American Prisoners of the Revolution
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Title: American Prisoners of the Revolution
Author: Danske Dandridge
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN PRISONERS OF THE REVOLUTION ***
Produced by Dave Maddock, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
AMERICAN PRISONERS OF THE REVOLUTION
By Danske Dandridge
Dedication
TO THE MEMORY OF MY GRANDFATHER
Lieutenant Daniel Bedinger, of Bedford, Virginia
“A BOY IN PRISON”
AS REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THAT WAS BRAVEST AND MOST HONORABLE IN THE LIFE
AND CHARACTER OF THE PATRIOTS OF 1776
PREFACE
The writer of this book has been interested for many years in the
subject of the sufferings of the American prisoners of the Revolution.
Finding the information she sought widely scattered, she has, for her
own use, and for that of all students of the subject, gathered all the
facts she could obtain within the covers of this volume. There is little
that is original in the compilation. The reader will find that extensive
use has been made of such narratives as that Captain Dring has left us.
The accounts could have been given in the compiler’s own words, but they
would only, thereby, have lost in strength. The original narratives are
all out of print, very scarce and hard to obtain, and the writer feels
justified in reprinting them in this collection, for the sake of the
general reader interested in the subject, and not able to search for
himself through the mass of original material, some of which she has
only discovered after months of research. Her work has mainly consisted
in abridging these records, collected from so many different sources.
The writer desires to express her thanks to the courteous librarians
of the Library of Congress and of the War and Navy Departments; to Dr.
Langworthy for permission to publish his able and interesting paper
on the subject of the prisons in New York, and to many others who have
helped her in her task.
DANSKE DANDRIDGE.
_December 6th, 1910._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. THE RIFLEMEN OF THE REVOLUTION
III. NAMES OF SOME OF THE PRISONERS OF 1776
IV. THE PRISONERS OF NEW YORK--JONATHAN GILLETT
V. WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, THE PROVOST MARSHAL
VI. THE CASE OF JABEZ FITCH
VII. THE HOSPITAL DOCTOR--A TORY’S ACCOUNT OF NEW YORK IN
1777--ETHAN ALLEN’S ACCOUNT OF THE PRISONERS
VIII. THE ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER GRAYDON
IX. A FOUL PAGE OF ENGLISH HISTORY
X. A BOY IN PRISON
XI. THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE REVOLUTION
XII. THE TRUMBULL PAPERS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
XIII. A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE PROVOST
XIV. FURTHER TESTIMONY OF CRUELTIES ENDURED BY AMERICAN PRISONERS
XV. THE OLD SUGAR HOUSE--TRINITY CHURCHYARD
XVI. CASE OF JOHN BLATCHFORD
XVII. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND OTHERS ON THE SUBJECT OF AMERICAN
PRISONERS
XVIII. THE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW SHERBURNE
XIX. MORE ABOUT THE ENGLISH PRISONS--MEMOIR OF ELI
BICKFORD--CAPTAIN FANNING
XX. SOME SOUTHERN NAVAL PRISONERS
XXI. EXTRACTS FROM NEWSPAPERS--SOME OF THE PRISON SHIPS--CASE OF
CAPTAIN BIRDSALL
XXII. THE JOURNAL OF DR. ELIAS CORNELIUS--BRITISH PRISONS IN THE
SOUTH
XXIII. A POET ON A PRISON SHIP
XXIV. “THERE WAS A SHIP!”
XXV. A DESCRIPTION OF THE JERSEY
XXVI. THE EXPERIENCE OF EBENEZER FOX
XXVII. THE EXPERIENCE OF EBENEZER FOX (CONTINUED)
XXVIII. THE CASE OF CHRISTOPHER HAWKINS
XXIX. TESTIMONY OF PRISONERS ON BOARD THE JERSEY
XXX. RECOLLECTIONS OF ANDREW SHERBURNE
XXXI. CAPTAIN ROSWELL PALMER
XXXII. THE NARRATIVE OF CAPTAIN ALEXANDER COFFIN
XXXIII. A WONDERFUL DELIVERANCE
XXXIV. THE NARRATIVE OF CAPTAIN DRING
XXXV. THE NARRATIVE OF CAPTAIN DRING (CONTINUED)
XXXVI. THE INTERMENT OF THE DEAD
XXXVII. DAME GRANT AND HER BOAT
XXXVIII. THE SUPPLIES FOR THE PRISONERS
XXXIX. FOURTH OF JULY ON THE JERSEY
XL. AN ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE
XLI. THE MEMORIAL TO GENERAL WASHINGTON
XLII. THE EXCHANGE
XLIII. THE CARTEL--CAPTAIN DRING’S NARRATIVE (CONTINUED)
XLIV. CORRESPONDENCE OF WASHINGTON AND OTHERS
XLV. GENERAL WASHINGTON AND REAR ADMIRAL DIGBY--COMMISSARIES
SPROAT AND SKINNER
XLVI. SOME OF THE PRISONERS ON BOARD THE JERSEY
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX A. LIST OF 8000 MEN WHO WERE PRISONERS ON BOARD THE OLD
JERSEY
APPENDIX B. THE PRISON SHIP MARTYRS OF THE REVOLUTION, AND AN
UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF ONE OF THEM, WILLIAM SLADE, NEW CANAAN, CONN.,
LATER OF CORNWALL, VT.
APPENDIX C. BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
It is with no desire to excite animosity against a people whose blood
is in our veins that we publish this volume of facts about some of the
Americans, seamen and soldiers, who were so unfortunate as to fall into
the hands of the enemy during the period of the Revolution. We have
concealed nothing of the truth, but we have set nothing down in malice,
or with undue recrimination.
It is for the sake of the martyrs of the prisons themselves that this
work has been executed. It is because we, as a people, ought to know
what was endured; what wretchedness, what relentless torture, even unto
death, was nobly borne by the men who perished by thousands in British
prisons and prison ships of the Revolution; it is because we are in
danger of forgetting the sacrifice they made of their fresh young
lives in the service of their country; because the story has never been
adequately told, that we, however unfit we may feel ourselves for the
task, have made an effort to give the people of America some account of
the manner in which these young heroes, the flower of the land, in the
prime of their vigorous manhood, met their terrible fate.
Too long have they lain in the ditches where they were thrown, a
cart-full at a time, like dead dogs, by their heartless murderers,
unknown, unwept, unhonored, and unremembered. Who can tell us their
names? What monument has been raised to their memories?
It is true that a beautiful shaft has lately been erected to the martyrs
of the Jersey prison ship, about whom we will have very much to say.
