“Cornwallis’s Sarpints:”
The Journey of British Prisoners of War through the Revolutionary Virginia Piedmont
Presented by Ian MacDougall
Public Programs Coordinator,
Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area
Sunday, February 9, at 2:00 p.m.
St. James United Church of Christ,
10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville VA
Leading off the 2025 lecture series of the Lovettsville Historical Society, Ian McDougall of the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area will present his talk on “‘Cornwallis’s Sarpints:’ The Journey of British Prisoners of War through Revolutionary Virginia Piedmont” – discussing the experiences of those captured in the hands of the American army during the Revolutionary War.

From as early as the summer of 1776, British, German, and American Loyalist prisoners of war were held in counties of the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley. This include POWS from Saratoga, known as the “Convention Army,” in 1778, and prisoners from the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781.
Ian MacDougall joined the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area in June 2021, and is now the VPHA’s Public Programs Coordinator. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017. After completing his degree, Ian worked for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Military Programming Department from 2017 to 2021, focusing on museum programming concerning Virginia’s role in the American War for Independence, as well as researching the experience of the British Army in the Commonwealth. He currently serves on the Loudoun VA250 Committee in the role of Programs Chair.
The program will not be live-streamed, but a video recording of the event will be posted on the Lovettsville Historical Society website.
Admission is free, but donations are welcome to defray expenses of the program and to support the activities of the Lovettsville Historical Society.
For more information, call 540-822-9194.