Albemarle Barracks was a prisoner-of-war camp for British prisoners during the American Revolutionary War. Following Gen. John Burgoyne's defeat at the Battle of Saratoga, in 1777, several thousand British and German (Hessian and Brunswickian) troops, of what came to be known as the Convention Army, were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts. For various reasons, the Continental Congress desired to move them south. One of Congress' members offered his land outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. The remaining soldiers (some 2,000 British, upwards of 1,900 German, and roughly 300 women and children) marched south in late 1778 - arriving at the site (near Ivy Creek) in January, 1779. As the barracks were barely sufficient in construction, the officers were paroled to live as far away as Richmond