of scalping, with some Patriot-friendly sources clearly using stories of scalp-hunting Loyalists as a way to bolster support for the rebellion.

The stark political divides in colonial America were not only distressing from an interpersonal standpoint, but they could also grow deeply violent. Anti-Loyalist mobs menaced British sympathizers with social ostracization and physical violence, even killing some. Colonel Charles Lynch, a Virginia military man, was so notorious for his propensity to kill Loyalists that the term "lynching" supposedly comes from his actions.

Violence grew so bad that it pushed some Loyalists to flee the American colonies. Many of these refugees left the rebellious colonies for other British territories, especially the northern colonies that would become part of Canada.

British soldiers' fears of mob violence grew to considerable proportions, to the point where it played a part in the Boston Massacre. The bloody incident was precipitated by British troops arriving in 1768 Boston, a city already resistant to redcoats. By 1770, relations had grown even worse. When a young Boston man entered into an argument with a sentry in front of the Customs House, the altercation grew to involve a small group of British soldiers and a steadily growing mob of Bostonians. When someone hit a soldier, the British fired into the crowd, lending even more credence to the image of bloodthirsty British soldiers.

A secret attack is not necessarily a standout horror of war, though it's bound to be violent and potentially bloody nonetheless. Yet, one secret attack of the American Revolution proved to be yet more fodder for the perceived brutality of British soldiers.

It all happened near Paoli, Pennsylvania. There, on September 20, 1777, 5,000 British soldiers commanded by General Charles Grey descended upon encamped colonial troops. To maintain the element of surprise, the British declined to use their loud muskets and instead planned to rely on hand-to-hand weapons like their bayonets. The Americans, meanwhile, were sleeping.

The colonials, commanded by General "Mad" Anthony Wayne, lost 272 men, who were either killed outright or taken as prisoners of war. Later accounts by Americans alleged that some British soldiers killed people who had already surrendered. The "Paoli Massacre," as it came to be known, was eventually made another emblem of British outrages against Patriots. And Wayne's later charge against Stony Point, New York, recalled some of the worst elements of the attack at Paoli — Wayne's Continental soldiers also attacked at night, using only their bayonets to kill 94 enemy soldiers and capture 472 more.

Even the most scrupulously neutral and mundane people living in the colonies at the time of the American Revolution simply could not escape the war. Even if they refused to participate in battles, mob violence, or any other of the myriad ways in which people engaged with the conflict, it still could come to their very front door.

The everyday impact of the war was widespread, with military action happening from Georgia all the way to the northern reaches of New England. Both British and Continental armies moved broadly throughout that vast region, passing through settlements as densely occupied as cities and as remote as lonely single-family farms. Colonial Americans were also often confronted by the violence of nearby battles and war-induced food shortages, which put considerable pressure on even the simplest day-to-day lives.

The movement of demanding and hungry troops through the land could be especially devastating. Soldiers often took whatever they wanted, sometimes with a semi-formal requisition, sometimes not. Crops, farm animals, and even wood from buildings and fences could be fair game. So, too, could be the bodies of vulnerable family members like wives and daughters, as the rumors maintained. It got so bad that some families chose to abandon their homes and become refugees as troops approached.

The Boston Massacre took place on March 5, 1770, when a group of locals approached a young British soldier guarding the city's customs house. The area had already seen sometimes bloody clashes involving independence-minded Patriots, British soldiers, and Loyalist colonists. When the soldier called for backup against the aggressive colonists, more soldiers appeared ... and so did more colonists. 

What happened next still isn't clear, but at some point a soldier's gun discharged, either accidentally or on purpose, and other soldiers began to shoot. As the smoke cleared, five colonists were dead and a further six wounded. The soldiers were jailed and subject to a trial, where they were defended by John Adams and eventually cleared of murder charges (though two were convicted of manslaughter).

