The "Saving Captain Asgill - One Lucky Guy" Story

Lancaster, Pennsylvania's LNP

It was an ordinary day.  The morning headline on the front page of the "Living" section of my local newspaper looked very familiar.  It read "CAPT. ASGILL's STORY."  Now where did I see that before.  Then it hit me.  A month or so ago I received my Winter 2019 mailing from Lancaster County's Historical Society.  The publication that they send a few times a year to it's members is called "The Journal" and has been published in Lancaster since 1896.  I grabbed my latest mailing and there it was on the cover.  A story titled "Saving Captain Asgill" which was written by local historians Anne Amundsen and Martha Abel.  

Lancaster County Historical Society's
quarterly booklet.

Many times the publication will feature several different stories, but the latest issue is totally dedicated to Captain Asgill.  So...just who is this Captain Asgill?  Asgill was a nineteen year old British army officer who became a prisoner of war following the Revolutionary War battle at Yorktown, Virginia in late 1781.  About half a year later New Jersey militiaman and privateer Joshua Huddy, accused of complicity in the death of a Loyalist farmer is hanged by Loyalist forces.  This didn't sit well with General George Washington who wrote a letter to General Moses Hazen who oversaw the prisoner-of-war barracks in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  

This long building was used as military
stables during the Revolution.  On the
opposite side of the street stood the
Barracks where British and Hessians
were imprisoned during that period.

Washington asked Hazen to choose a British officer to be executed in retribution for Huddy's death.  The drawing of the name for the execution was done in downtown Lancaster at the Black Bear tavern.  Captain Charles Asgill's name was selected and he was to be hanged in retribution for the death of Huddy.  Asgill was taken to a prisoner-of-war camp in New Jersey where he was kept for months, knowing that at any time he might be hanged.  During that time his mother, as well as the French government, plead with Washington to spare the life of the British officer.  On November 7, 1782, the Continental Congress ordered General George Washington to free the British soldier.  The following month he returned to England.  On November 16, 1786 an article appeared in the New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine.  The article, written by General Washington's aide-de-camp, David Humphreys, defends Washington in his oversight of the treatment given to Captain Asgill while in custody after he was selected to be hanged.  

An artists conception of Lancaster's Market Square in 1782.  #1 is the
Black Bear Tavern, #2 is the former open-air market, #3 is the site
of the front-half of today's Central Markethouse.

Then on December 20, 1786, Asgill wrote a letter to the New-Haven Gazette disputing Humphrey's account of his treatment while in captivity.  Seems that original letter found it way to the trash at the Gazette.  Two years later Asgill is appointed Equerry to King George III's son, the Duke of York, a position he would hold until he died.  In 1797 Charles Asgill is named a brigadier general.  

The following year, during the Irish Rebellion against British rule, Brig. Gen. Asgill spares the life of a condemned Irish prisoner after Asgill's wife pleaded for the prisoner's life to be spared.  She remembered when her husband had the same sentence on his head in America.  On July 23, 1823 Asgill dies and is buried in St. James's Church, Picadilly.  Almost 200 years later, Anne Ammundsen, a resident of Britain, learns she is related to Asgill and begins doing research into his life.  Six years after that she somehow obtains a copy of Captain Asgill's letter he had written to the New-Haven Gazette, but which was never published.  Then in 2011 her article about the Asgill Affair is published in a British history publication.  In May of 2019 she made a visit to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to visit sites related to her late relative, Captain Asgill.  

Photograph of Lancaster's Central Market
which is the red building, direct center.
This would have been the location of the
Black Bear Tavern.

During those visits she worked with local historians, one being Lancaster History library and research assistant Martha Abel.  Finally, after all those years, then Captain Charles Asgill, finally had his letter published...in "The Journal" that I am holding in my hand. Captain Charles Asgill's letter is seven pages long and titled "The Asgill Letter"; and I am sorry to say that it is too lengthy to publish here.  Besides being too lengthy, it is very hard to understand, since the punctation, spelling and readability are very poor.  And, that's after being transcribed by Lancaster History's archives department under the direction of Katie Fichtner.  He does contribute the delay of his execution, and thus his later release, to Sir Guy Carleton who "soothed" General Washington toward the idea of being released.  He pointed out that the 14th Article of the Capitulation says "that no Article of this Capulation made at York Town shall be infringed on pretext of Reprisal."  

Lancaster's center city showing the Court House in
the center of town.  The Black Bear Tavern would
have been to the right of the courthouse.

After making a few other points towards his release he says he will go no further into the discussion of the injustice of my confine- ment.  He complained of many people viewing him who were constantly drinking in a public house.  He thought he should have been placed in a private house in a small village.  And he complains that it took five days before General Washington told him of the letter telling him of his release.  The letter can be found in it's entirety in the Winter 2019 issue of "The Journal of Lancaster County's Historical Society.  You may order a copy, such as I have, by visiting bit.ly/lhjournal.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.