But it is improbable that even the place of interment of the hundreds of
prisoners who perished in the churches, sugar houses, and other places
used as prisons in New York in the early years of the Revolution, can
now be discovered. We know that they were, for the most part, dumped
into ditches dug on the outskirts of the little city, the New York
of 1776. These ditches were dug by American soldiers, as part of the
entrenchments, during Washington’s occupation of Manhattan in the spring
of 1776. Little did these young men think that they were, in some cases,
literally digging a grave for themselves.
More than a hundred and thirty years have passed since the victims of
Cunningham’s cruelty and rapacity were starved to death in churches
consecrated to the praise and worship of a God of love. It is a tardy
recognition that we are giving them, and one that is most imperfect, yet
it is all that we can now do. The ditches where they were interred have
long ago been filled up, built over, and intersected by streets. Who of
the multitude that daily pass to and fro over the ground that should be
sacred ever give a thought to the remains of the brave men beneath their
feet, who perished that they might enjoy the blessings of liberty?
Republics are ungrateful; they have short memories; but it is due to the
martyrs of the Revolution that some attempt should be made to tell to
the generations that succeed them who they were, what they did, and why
they suffered so terribly and died so grimly, without weakening, and
without betraying the cause of that country which was dearer to them
than their lives.
We have, for the most part, limited ourselves to the prisons and prison
ships in the city and on the waters of New York. This is because such
information as we have been able to obtain concerning the treatment
of American prisoners by the British relates, almost entirely, to that
locality.
It is a terrible story that we are about to narrate, and we warn the
lover of pleasant books to lay down our volume at the first page.
We shall see Cunningham, that burly, red-faced ruffian, the Provost
Marshal, wreaking his vengeance upon the defenceless prisoners in his
keeping, for the assault made upon him at the outbreak of the war, when
he and a companion who had made themselves obnoxious to the republicans
were mobbed and beaten in the streets of New York. He was rescued by
some friends of law and order, and locked up in one of the jails
which was soon to be the theatre of his revenge. We shall narrate the
sufferings of the American prisoners taken at the time of the battle of
Long Island, and after the surrender of Fort Washington, which events
occurred, the first in August, the second in November of the year 1776.
What we have been able to glean from many sources, none of which
contradict each other in any important point, about the prisons and
prison ships in New York, with a few narratives written by those who
were imprisoned in other places, shall fill this volume. Perhaps others,
far better fitted for the task, will make the necessary researches, in
order to lay before the American people a statement of what took place
in the British prisons at Halifax, Charleston, Philadelphia, the waters
off the coast of Florida, and other places, during the eight years of
the war. It is a solemn and affecting duty that we owe to the dead, and
it is in no light spirit that we, for our part, begin our portion of the
task.
CHAPTER II
THE RIFLEMEN OF THE REVOLUTION
We will first endeavor to give the reader some idea of the men who were
imprisoned in New York in the fall and winter of 1776, It was in the
summer of that year that Congress ordered a regiment of riflemen to be
raised in Maryland and Virginia. These, with the so-called “Flying Camp”
of Pennsylvania, made the bulk of the soldiers taken prisoners at Fort
Washington on the fatal 16th of November. Washington had already proved
to his own satisfaction the value of such soldiers; not only by his
experience with them in the French and Indian wars, but also during the
siege of Boston in 1775-6.
These hardy young riflemen were at first called by the British
“regulars,” “a rabble in calico petticoats,” as a term of contempt.
Their uniform consisted of tow linen or homespun hunting shirts,
buckskin breeches, leggings and moccasins. They wore round felt hats,
looped on one side and ornamented with a buck tail. They carried long
rifles, shot pouches, tomahawks, and scalping knives.
They soon proved themselves of great value for their superior
marksmanship, and the British, who began by scoffing at them, ended by
fearing and hating them as they feared and hated no other troops. The
many accounts of the skill of these riflemen are interesting, and some
of them shall be given here.
One of the first companies that marched to the aid of Washington when he
was at Cambridge in 1775 was that of Captain Michael Cresap, which was
raised partly in Maryland and partly in the western part of Virginia.
This gallant young officer died in New York in the fall of 1775, a year
before the surrender of Fort Washington, yet his company may be taken as
a fair sample of what the riflemen of the frontiers of our country
were, and of what they could do. We will therefore give the words of
an eyewitness of their performances. This account is taken from the
_Pennsylvania Journal_ of August 23rd, 1775.
“On Friday evening last arrived at Lancaster, Pa., on their way to the
American camp, Captain Cresap’s Company of Riflemen, consisting of one
hundred and thirty active, brave young fellows, many of whom have been
in the late expedition under Lord Dunmore against the Indians. They
bear in their bodies visible marks of their prowess, and show scars and
wounds which would do honour to Homer’s Iliad. They show you, to use the
poet’s words:
“‘Where the gor’d battle bled at ev’ry vein!’
“One of these warriors in particular shows the cicatrices of four bullet
holes through his body.
“These men have been bred in the woods to hardships and dangers since
their infancy. They appear as if they were entirely unacquainted with,
and had never felt the passion of fear. With their rifles in their
hands, they assume a kind of omnipotence over their enemies. One cannot
much wonder at this when we mention a fact which can be fully attested
by several of the reputable persons who were eye-witnesses of it. Two
brothers in the company took a piece of board five inches broad, and
seven inches long, with a bit of white paper, the size of a dollar,
nailed in the centre, and while one of them supported this board
perpendicularly between his knees, the other at the distance of upwards
of sixty yards, and without any kind of rest, shot eight bullets through
it successively, and spared a brother’s thigh!
“Another of the company held a barrel stave perpendicularly in his
hands, with one edge close to his side, while one of his comrades, at
the same distance, and in the manner before mentioned, shot several
bullets through it, without any apprehension of danger on either side.
“The spectators appearing to be amazed at these feats, were told that
there were upwards of fifty persons in the same company who could do the
same thing; that there was not one who could not ‘plug nineteen bullets
out of twenty,’ as they termed it, within an inch of the head of a
ten-penny nail.
“In short, to evince the confidence they possessed in these kind of
arms, some of them proposed to stand with apples on their heads, while
others at the same distance undertook to shoot them off, but the people
who saw the other experiments declined to be witnesses of this.
“At night a great fire was kindled around a pole planted in the Court
House Square, where the company with the Captain at their head, all
naked to the waist and painted like savages (except the Captain, who was
in an Indian shirt), indulged a vast concourse of people with a perfect
exhibition of a war-dance and all the manoeuvres of Indians; holding
council, going to war; circumventing their enemies by defiles;
ambuscades; attacking; scalping, etc. It is said by those who are judges
that no representation could possibly come nearer the original. The
Captain’s expertness and agility, in particular, in these experiments,
astonished every beholder. This morning they will set out on their march
for Cambridge.”
