establishing regular patrols, clearing the Bay of privateers,
and protecting merchantmen trading in the West Indies.

[44] Gardner W. Allen, A Naval of the American Revolution, 2
volumes (Boston, 1913), I, 40-41.

By January 1779 the British army came into Piedmont Virginia in a totally
unexpected manner. Congress declared the "convention" (treaty of
surrender) by which Burgoyne had surrendered his troops at Saratoga to be
faulty and ordered some 4,000 Hessian and British soldiers imprisoned in
Albemarle County. Settled along Ivy Creek, the prisoners, mostly Germans,
lived in hastily built huts generously called "The Barracks". Several of
their chief officers, among them Baron de Riedesel and General William
Phillips, lived in comfort and close contact with their near neighbor,
Governor Jefferson. Phillips was shortly exchanged and went to New York.
The conditions under which the troops lived steadily deteriorated,
although the prisoners were so inadequately guarded that hundreds walked
away. In November 1780 Governor Jefferson concluded that the convention
troops should be moved from Virginia to get them away from invading
British troops. The British troops moved first toward Frederick,
Maryland, with the Hessians following. Again many of the prisoners
drifted off into the forests never reaching Frederick.

Black Virginians in the Revolution

One particularly difficult question for the government was whether to
utilize the black population in the military. Only a few thousand of the
nearly 230,000 black residents were free men. The remainder were slaves.
There was a constant fear that arming free blacks would incite their
slave brethren to revolt. This fear was strongest in 1775-1776 when
Dunmore had encouraged slaves to flee their masters and join his troops.
Although Dunmore's black troops numbered only several hundred nearly
10,000 slaves fled Virginia during the war. Most did not better their
lot, ending up as slaves in the West Indies. Many did get to Nova Scotia
where they lived as free men in the large loyalist colony there. Others
settled in the British West African colony of Sierra Leone.

Negro troops were present at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, and in the
ranks of Washington's first Continentals. Quickly, however, under
pressure from southern colonies, notably South Carolina, Congress adopted
a policy of excluding blacks from further enlistment in the Continental
Army. Although most sta