What were prison ships in the American Revolution?

These were old, half-rotten ships no longer fit for service at sea, usually called "hulks". The British had several anchored in the East River in New York City, between Long Island and Manhattan Island. This area was called Wallabout Bay in earlier and later times, and later became the location of the US Navy's Brooklyn Navy Yard. They were rat-infested, disease ridden hell holes, where the prisoners were starved if nothing else killed them first. Conditions and treatment were extremely harsh.

The most notorious was the HMS Jersey. Thousands were crammed into her below decks spaces where there was no sunlight or fresh air, no fresh water or bathroom facilities, and few provisions for the sick or hungry. Savage mistreatment by the guards was the rule. Another notorious prison hulk was the HMS Whitby. The entire operation was brutally commanded by the vicious Provost Marshal of the city, William Cunningham.

Every morning the dead bodies of as many as eight American who had died during the night were brought topside and thrown overboard, where prevailing currents generally took them to the Brooklyn shore. There they were left to rot. For many years after the war Wallabout Bay was more often called Bleachedbones Bay. Finally in 1808 civic shame caused the good people of New York City to at last gather and bury the patriots' bones in a common vault. This collapsed decades later, and in 1873 the bones were reinterred in Fort Green Park in Brooklyn (the site of Fort Putnam during the Revolution). In 1908 the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial was erected over the crypt. There were other British prison ships in Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina in 1779 and 1780, after the British captured those cities. Conditions were about the same, but the number of men imprisoned was lower.

When the British evacuated New York City in 1783 the Jersey was abandoned in the East River, having been the prison for more than 8,000 patriots. Estimates of prisoner deaths from malnutrition, disease, flogging and other violence aboard the Jersey and the other prison hulks in the East River range from about 8,000 to 11,500. This was about three fourths of all the men imprisoned aboard them. Extermination of these men was the unofficial British policy.

The official US Department of Defense battle death toll of Americans is 4,435 (a vast undercounting) for the entire war, but the comparison gives some idea of the lethality of being confined on one of these floating nightmares.