Generally Speaking: Memorial tribute to America’s first POWs
Buried 40 feet below a 149-foot tall monument in Fort Greene Park are the remains of approximately 11,500 brave patriots from the American Revolution. This towering monument on the top of the hill is formally known as the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument. It memorializes the victims who were incarcerated in dungeon-like spaces aboard British prison ships anchored in Wallabout Bay.Having suffered under inhuman and horrific conditions,when they died many were cast overboard or placed in shallow sand-covered shallow graves.
Through fundraising efforts by the Society of Old Brooklynites, the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution plus grants by Congress and the cities of Brooklyn and New York, the Stanford White-designed monument was erected in 1908. It was dedicated by President-elect William Howard Taft, who later served as chief justice of the U.S.