Napolitanic Wars
11-20-2011, 11:31 AM
I didn't know about this holiday and I'm glad The Daily Show did a segment on it recently:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-17-2011/happy-evacuation-day
Following the American Revolution, Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the last vestige of British authority in the United States — its troops in New York — departed from Manhattan. The last shot of the American Revolutionary War was reported to be fired on this day, as a British gunner on one of the departing ships fired a cannon at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor (the shot fell well short of the shore).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_Day_%28New_York%29
During the war, at least 16 hulks, including the infamous HMS Jersey, were placed by British authorities in the waters of Wallabout Bay off the shores of Brooklyn, New York as a place of incarceration for many thousands of American soldiers and sailors during about 1776–83. Over 10,000 of these prisoners died from intentional neglect. Their corpses were often tossed overboard, though sometimes they were buried in shallow graves along the eroding shoreline. Many of the remains became exposed or washed up and were recovered by local women over the course of following years, later to be interred nearby in the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene Park, once the scene of a portion of the Battle of Long Island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War
http://74.91.157.229/images/jersey.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2mEOemJmE7E/SSXSuYqmAlI/AAAAAAAAAEw/BhCgvBg8Elk/s400/evac-flag-vanarsdale.jpg
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-17-2011/happy-evacuation-day
Following the American Revolution, Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the last vestige of British authority in the United States — its troops in New York — departed from Manhattan. The last shot of the American Revolutionary War was reported to be fired on this day, as a British gunner on one of the departing ships fired a cannon at jeering crowds gathered on the shore of Staten Island, at the mouth of New York Harbor (the shot fell well short of the shore).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_Day_%28New_York%29
During the war, at least 16 hulks, including the infamous HMS Jersey, were placed by British authorities in the waters of Wallabout Bay off the shores of Brooklyn, New York as a place of incarceration for many thousands of American soldiers and sailors during about 1776–83. Over 10,000 of these prisoners died from intentional neglect. Their corpses were often tossed overboard, though sometimes they were buried in shallow graves along the eroding shoreline. Many of the remains became exposed or washed up and were recovered by local women over the course of following years, later to be interred nearby in the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument at Fort Greene Park, once the scene of a portion of the Battle of Long Island.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War
http://74.91.157.229/images/jersey.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2mEOemJmE7E/SSXSuYqmAlI/AAAAAAAAAEw/BhCgvBg8Elk/s400/evac-flag-vanarsdale.jpg