From the _Virginia Gazette_ of July 22nd, 1775, we make the following
extract: “A correspondent informs us that one of the gentlemen appointed
to command a company of riflemen to be raised in one of the frontier
counties of Pennsylvania had so many applications from the people in
his neighborhood, to be enrolled in the service, that a greater number
presented themselves than his instructions permitted him to engage,
and being unwilling to give offence to any he thought of the following
expedient: He, with a piece of chalk, drew on a board the figure of a
nose of the common size, which he placed at the distance of 150 yards,
declaring that those who came nearest the mark should be enlisted. Sixty
odd hit the object.--General Gage, take care of your nose!”
From the _Pennsylvania Journal_, July 25th, 1775: “Captain Dowdle with
his company of riflemen from Yorktown, Pa., arrived at Cambridge about
one o’clock today, and since has made proposals to General Washington to
attack the transport stationed at Charles River. He will engage to take
her with thirty men. The General thinks it best to decline at present,
but at the same time commends the spirit of Captain Dowdle and his brave
men, who, though they just came a very long march, offered to execute
the plan immediately.”
In the third volume of American Archives, is an extract from a letter to
a gentleman in Philadelphia, dated Frederick Town, Maryland, August
1st, 1775, which speaks of the same company of riflemen whose wonderful
marksmanship we have already noted. The writer says:
“Notwithstanding the urgency of my business I have been detained here
three days by a circumstance truly agreeable. I have had the happiness
of seeing Captain Michael Cresap marching at the head of a formidable
company of upwards of one hundred and thirty men from the mountains
and backwoods; painted like Indians; armed with tomahawks and rifles;
dressed in hunting shirts and moccasins; and, tho’ some of them had
travelled hundreds of miles from the banks of the Ohio, they seemed to
walk light and easy, and not with less spirit than at the first hour of
their march.
“I was favored by being constantly in Captain Cresap’s company, and
watched the behavior of his men and the manner in which he treated them,
for is seems that all who go out to war under him do not only pay the
most willing obedience to him as their commander, but in every instance
of distress look up to him as their friend and father. A great part of
his time was spent in listening to and relieving their wants, without
any apparent sense of fatigue and trouble. When complaints were before
him he determined with kindness and spirit, and on every occasion
condescended to please without losing dignity.
“Yesterday, July 31st, the company were supplied with a small quantity
of powder, from the magazine, which wanted airing, and was not in good
order for rifles: in the evening, however, they were drawn out to show
the gentlemen of the town their dexterity in shooting. A clap board with
a mark the size of a dollar was put up; they began to fire offhand, and
the bystanders were surprised. Few shots were made that were not close
to, or into, the paper. When they had shot some time in this way, some
lay on their backs, some on their breasts or sides, others ran twenty or
thirty steps, and, firing as they ran, appeared to be equally certain
of the mark. With this performance the company were more than satisfied,
when a young man took up the board in his hand, and not by the end, but
by the side, and, holding it up, his brother walked to the distance, and
coolly shot into the white. Laying down his rifle he took the board, and
holding it as it was held before, the second brother shot as the former
had done.
“By this exhibition I was more astonished than pleased, but will you
believe me when I tell you that one of the men took the board, and
placing it between his legs, stood with his back to a tree, while
another drove the centre?
“What would a regular army of considerable strength in the forests of
America do with one thousand of these men, who want nothing to preserve
their health but water from the spring; with a little parched corn (with
what they can easily procure by hunting); and who, wrapped in their
blankets in the dead of night, would choose the shade of a tree for
their covering, and the earth for their bed?”
The descriptions we have quoted apply to the rifle companies of 1775,
but they are a good general description of the abilities of the riflemen
raised in the succeeding years of the war, many indeed being the same
men who first volunteered in 1775. In the possession of one of his
descendants is a letter from one of these men written many years after
the Revolution to the son of an old comrade in arms, giving an account
of that comrade’s experiences during a part of the war. The letter was
written by Major Henry Bedinger of Berkeley County, Virginia, to a son
of General Samuel Finley.
Henry Bedinger was descended from an old German family. His grandfather
had emigrated to America from Alsace in 1737 to escape persecution for
his religious beliefs. The highest rank that Bedinger attained in the
War of the Revolution was that of captain. He was a Knight of the Order
of the Cincinnati, and he was, after the war, a major of the militia of
Berkeley County. The document in possession of one of his descendants
is undated, and appears to have been a rough copy or draught of the
original, which may now be in the keeping of some one of the descendants
of General Finley. We will give it almost entire. Such family letters
are, we need scarcely say, of great value to all who are interested in
historical research, supplying, as they do, the necessary details which
fill out and amplify the bare facts of history, giving us a living
picture of the times and events that they describe.
PART OF A LETTER FROM MAJOR HENRY BEDINGER TO A SON OF GENERAL SAMUEL
FINLEY
“Some time in 1774 the late Gen’l Sam’l Finley Came to Martinsburg,
Berkeley County, Virginia, and engaged with the late Col’o John Morrow
to assist his brother, Charles Morrow, in the business of a retail
store.
“Mr. Finley continued in that employment until the spring of 1775, when
Congress called on the State of Virginia for two Complete Independent
Volunteer Companies of Riflemen of l00 Men each, to assist Gen’l
Washington in the Siege of Boston & to serve one year. Captains Hugh
Stephenson of Berkeley, & Daniel Morgan of Frederick were selected to
raise and command those companies, they being the first Regular troops
required to be raised in the State of Virginia for Continental service.
“Captain Hugh Stephenson’s rendezvous was Shepherd’s Town (not
Martinsburg) and Captain Morgan’s was Winchester. Great exertions were
made by each Captain to complete his company first, that merit might
be claimed on that account. Volunteers presented themselves in every
direction in the Vicinity of these Towns, none were received but young
men of Character, and of sufficient property to Clothe themselves
completely, find their own arms, and accoutrements, that is, an approved
Rifle, handsome shot pouch, and powder horn, blanket, knapsack, with
such decent clothing as should be prescribed, but which was at first
ordered to be only a Hunting shirt and pantaloons, fringed on every edge
and in Various ways.
“Our Company was raised in less than a week. Morgan had equal
success.--It was never decided which Company was first filled--
“These Companies being thus unexpectedly called for it was a difficult
task to obtain rifles of the quality required & we were detained at
Shepherds Town nearly six weeks before we could obtain such. Your Father
and some of his Bosom Companions were among the first enrolled. My
Brother, G. M. B., and myself, with many of our Companions, soon joined
to the amount of 100--no more could be received. The Committee of Safety
had appointed Wm Henshaw as 1st Lieut., George Scott 2nd, and Thomas
Hite as 3rd Lieut to this Company, this latter however, declined
accepting, and Abraham Shepherd succeeded as 3d Lieut--all the rest
Stood on an equal footing as _Volunteers_--We remained at Shepherds
Town untill the 16th July before we could be Completely armed,
notwithstanding the utmost exertions. In the mean time your Father
obtained from the gunsmith a remarkable neat light rifle, the stock
inlaid and ornamented with silver, which he held, untill Compelled, as
were all of us--to ground our arms and surrender to the enemy on the
evening of the 16th day of November 1776.