But the story didn't stop there. Relations between the colonies and Britain were already clearly bad, and the way in which this incident was framed in the aftermath hardly helped things. You may well remember Paul Revere's famous engraving of the skirmish, for instance. Revere, an avowed Patriot, produced an image that showed a bunch of bloodthirsty, snarling soldiers firing into a defenseless crowd — with no sign of weapons in the colonists' hands, unlike the reality. Perhaps ironically, Revere would be accused of using work stolen from artist Henry Pelham. Still, accompanied as it was by pamphlets, poems, and growing anger, it didn't quite matter if the print was stolen or full of disinformation.

Even before the United States was officially a thing, North American colonists were aware of the problems presented by slavery, though too many others found all manner of ways to justify the practice. Though the first known enslaved people arrived in the colonies in 1619 Virginia, and Britain began focusing on their forced transportation in the early 18th century. Some spoke out against the practice, but they were more likely to be on the fringe of social and religious belief. That is, until the rumblings of revolution grew ever louder and British legal and public opinion began to turn against the practice around the 1770s.

Some noted intellects began to snipe at the growing talk of liberty and natural rights in the colonies, supported as they were by chattel slavery. As war broke out, British forces even began to offer freedom to enslaved people, perhaps not always as much of a moral stand than an attempt to undermine the rebellious colonists, as well as boost their own numbers of support personnel (Black colonists were rarely given the chance to fight for the British). 

Meanwhile, though some Founding Fathers weren't exactly keen on the institution — Benjamin Franklin even became president of the first abolitionist group in the U.S. — others were a-okay with claiming to own people and no real progress was made on abolition for many years. George Washington even held onto his enslaved people for the rest of his life through rather shady means.

The American Revolution often seems distant because, well, it happened nearly three centuries ago. One way to bring the war into stark relief is to put yourself into the shoes of a Loyalist refugee. Some left behind striking accounts of their experience leaving their old lives behind as the war — and, quite often, their neighbors — turned against them.

This wasn't a small group of extremists, either. It's estimated that about 60,000 Loyalists left for other British outposts, bringing a further 15,000 enslaved people along with them. Whatever their reasons for staying loyal to the British crown, many left because they feared reprisals and serious violence. There were terrifying tales of mobs descending upon Loyalist homes to deliver rough justice, bad enough that many left behind close-knit communities and their livelihoods to flee. Some traveled north to Canada, while others went to British colonies farther afield or simply back to Britain itself. Some found themselves practically destitute, reliant at least for a time on food lines and other handouts to survive.

But these Loyalist refugees found things got even more complicated as time went on. That sometimes self-chosen Loyalist designation underscored the sense many had that Britain really, really owed them. And when the home country failed to live up to that expectation — namely in the form of subpar land grants and failure to remunerate refugees for financial losses — some began to feel more prickly towards the crown.

By November of 1778, the region that's now central New York state was beset by conflict as Patriot colonists, British forces, and indigenous Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) people fought for control. On November 11, another skirmish broke out as Continental Army troops occupied a fort near the village of Cherry Valley, but perhaps it's all the worse because it simply didn't need to be so bad.

Loyalist troops began an offensive that trapped the Continentals inside the garrison, while Haudenosaunee destroyed the village itself in retaliation for previous strikes against tribal settlements. The 300 or so Continentals inside were facing about 600 indigenous warriors, as well as 200 Loyalists. Some 13 to 16 Continental soldiers were killed, along with 30 civilians, while another 70 noncombatants were taken captive. In response, Washington and the Continental Congress okayed yet another round of retaliatory violence that razed over 40 Haudenosaunee settlements.

But all of this didn't need to happen, or at least not in the precise way that it went down. The patriot commander, Colonel Ichabod Alden, had been forewarned of advancing Loyalists and indigenous people, but didn't believe it and failed to prepare the garrison for such a major attack. He also reportedly refused villagers who asked to shelter their goods inside the fort. It's not clear why Alden seemed to think such an attack wouldn't happen at Cherry Valley, but he paid as dearly as anyone else by dying in the assault.

You've surely heard of Benedict Arnold, the Continental Army officer who notoriously turned traitor and is arguably one of the worst generals of the American Revolution. But he precipitated an even more complicated and terrible affair: the death of John André, the British Army major who was Arnold's contact. During the war, West Point, located north of New York City, was a strategic position held by the Continental Army and commanded by Arnold, who could easily hand it over to his new British bosses.

