You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and thank you for joining the American Revolution.

Today episode 179 prisoner exchanges. Over the winter of So, one 79, Prisoner Exchanges.

Over the winter of 1777, 78,

both sides had captured large numbers of prisoners.

Some had been imprisoned for many years. Others were recent casualties of the Saratoga or Philadelphia campaigns.

One big focus for the Continental's was the return of the man that many regarded as the best officer

in the Continental Army, Charles Lee.

Back in 1754, Lieutenant Lee served under General Braddock, along with provincial Captain George

Washington at the Battle of the Mananga Hillah.

Lee fought in America throughout the French and Indian War, rising to the rank of major.

When the war in America ended, Lee transferred to the European theater, where he fought in Portugal under General John Burke

Coyne. When that war ended he did what many ambitious officers did in

peacetime. He joined another army to gain more experience as a more senior officer.

Although he rose to lieutenant colonel in the regular army, he took a commission as a major general in the Polish Army serving as an aid to King Stasloss the second.

There, Lee gained more combat experience as a commander in the Russian-Turkish War.

In 1773, the 41-year-old Charles Lee opted to retire from active military service.

He moved to America.

Lee spent a couple of years traveling around North America before purchasing a large estate

in 1775 in what is today West Virginia, near his old war buddy Horatio Gates.

Despite his recent arrival to America, Lee made clear his support for colonial rights and the Patriot cause.

He even published a pamphlet in 1775 in opposition to the British policies

and opining that Americans could defeat the British regulars.

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