THE VIRGINIA EXILES

A fictionalized version of an event which actually occurred in Philadelphia as the British army was about to seize the city in the fall of 1777. Approximately 20 prominent citizens (mostly Quakers) who, for religious reasons, refused to support either side, were arrested on the presumption that "if you're not for us, you're against us." After a month in which they were imprisoned at Philadelphia's Masonic Hall, they were exiled for five months to Winchester, VA where two died. The author has added a fictional character to the group -- a 24-year-old Quaker, Caleb Middleton, who, ironically, had longed to enlist in the Continental Army, but did not in deference to his father's religious feelings.