In September 1780, André was apprehended by colonial forces who found he held a map of West Point. He was arrested and imprisoned, though Arnold managed to escape. A board of 14 military generals decided André should be executed as a spy, yet Washington and others were almost sympathetic to André, a well-regarded man who impressed many with his manners and leadership skills. Washington even attempted a prisoner exchange in return for Arnold, but nothing came of it. 

André pled for clemency in an October 1 letter addressed to Washington, in which he wrote: "Let me hope Sir, that if ought in my Character impresses you with Esteem towards me, if ought in my Misfortunes marks me as the Victim of policy and not of resentment, I shall experience the Operation of these Feelings in your Breast by being informed that I am not to die on a Gibbet." Yet, though it's one of those things that don't necessarily make sense about the Revolutionary War, André was hanged the next day.

The American Revolution already has notorious prisons on the record, like the chillingly awful British-run prison ships in New York harbor, but that wasn't the only prisoner of war camp during the conflict that should get dubious marks for awfulness. In Connecticut, New-Gate Prison had opened in 1773, taking the place of an old copper-mining operation that had exhausted local metal deposits. At first, its semi-subterranean cells housed typical criminals, but from 1775, the imprisoned population grew to include Loyalists.

The appearance of Loyalists proved to be trouble. Some worried that political prisoners would be angrier and more ready to act than others and, judging by the 12 riots that happened between 1775 and 1782, they were absolutely right to fret. The upsets after Loyalists joined the prison population also included over 60 successful escapes and three separate conflagrations that burned parts of the prison.

Riots and burnings are hardly good stuff, especially when they include the death of at least one prison guard and multiple prisoners, but a survey of the conditions at New-Gate might give you pause. Many faced squalid living conditions underground, forced to work in mines or in a nearby nail factory, all while facing regular beatings that draw comparisons to being a prisoner at Alcatraz or worse. Though there were moments of humanity, such as when prisoners received visitors, some modern commentators have compared the harsh, high-security conditions of New-Gate with notorious modern detention centers like Guantanamo Bay.

Though there's quite a lot of talk in the Declaration of Independence about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, actually putting those concepts into practice can get complicated, and fast. Just ask any of the enslaved people who lived in the colonies at the time, including those held in bondage by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or multiple other Founding Fathers. Or you might also ask those struck by other class divisions, like soldiers.

Within the Continental Army, some noticed stark differences in how officers and rank and file soldiers were treated, be it quarters, food, or other basics. That sometimes spelled outright rebellion, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1781. There, Continental soldiers in Morristown, New Jersey, complained their enlistment contracts were being violated, centering on a tricky line that said enlistment was to be "for three years or the duration of the war." 

Three years in, some were ready to go home. Yet their officers were resisting, with some soldiers alleging that officers had lied to them. During negotiations, mutineers promised not to defect and would return if they were to be paid, clothed, and fed properly. Some earlier mutineers in a different region were reportedly only able to eat the rations discarded by their own officers. The Pennsylvania Line Mutiny ended more or less peacefully, but other such mutinies were met with far stronger resistance from higher-ups. A subsequent New Jersey Line Mutiny saw some leaders hanged on Washington's order.

While Washington may have attempted to legitimize the nascent republic by playing fair in the rules of engagement, both sides still committed war crimes. In the 1778 Old Tappan incident (also known as the Baylor Massacre), colonial soldiers in New York under the command of Colonel George Baylor were surprised by British troops, who snuck into their quarters and bayonetted them while soldiers slept. Some were apparently hastily buried, as a 1967 excavation at the massacre site found the skeletal remains of six soldiers in a large tanning vessel.

In the 1781 Battle of Groton Heights, British forces commanded by newly-turned traitor Benedict Arnold attempted to take Fort Griswold in Groton, Connecticut. The British were badly hit and one surviving commander, Colonel William Ledyard, ordered his men to stand down. American accounts say Ledyard surrendered, then was killed. Wounded Continental soldiers were reportedly murdered in retaliation. British accounts, meanwhile, have nothing to say about a massacre or exactly how Ledyard died.