“In our Company were many young men of Considerable fortune, & who
generally entered from patriotic motives ... Our time of service being
about to expire Captain Hugh Stephenson was commissioned a Colonel;
Moses Rawlings a Lieutenant Colonel, and Otho Williams Major, to raise a
Rifle Regiment for three years: four companies to be raised in Virginia
and four in Maryland.
“Henshaw and Scott chose to return home. Abraham Shepherd was
commissioned Captain, Sam’l Finley First Lieutenant, William Kelly
Second Lieutenant, and myself 3rd Lieutenant. The Commissions of the
Field Officers were dated the 8th July, 1776, & those of our Company the
9th of the same month. Shepherd, Finley and myself were dispatched to
Berkeley to recruit and refill the old Company, which we performed
in about five weeks. Col’o Stephenson also returned to Virginia to
facilitate the raising the additional Companies. While actively employed
in August, 1776, he was taken sick, and in four days died. The command
of the Regiment devolved on Lieutenant Colonel Moses Rawlings, a Very
worthy and brave officer.
“Our Company being filled we Marched early in September to our
Rendezvous at Bergen. So soon as the Regiment was formed it was ordered
up the North River to the English Neighborhood, & in a short time
ordered to cross the River and assist in the defence of Fort Washington,
where were about three thousand men under the command of Col’o Magaw, on
New York Island. The enemy in the mean time possessed New York, and
had followed General Washington to the White Plains, from whence, after
several partial actions, he returned, and approached us by the way of
King’s bridge, with a force of from 8 to 12000 Men. Several frigates ran
up the Hudson from New York to cut off our intercourse with Fort Lee, a
fort on the opposite bank of the North River: and by regular approaches
invested us on all sides.
“On the 15th November, 1776, the British General Pattison appeared with
a flag near our Guards, demanding a surrender of Fort Washington and the
Garrison. Col’o Magaw replied he should defend it to the last extremity.
Pattison declared all was ready to storm the lines and fort, we of
course prepared for the Pending contest.
“At break of day the next morning, the enemy commenced a tremendous
Cannonade on every side, while their troops advanced. Our Regt. tho
weak, was most advantageously posted by Rawlings and Williams, on a
Small Ridge, about half a mile above Fort Washington. The Ridge ran from
the North River, in which lay three frigates, towards the East River. A
deep Valley divided us from the enemy, their frigates enfiladed, & their
Cannon on the heights behind the advancing troops played incessantly on
our party (consisting of Rawling’s Regiment, say 250 men, and one other
company from Maryland, and four companies of Pennsylvania Flying Camp,
also for the present commanded by Rawlings and Williams).
“The Artillery were endeavoring to clear the hill while their troops
crossing the Valley were ascending it, but without much effect. A few of
our men were killed with Cannon and Grape Shott. Not a Shott was fired
on our side untill the Enemy had nearly gained the Sumit. Though at
least five times our numbers our rifles brought down so many that they
gave way several times, but by their overwhelming numbers they at last
succeeded in possessing the summit. Here, however, was great carnage,
each making every effort to possess and hold so advantageous a position.
This obstinacy continued for more than an hour, when the enemy brought
up some field pieces, as well as reinforcements. Finding all resistance
useless, our Regiment gradually gave way, tho’ not before Col’o
Rawlings, Major Williams, Peter Hanson, Nin Tannehill, and myself
were wounded. Lt. Harrison [Footnote: Lieutenant Battaille Harrison
of Berkeley County, Va.] was the only officer of our Regiment Killed.
Hanson and Tannehill were mortally wounded. The latter died the same
night in the Fort, & Hanson died in New York a short time after. Capt.
A. Shepherd, Lieut. Daniel Cresap and myself, with fifty men, were
detailed the day before the action and placed in the van to receive the
enemy as they came up the hill.
“The Regiment was paraded in line about fifty yards in our rear, ready
to support us. Your Father of course on that day, and in the whole
of the action commanded Shepherd’s Company, which performed its
duty admirably. About two o’clock P. M. the Enemy obtained complete
possession of the hill, and former battle-ground. Our troops retreated
gradually from redoubt to redoubt, contesting every inch of ground,
still making dreadful Havoc in the ranks of the enemy. We laboured too
under disadvantages, the wind blew the smoke full in our faces. About
two o’clock A. Shepherd, being the senior Captain, took command of the
Regiment, [Footnote: After Rawlings and Williams were disabled.] and by
the advice of Col’o Rawlings & Major Williams, gradually retreated from
redoubt to redoubt, to & into the fort with the surviving part of the
Regiment. Col’o Rawlings, Major Williams, and Lt Hanson and myself
quitted the field together, and retreated to the fort. I was slightly
wounded, tho my right hand was rendered entirely useless. Your Father
continued with the regiment until all had arrived in the fort. It was
admitted by all the surviving officers that he had conducted himself
with great gallantry and the utmost propriety.
“While we were thus engaged the enemy succeeded much better in every
other quarter, & with little comparative loss. All were driven into the
fort and the enemy began by sundown to break ground within 100 yards of
the fort.
“Finding our situation desperate Col’o Magaw dispatched a flag to
Gen. Howe who Commanded in person, proposing to surrender on certain
conditions, which not being agreed to, other terms were proposed and
accepted. The garrison, consisting of 2673 privates, & 210 officers,
marched out, grounded arms, and were guarded to the White House that
same night, but instead of being treated as agreed on, and allowed to
retain baggage, clothes, and Side Arms, every valuable article was torn
away from both officers and soldiers: every sword, pistol, every good
hat was seized, even in presence of Brittish officers, & the prisoners
were considered and treated as _Rebels_, to the king and country. On
the third day after our surrender we were guarded to New York, fourteen
miles from Fort Washington, where in the evening we received some
barrels of raw pork and musty spoiled biscuit, being the first Morsel of
provision we had seen for more than three days. The officers were then
separated from the soldiers, had articles of parole presented to
us which we signed, placed into deserted houses without Clothing,
provisions, or fire. No officer was permitted to have a servant, but we
acted in rotation, carried our Cole and Provisions about half a mile on
our backs, Cooked as well as we could, and tried to keep from Starving.
“Our poor Soldiers fared most wretchedly different. They were crowded
into sugar houses and Jails without blankets or covering; had Very
little given to them to eat, and that little of the Very worst quality.
