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The Dartmoor Prison Massacre occurred on the evening of April 6, 1815, in HM Prison Dartmoor, after British prison guards opened fire on American prisoners of war. It resulted in 59 casualties, including nine deaths. The prisoners were captured during the War of 1812, and the massacre was met with much disdain by

Incident
At around 6:00pm on April 6, 1815, In the chaos, approximately 100 inmates had gathered out in the square. Shortland then ordered the guards to open fire on the group of prisoners. Shortland’s order was met with reluctance, at which point he took a musket from one of his men and opened fire himself. The ensuing gunfire saw the

The total casualties in the massacre amounted to fifty wounded and nine dead (prisoners). John Haywood, Joseph Johnson, William Leverage, James Mann, and John Washington all died on the day of the massacre. James Campbell and Thomas Jackson passed away from their wounds the following day, April 7. The final two deaths, John Gray and John Roberts, occurred in the following weeks due to infection associated with the wounds they suffered during the massacre.

Some reports suggest that Captain Thomas George Shortland, the agent in charge of the prisoners at the time of the massacre, believed there to be a plot to escape the prison. This is said to have influenced his orders on April 6. However, owing to the polarising nature of the event, the extent of Captain Shortland’s responsibility for what culminated on during the massacre is unclear.

Aftermath
In the direct aftermath of the Dartmoor Massacre, there were three prominent, coexisting factors: the US press seeking to continue inflammatory rhetoric towards the British; Dartmoor Prisoners seeking to voice their experience; and both United States and United Kingdom diplomats seeking to remove the Massacre from public discourse. This diplomatic effort comes in the context of seeking to secure negotiations of the Treaty of Ghent.

Public Reaction in the United States
Public reaction to the Massacre in the United States, as represented through its reporting in the press, was defined by an increase in both commemoration and nationalist rhetoric throughout the direct aftermath of the War of 1812.(1) This nationalist sentiment was generated largely through the press’ continued ‘inflamed rhetoric’ of ‘the cruel and barbarous British “other”.(2) A commonality between these publications was the effort to attribute sole blame for the Massacre on the British officers, whilst simultaneously depicting the American prisoners as victims of poor conditions. This nationalist rhetoric was not limited to the press, but also a topic used in poltical speeches. Future North Carolina Congressmen William B. Shepard, for example, spoke of the Massacre to more broadly criticise the English and defend the actions of the prisoners:

‘(the) disregard of life, when robbed of liberty so congenial to an American, excites them to resist (the British) whom neither principles of honor could reform, or the appeals of humanity soften’.(3)

United States Soldiers
Personal memoirs, letters and illustrations from United States soldiers within Dartmoor provided the greatest insight into the effort to attache their experience of the Massacre to the American public’s collective perception of the British. For example, when prisoner James Fairfield wrote to his wife, the Massacre was referred to as ‘that never to be forgotten day the 6th April 1815’. Further, the chaos of the massacre that depicts the reinforced british against an enclosed prison population, is visually represented through the birds-eye illustration from prisoners William Carnes and Glover Broughton: