Abstract
British and Hessian prisoners of war were confned in Reading, Lebanon, Lancaster, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Frederick, Maryland; and Winchester, Virginia. Lancaster was the primary detention site, entertaining these “dangerous guests” almost continuously from 1775 through 1783. Ken Miller’s case study of interaction between prisoners and their reluctant Lancaster hosts is set within a thoroughly researched social history of the community and of the changes outside events—from the French and Indian War through the Revolution—brought to Lancaster.