So that in two months and four days about 1900 of the Fort Washington
troops had died. The survivors were sent out and receipted for by
General Washington, and we the officers were sent to Long Island on
parole, and billetted, two in a house, on the families residing in the
little townships of Flatbush, New Utrecht, Newlots, and Gravesend, who
were compelled to board and lodge us at the rate of two dollars per
week, a small compensation indeed in the exhausted state of that section
of country. The people were kind, being mostly conquered Whigs, but
sometimes hard run to provide sustenance for their own families, with
the addition, generally, of two men who must have a share of what
could be obtained. These people could not have furnished us but for the
advantage of the fisheries, and access at all times to the water. Fish,
oysters, clams, Eels, and wild fowl could always be obtained in their
season.
“We were thus fixed on the inhabitants, but without money, or clothing.
Sometimes a companion would receive a few hard dollars from a friend
through a flag of truce, which was often shared by others to purchase a
pair of shoes or a shirt.
“While in New York Major Williams received from a friend about forty
silver dollars. He was still down with his wound, but requested Captain
Shepherd, your Father and myself to come to his room, and there lent
each of us ten Dollars, which enabled each of us to purchase a pair
shoes, a shirt, and some other small matters: this liberality however,
gave some offence. Major Williams was a Marylander, and to assist
a Virginian, in preference to a Marylander, was a Crime almost
unpardonable. It however passed off, as it so happened there were some
refugees in New York from Maryland who had generosity enough to relieve
the pressing wants of a few of their former acquaintances.
“We thus lived in want and perfect idleness for years: tho sometimes
if Books could be obtained we made out to read: if paper, pen, and ink
could be had we wrote. Also to prevent becoming too feeble we exercised
our bodies by playing fives, throwing long bullets, wrestling, running,
jumping, and other athletick exercises, in all of which your Father
fully participated. Being all nearly on the same footing as to Clothing
and pocket money (that is we seldom had any of the latter) we lived on
an equality.
“In the fall of 1777 the Brittish Commander was informed a plan was
forming by a party of Americans to pass over to Long Island and sweep
us off, release us from captivity. There were then on the Island about
three hundred American officers prisoners. We were of course ordered off
immediately, and placed on board of two large transports in the North
River, as prison ships, where we remained but about 18 days, but it
being Very Cold, and we Confined between decks, the Steam and breath of
150 men soon gave us Coughs, then fevers, and had we not been removed
back to our billets I believe One half would have died in six weeks.
This is all the imprisonment your----”
The rest of this valuable letter has been, most unfortunately lost, or
possibly it was never completed.
We have given a great deal of it because of its graphic description of
the men who were captured at Fort Washington, and of the battle itself.
Major Bedinger was a dignified, well-to-do, country gentleman; honored
and respected by all who knew him, and of unimpeachable veracity.
CHAPTER III
NAMES OF SOME OF THE PRISONERS OF 1776
As we have seen, the officers fared well in comparison with the wretched
privates. Paroled and allowed the freedom of the city, they had far
better opportunities to obtain the necessities of life. “Our poor
soldiers fared most wretchedly different,” says Major Bedinger.
Before we begin, however, to speak of the treatment they received, we
must make some attempt to tell the reader who they were. We wish it were
possible to give the name of every private who died, or rather who was
murdered, in the prisons of New York at this time. But that, we fear, is
now an impossibility. As this account is designed as a memorial to those
martyred privates, we have made many efforts to obtain their names.
But if the muster rolls of the different companies who formed the Rifle
Regiment, the Pennsylvania Flying Camp, and the other troops captured by
the British in the summer and fall of 1776 are in existence, we have not
been able to find them.
The records of the Revolution kept in the War Department in England
have been searched in vain by American historians. It is said that the
Provost Marshal, William Cunningham, destroyed his books, in order to
leave no written record of his crimes. The names of 8,000 prisoners,
mostly seamen, who were confined on the prison ship Jersey, alone,
have been obtained by the Society of Old Brooklynites, from the British
Archives, and, by the kind permission of this Society, we re-publish
them in the Appendix to this volume.
Here and there, also, we have obtained a name of one of the brave young
riflemen who died in torment a hundred times worse, because so much less
swift, than that endured on a memorable occasion in India, when British
soldiers were placed, during a single night, into one of their own
“Black Holes.” But the names of almost all of these our tortured
countrymen are forgotten as completely as their places of interment are
neglected.
In the hands of the writer, however, at this time [Footnote: This
muster roll was lent to the writer by Henry Bedinger Davenport, Esq, a
descendant of Major Bedinger] is the pay-roll of one of these companies
of riflemen,--that of Captain Abraham Shepherd of Shepherdstown,
Virginia. It is in the handwriting of Henry Bedinger, one of the
lieutenants of the company.
We propose to take this list, or pay roll, as a sample, and to follow,
as well as we can, at this late day, the misfortunes of the men named
therein. For this purpose we will first give the list of names, and
afterwards attempt to indicate how many of the men died in confinement,
and how many lived to be exchanged.
MUSTER ROLL
The paper in question, falling to pieces with age, and almost illegible
in places, is headed, “An ABSTRACT of the Pay due the Officers and
Privates of the Company of Riflemen belonging to Captain Abraham
Shepherd, being part of a Battalion raised by Colonel Hugh Stevenson,
deceased, and afterwards commanded by Lieut Colonel Moses Rawlings, in
the Continental Service from July 1st, 1776, to October 1st, 1778.” The
paper gives the dates of enlistment; those who were killed; those who
died; those who deserted; those who were discharged; drafted; made
prisoners; “dates until when pay is charged;” “pay per month;” “amount
in Dollars,” and “amount in lawful Money, Pounds, Shillings and pence.”
From this account much information can be gleaned concerning the members
of the company, but we will, for the present, content ourselves with
giving the muster roll of the company.
MUSTER ROLL OF CAPTAIN ABRAHAM SHEPHERD’S COMPANY OF RIFLEMEN RAISED IN
JULY, 1776
Captain Abraham Shepherd. First Lieutenant, Samuel Finley. Second
Lieutenant, William Kelly. Third Lieutenant, Henry Bedinger. First
Sergeant, John Crawford. Second Sergeant, John Kerney. Third Sergeant,
Robert Howard. Fourth Sergeant, Dennis Bush. First Corporal, John
Seaburn. Second Corporal, Evert Hoglant. Third Corporal, Thomas Knox.
Fourth Corporal, Jonathan Gibbons. Drummer, Stephen Vardine. Fifer,
Thomas Cook. Armourer, James Roberts.