The 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain in South Carolina saw over 1,000 British casualties, while a volunteer militia of colonists launched a well-coordinated offensive that saw only an estimated 90 casualties on their side. However, there are reports that captured British and Loyalist soldiers were subjected to torture and even summary execution in the field. Some referenced an earlier offensive in which British commander Banastre Tarleton reportedly gave no quarter to surrendering colonists, citing this incident as reason for their brutal revenge.

During the American Revolution, neighbors were often encouraged to turn on one another. In 1774, the First Continental Congress wrote in its 11th Article of Association that the names of those considered enemies to the cause should be "universally condemned as the enemies of American liberty; and thenceforth we respectively will break off all dealings with him or her." But it wasn't strictly the cold shoulder one might fear. Other accounts from the increasingly tense lead-up to the outbreak of war record colonists searching one another, imprisoning those they viewed as dissidents, and even occasionally turning violent.

Local community groups took this cause up with verve, such as when the Wilmington-New Hanover Safety Committee of North Carolina took up a more stringent defense of the cause in March 1775. It sought a loyalty oath to the rebel cause from locals, to the point where committee members resolved to visit all with their oath and "request their signing it, or declare their reason for refusing, [so] that such Enemies to their Country may be set forth to public View & treated with the Contempt they merit" (via Museum of the American Revolution). This was clearly meant as an intimidation tactic; those confronted with it may have recalled on-the-ground violence like tarring and feathering before delivering their oath in front of what may have felt like a group of looming home intruders.

Indigenous Americans were clearly caught in a difficult situation at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Having already faced generations of violence at the hands of colonial settlers — including George Washington's great-grandfather John, who earned the dubious title of Conotocarious, or "town devourer" for his village-destroying efforts in the 17th century — tribal members were all too easily caught up in the conflict. Even those who refused to fight could be brutally struck by violence, as evidenced by the Gnadenhutten Massacre of 1782, now often remembered as the deadliest massacre in Ohio state history.

By 1782, a group of Native American people (variously reported to be from the Lenape, Mohican, and Delaware tribes) who had converted to Christianity were living in what is now Ohio. British forces claimed that they were responsible for helping rebel Patriots, while others said that this group was somehow responsible for raids on local settlements, despite being avowed pacifists. Nevertheless, a Pennsylvania militia arrived with the intent to bring someone to account for the attacks. 

The militia convinced indigenous people to give up their arms and submit to detainment, but just a day later, the militia killed an estimated 90 villagers and burned down the village. No one ever produced evidence that the converts had anything to do with the attacks or any violence in the first place. In response, some tribes turned their back on the revolutionaries and even committed retaliatory violence against captives in their custody.

One particularly bad bout of retaliatory violence supposedly started with the murder of Loyalist militiaman Philip White. Some pinned it on New Jersey militia commander Captain Joshua "Jack" Huddy, who was captured by Loyalists in spring 1782. After a transfer to British custody and a second transfer into the hands of White's Loyalist militia commanded by Captain Richard Lippincott, Huddy was abruptly hanged on April 12, 1782.

This attempt at revenge did little else than lead to even more calls for violence. At this point, Washington stepped in and directed General Moses Hazen to randomly select a British officer to execute and tamp down the calls for further bloodshed. Captain Charles Asgill, only 19 years old, was chosen by lots. However, at this point, British forces had surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown and the war was soon to be effectively (if not officially) over. As a signatory to General Cornwallis' surrender, Washington could not have Asgill executed. Yet, there were still calls for vengeance in Huddy's name.

Washington stalled. British forces were none too happy with Lippincott and, having disavowed his militia's actions, were preparing to try the captain. Only, Lippincott's court martial saw him set free. It took the intervention of France for the Continental Congress to release Asgill alive in November 1782. After all that, Asgill later claimed the Continentals treated him poorly, further denting Washington's already battered reputation in what came to be known as the Asgill Affair.