Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument - Political Resolve

Political Resolve

The movement to commemorate the dead only took off when political differences between Federalists and Republicans deepened in the last years of the eighteenth century and the Republicans took up the question of a memorial in response to the Federalist erection of a statue of George Washington in 1803. The Tammany Society, (headed by Benjamin Romaine) was created and grew into a Republican organization. On February 10, 1803 Republican Congressman Samuel L. Mitchill asked the federal government to erect a monument to the fallen, but had no success They then turned their efforts to a grand ceremonial re-interment of the prisoners' remains, emphasizing less the construction of a monument than something more suited to the common man. Tammany formed the Wallabout Committee in January 1808. Their efforts took strength from renewed anti-British feeling stemming from British incidents in 1806 & 1807. Finally, when President Thomas Jefferson enacted the Embargo Act of 1808, Tammany and the Republicans used their plans for a re-interment as part of their campaign to bolster anti-British sentiment.