Privates, William Anderson, Jacob Wine, Richard Neal, Peter Hill,
William Waller, Adam Sheetz, James Hamilton, George Taylor, Adam
Rider, Patrick Vaughan, Peter Hanes, John Malcher, Peter Snyder, Daniel
Bedinger, John Barger, William Hickman, Thomas Pollock, Bryan Timmons,
Thomas Mitchell, Conrad Rush, David Harman, James Aitken, William
Wilson, John Wilson, Moses McComesky, Thomas Beatty, John Gray,
Valentine Fritz, Zechariah Bull, William Moredock, Charles Collins,
Samuel Davis, Conrad Cabbage, John Cummins, Gabriel Stevens, Michael
Wolf, John Lewis, William Donnelly, David Gilmore, John Cassody, Samuel
Blount, Peter Good, George Helm, William Bogle (or Boyle), John Nixon,
Anthony Blackhead, Christian Peninger, Charles Jones, William Case,
Casper Myre, George Brown, Benjamin McKnight, Anthony Larkin, William
Seaman, Charles Snowden, John Boulden, John Blake, Nicholas Russell,
Benjamin Hughes, James Brown, James Fox, William Hicks, Patrick Connell,
John Holmes, John McSwaine, James Griffith, Patrick Murphy, James
Aitken.
Besides the names of this company we can give a few privates of the
Pennsylvania Flying Camp who are mentioned by Saffel. He adds that, as
far as is known, all of these perished in prison, after inscribing their
names high up upon the walls.
SOME PRIVATES OF THE PENNSYLVANIA FLYING CAMP WHO PERISHED IN PRISON IN
1776-7
“Charles Fleming, John Wright, James McKinney, Ebenezer Stille, Jacob
Leinhart, Abraham Van Gordon, Peter D’Aubert, William Carbury, John
McDowell, Wm. McKague, Henry Parker, James Burns, Henry Yepler, Baltus
Weigh, Charles Beason, Leonard Huber, John McCarroll, Jacob Guiger, John
May, Daniel Adams, George McCormick, Jacob Kettle, Jacob Miller, George
Mason, James Kearney, David Sutor, Adam Bridel, Christian Mull, Daniel
McKnight, Cornelius Westbrook, Luke Murphy, Joseph Conklin, Adam Dennis,
Edward Ogden, Wm. Scoonover, James Rosencrants.”
The names of the officers who were prisoners in New York after the
battle of Long Island and the surrender of Fort Washington, can easily
be obtained. But it is not with these, at present, that we have to
do. We have already seen how much better was their treatment than that
accorded to the hapless privates. It is chiefly to commemmorate the
sufferings of the private soldier and seaman in the British prisons that
this account has been written.
CHAPTER IV
THE PRISONS OF NEW YORK--JONATHAN GILLETT
We will now endeavor to describe the principal places of confinement
used by the British in New York during the early years of the war.
Lossing, in his Field Book of the Revolution, thus speaks of these dens
of misery: “At the fight around Fort Washington,” he says, “only one
hundred Americans were killed, while the British loss was one thousand,
chiefly Hessians, But the British took a most cruel revenge. Out of over
2600 prisoners taken on that day, in two months & four days 1900 were
killed in the infamous sugar houses and other prisons in the city.
“Association of intense horror are linked with the records of the
prisons and prison ships of New York. Thousands of captives perished
miserably of hunger, cold, infection, and in some cases, actual poison.
“All the prisoners taken in the battle near Brooklyn in August, 1776 and
at Fort Washington in November of the same year, were confined in New
York, nearly 4000 in all. The New Jail and the New Bridewell were the
only prisons. The former is the present Hall of Records. Three sugar
houses, some dissenting churches, Columbia College, and the Hospital
were all used as prisons. The great fire in September; the scarcity of
provisions; and the cruel conduct of the Provost Marshal all combined
to produce intense sufferings among the men, most of whom entered
into captivity, strong, healthy, young, able-bodied, the flower of the
American youth of the day.
“Van Cortlandt’s Sugar House was a famous (or infamous) prison. It stood
on the northwest corner of Trinity church-yard.
“Rhinelander’s Sugar House was on the corner of William and Duane
Streets. Perhaps the worst of all the New York prisons was the third
Sugar House, which occupied the space on Liberty Street where two
buildings, numbers 34 and 36, now stand.
“The North Dutch Church on William Street contained 800 prisoners, and
there were perhaps as many in the Middle Dutch Church. The Friends’
Meeting House on Liberty and several other buildings erected for the
worship of a God of love were used as prisons.
“The New Jail was made a Provost Prison, and here officers and men of
note were confined. At one time they were so crowded into this building,
that when they lay down upon the floor to sleep all in the row were
obliged to turn over at the same time at the call, ‘Turn over! Left!
Right!’
“The sufferings of these brave men were largely due to the criminal
indifference of Loring, Sproat, Lennox, and other Commissaries of the
prisoners.
“Many of the captives were hanged in the gloom of night without trial
and without a semblance of justice.
“Liberty Street Sugar House was a tall, narrow building five stories in
height, and with dismal underground dungeons. In this gloomy abode jail
fever was ever present. In the hot weather of July, 1777, companies of
twenty at a time would be sent out for half an hour’s outing, in the
court yard. Inside groups of six stood for ten minutes at a time at the
windows for a breath of air.
“There were no seats; the filthy straw bedding was never changed. Every
day at least a dozen corpses were dragged out and pitched like dead
dogs into the ditches and morasses beyond the city. Escapes, deaths, and
exchange at last thinned the ranks. Hundreds left names and records on
the walls.”
“In 1778 the hulks of decaying ships were moored in the Wallabout. These
prison ships were intended for sailors and seaman taken on the ocean,
mostly the crews of privateersmen, but some soldiers were also sent to
languish in their holds.
“The first vessels used were transports in which cattle and other stores
had been brought over by the British in 1776. These lay in Gravesend Bay
and there many of the prisoners taken in battle near Brooklyn in August,
1776, were confined, until the British took possession of New York, when
they were moved to that city. In 1778 the hulks of ships were moored in
the Wallabout, a sheltered bay on the Long Island shore, where the Navy
Yard now is.”
The sufferings of the prisoners can be better understood by giving
individual instances, and wherever this is possible it shall be done. We
will commence by an abstract of
THE CASE OF JONATHAN GILLETT OF WEST HARFORD
This man with seven others was captured on Long Island on the 27th of
August, 1776, before they could take to their boats. He was at first
confined in a prison ship, but a Masonic brother named John Archer
procured him the liberty of the city on parole. His rank, we believe,
was that of a lieutenant. He was a prisoner two years, then was allowed
to go home to die. He exhibited every symptom of poison as well as
starvation.
When he was dying he said to his son, Jonathan Gillett, Junior, “Should
you enlist and be taken prisoner as I was, inquire for Mr. John Archer,
a man with whom I boarded. He will assist you.”
