Albemarle Barracks

Albemarle Barracks was a prisoner-of-war camp for British prisoners during the American Revolutionary War.

Following General Burgoyne's defeat at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 several thousand British and German (Hessian and Brunswickian) troops of what came to be known as the Convention Army were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts. For various reasons, the Continental Congress desired to move them south. One of Congress' members offered his land outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. The remaining soldiers (some 2,000 British, upwards of 1,900 German, and roughly 300 women and children) marched south in late 1778 - arriving at the site (near Ivy Creek) in January, 1779. As the barracks were barely sufficient in construction, the officers were parolled to live as far away as Richmond, Virginia and Staunton, Virginia. The camp was never adequately provisioned, and yet the prisoners built a theater on the site. Hundreds escaped Albemarle Barracks owing to lack of an adequate number of guards.

As the British army moved northward from the Carolinas in late 1780, the remaining prisoners were moved to Frederick, Maryland, Winchester, Virginia, and perhaps elsewhere.

Albemarle Barracks was located northwest of downtown Charlottesville, around "Ivy Farms." No remains of the encampment site are left. What is believed to be the site is now private property, Barracks Farm. Drive west of Charlottesville on Barracks Road to Barracks Farm Road. The Albemarle County Historical Society erected a marker in 1982 on Ivy Farm Drive - a couple of hundred yards from where this road separates from Barracks Farm Road (north side of the road in a residential front yard). The spot marks the location of several graves found when the land was developed for residential use.

"Note: in spring of 2006, the marker was almost totally obscured by the twin boxwoods growing on either side."

Further reading

* "The Magazine of Albemarle County History" Volume 41 (1983) "The Story of the Convention Army."

External links

* [http://www.albemarlehistory.org/ Albemarle County Historical Society]