In course of time his son enlisted, was taken prisoner, and confined
in the Old Sugar House on Liberty Street. Here he was nearly starved to
death. The prisoners ate mice, rats, and insects. He one day found
in the prison yard the dry parings of a turnip which seemed to him
a delicious banquet. It is recorded that Jonathan Gillett, Jr., was
finally freed from captivity through the efforts of the same gentleman,
Mr. John Archer, who had aided his father.
In 1852 Jacob Barker offered to present survivors who had been confined
in the Old Sugar House with canes made from the lumber used in its
construction. Four of these survivors were found. Their names were
William Clark, Samuel Moulton, Levi Hanford, and Jonathan Gillett, Jr.
The latter’s father during his confinement wrote a letter to his friends
which has been preserved, and is as follows:
My Friends,
No doubt my misfortunes have reached your ears. Sad as it is, it is
true as sad. I was made prisoner the 27th day of August past by a people
called heshens, and by a party called Yagers the most Inhuman of all
Mortals. I can’t give Room to picture them here but thus much--I at
first Resolved not to be taken, but by the Impertunity of the Seven
taken with me, and being surrounded on all sides I unhapily surendered;
would to God I never had--then I should never (have) known there
unmerciful cruelties; they first disarmed me, then plundered me of all I
had, watch, Buckles, money, and sum Clothing, after which they abused
me by bruising my flesh with the butts of there (guns). They knocked me
down; I got up and they (kept on) beating me almost all the way to
there (camp) where I got shot of them--the next thing was I was allmost
starved to death by them. I was keept here 8 days and then sent on board
a ship, where I continued 39 days and by (them was treated) much worse
than when on shore--after I was set on (shore) at New York (I was)
confined (under) a strong guard till the 20th day of November, after
which I have had my liberty to walk part over the City between sun and
sun, notwithstanding there generous allowance of food I must inevitably
have perished with hunger had not sum friends in this (city) Relieved my
extreme necessity, but I cant expect they can always do it--what I
shall do next I know not, being naked for clothes and void of money, and
winter present, and provisions very skerce; fresh meat one shilling per
pound, Butter three shillings per pound, Cheese two shillings, Turnips
and potatoes at a shilling a half peck, milk 15 Coppers per quart, bread
equally as dear; and the General says he cant find us fuel thro’ the
winter, tho’ at present we receive sum cole. [Footnote: I have made no
changes in this letter except to fill up some blanks and to add a few
marks of punctuation.]
“I was after put on board siezed violently with the disentarry--it
followed me hard upwards of six weeks--after that a slow fever, but now
am vastly better * * * my sincere love to you and my children. May God
keep and preserve you at all times from sin, sickness, and death * * *
I will Endeavor to faintly lead you into the poor cituation the soldiers
are in, espechally those taken at Long Island where I was; in fact these
cases are deplorable and they are Real objects of pitty--they are still
confined and in houses where there is no fire--poor mortals, with little
or no clothes--perishing with hunger, offering eight dollars in paper
for one in silver to Relieve there distressing hunger; occasioned for
want of food--there natures are broke and gone, some almost loose there
voices and some there hearing--they are crouded into churches & there
guarded night and day. I cant paint the horable appearance they make--it
is shocking to human nature to behold them. Could I draw the curtain
from before you; there expose to your view a lean Jawd mortal, hunger
laid his skinny hand (upon him) and whet to keenest Edge his stomach
cravings, sorounded with tattred garments, Rotten Rags, close beset
with unwelcome vermin. Could I do this, I say, possable I might in some
(small) manner fix your idea with what appearance sum hundreds of these
poor creatures make in houses where once people attempted to Implore
God’s Blessings, &c, but I must say no more of there calamities. God be
merciful to them--I cant afford them no Relief. If I had money I soon
would do it, but I have none for myself.--I wrote to you by Mr. Wells to
see if some one would help me to hard money under my present necessity
I write no more, if I had the General would not allow it to go out, & if
ever you write to me write very short or else I will never see it--what
the heshens robbed me of that day amounted to the value of seventy two
dollars at least. * * * I will give you as near an exact account of how
many prisoners the enemy have taken as I can. They took on Long Island
of the Huntingon Regiment 64, and of officers 40, of other Regiments
about 60. On Moulogin Island 14, Stratton Island (Staten) 7, at Fort
Washington 2200 officers and men. On the Jersey side about 28 officers
and men. In all 3135 and how many killed I do not know. Many died of
there wounds. Of those that went out with me of sickness occasioned by
hunger eight and more lie at the point of death.
“Roger Filer hath lost one of his legs and part of a Thigh, it was his
left. John Moody died here a prisoner.
“So now to conclude my little Ragged History * * * I as you know did
ever impress on your mind to look to God, for so still I continue to do
the same--think less of me but more of your Creator, * * * So in this
I wish you well and bid you farewell and subscribe myself your nearest
friend and well wisher for Ever
John’a Gillett
New York, Dec. 2nd, 1776. To Eliza Gillett at West Harford
The figures given in this pathetic letter may be inaccurate, but the
description of the sufferings of the prisoners is unexaggerated. Of all
the places of torment provided for these poor men the churches seem
to have been the worst, and they were probably the scenes of the most
brutal cruelty that was inflicted upon these unfortunate beings by the
wicked and heartless men, in whose power they found themselves. Whether
it was because the knowledge that they were thus desecrating buildings
dedicated to the worship of God and instruction in the Christian duties
of mercy and charity, had a peculiarly hardening effect upon the jailers
and guards employed by the British, or whether it was merely because
of their unfitness for human habitation, the men confined in these
buildings perished fast and miserably. We cannot assert that no
prisoners shut up in the churches in New York lived to tell the awful
tale of their sufferings, but we do assert that in all our researches
we have never yet happened upon any record of a single instance of a
survivor living to reach his home. All the information we have gained
on this subject we shall lay before the reader, and then he may form his
own opinion of the justice of these remarks.
CHAPTER V
WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, THE PROVOST MARSHAL
We will condense all that we have to say of this man, whose cruelty and
wickedness are almost inconceivable, into one chapter, and have done
with the dreadful subject. As far as we have been able to learn, the
facts about his life are the following.
William Cunningham was an Irishman, born in Dublin Barracks in 1738.
His father was a trumpeter in the Blue Dragoons. When he was sixteen he
became an assistant to the riding-master of the troop. In 1761 he
was made a sergeant of dragoons, but peace having been proclaimed the
following year, the company to which he belonged was disbanded. He
afterwards commenced the business of a scaw-banker, which means that
he went about the country enticing mechanics and rustics to ship to
America, on promise of having their fortunes made in that country; and
then by artful practices, produced their indentures as servants, in
consequence of which on their arrival in America they were sold, or at
least obliged to serve a term of years to pay for their passage. This
business, no doubt, proved a fit apprenticeship for the career of
villainy before him.
About the year 1774 he appears to have embarked from Newry in the ship
Needham for New York, with some indentured servants he had kidnapped in
Ireland. He is said to have treated these poor creatures so cruelly on
the passage that they were set free by the authorities in New York upon
their arrival.
When Cunningham first appeared in New York he offered himself as a
horse-breaker, and insinuated himself into the favor of the British
officers by blatant toryism. He soon became obnoxious to the Whigs of
that city, was mobbed, and fled to the Asia man-of-war for protection.
From thence he went to Boston, where General Gage appointed him Provost
Marshal. When the British took possession of New York he followed them
to that city, burning with desire to be revenged upon the Whigs.
He is said to have compassed the death of thousands of prisoners by
selling their provisions, exchanging good for spoiled food, and even by
poisoning them. Many also fell victims to his murderous violence. About
two hundred and fifty of these poor creatures were taken out of their
places of confinement at midnight and hung, without trial, simply to
gratify his bloodthirsty instincts. Private execution was conducted in
the following manner. A guard was first dispatched from the Provost,
about midnight, to the upper barracks, to order the people on the
line of march to shut their window shutters and put out their lights,
forbidding them at the same time to presume to look out of their windows
on pain of death. After this the prisoners were gagged, and conducted
to the gallows just behind the upper barracks and hung without ceremony
there. Afterwards they were buried by his assistant, who was a mulatto.
This practice is said to have been stopped by the women along the line
of march from the Provost to the barracks. They appealed to General
Howe to prevent further executions, as the noise made by the sufferers
praying for mercy, and appealing to Heaven for justice was dreadful to
their ears.
It would seem from this account that, although the wretched men were
gagged as they were conveyed along the streets, their ferocious murderer
could not deny himself the pleasure of hearing their shrieks of agony at
the gallows.
Watson, in his “Annals of New York,” says that Cunningham glutted his
vengence by hanging five or six of his prisoners every night, until the
women who lived in the neighborhood petitioned Howe to have the practice
discontinued.
A pamphlet called “The Old Martyrs’ Prison,” says of Cunningham: “His
hatred of the Americans found vent in torture by searing irons and
secret scourges to those who fell under the ban of his displeasure.
The prisoners were crowded together so closely that many fell ill from
partial asphyxiation, and starved to death for want of the food which he
sold to enrich himself.”
They were given muddy and impure water to drink, and that not in
sufficient quantities to sustain life. Their allowance was, nominally,
two pounds of hard tack and two of pork _per week_, and this was often
uncooked, while either the pork, or the biscuit, or both, were usually
spoiled and most unwholesome.
Cunningham’s quarters were in the Provost Prison, and on the right hand
of the main door of entry. On the left of the hall was the guard room.
Within the first barricade was the apartment of his assistant, Sergeant
O’Keefe. Two sentinels guarded the entrance day and night; two more were
stationed at the first and second barricades, which were grated, barred,
and chained.
“When a prisoner was led into the hall the whole guard was paraded,
and he was delivered over to Captain Cunningham or his deputy, and
questioned as to his name, age, size, rank, etc., all of which was
entered in a record book. These records appear to have been discreetly
destroyed by the British authorities.
“At the bristling of arms, unbolting of locks and bars, clanking of
enormous iron chains in a vestibule dark as Erebus, the unfortunate
captive might well sink under this infernal sight and parade of
tyrannical power, as he crossed the threshold of that door which
probably closed on him for life.
“The north east chamber, turning to the left on the second floor, was
appropriated to officers of superior rank, and was called Congress Hall.
* * * In the day time the packs and blankets used by the prisoners to
cover them were suspended around the walls, and every precaution was
taken to keep the rooms clean and well ventilated.
“In this gloomy abode were incarcerated at different periods many
American officers and citizens of distinction, awaiting with sickening
hope the protracted period of their liberation. Could these dumb walls
speak what scenes of anguish might they not disclose!
“Cunningham and his deputy were enabled to fare sumptuously by dint
of curtailing the prisoners’ rations, selling good for bad provisions,
etc., in order to provide for the drunken orgies that usually terminated
his dinners. Cunningham would order the rebel prisoners to turn out
and parade for the amusement of his guests, pointing them out with such
characterizations as ‘This is the d----d rebel, Ethan Allen. This is a
rebel judge, etc.’”
Cunningham destroyed Nathan Hale’s last letters containing messages to
his loved ones, in order, as he said, that “the rebels should not know
that they had a man in their army who could die with such firmness.”
From Elias Boudinot’s “Journal of Events” during the Revolution we
extract the following account of his interview with Cunningham in
New York. “In the spring of 1777 General Washington wrote me a letter
requesting me to accept of a Commission as Commissary General of
Prisoners in the Army of America. I waited on him and politely declined
the task, urging the wants of the Prisoners and having nothing to supply
them.”
Washington, however, urged him not to refuse, saying that if no one in
whom he could trust would accept the office, the lot of the prisoners
would be doubly hard. At last Boudinot consented to fill the position as
best he could, and Washington declared that he should be supplied with
funds by the Secret Committee of Congress. “I own,” he says, “that after
I had entered on my department, the applications of the Prisoners were
so numerous, and their distress so urgent, that I exerted every nerve
to obtain supplies, but in vain--Excepting £600 I had received from the
Secret Committee in Bills of exchange, at my first entrance into
the Office--I could not by any means get a farthing more, except in
Continental Money, which was of no avail in New York. I applied to the
General describing my delicate Situation and the continual application
of the Officers, painting their extreme distress and urging the
assurance they had received that on my appointment I was to be furnished
with adequate means for their full relief. The General appeared greatly
distressed and assured me that it was out of his power to afford me any
supplies. I proposed draining Clothing from the public stores, but to
this he objected as not having anything like a sufficient supply for the
Army. He urged my considering and adopting the best means in my power to
satisfy the necessities of the Prisoners, and he would confirm them. I
told him I knew of no means in my Power but to take what Monies I had
of my own, and to borrow from my friends in New York, to accomplish the
desirable purpose. He greatly encouraged me to the attempt, promising me
that if I finally met with any loss, he would divide it with me. On this
I began to afford them some supplies of Provisions over and above what
the Enemy afforded them, which was very small and very indifferent.
“The complaints of the very cruel treatment our Prisoners met with in
the Enemy’s lines rose to such a Heighth that in the Fall of this
Year, 1777 the General wrote to General Howe or Clinton reciting their
complaints and proposing to send an Officer into New York to examine
into the truth of them. This was agreed to, and a regular pass-port
returned accordingly. The General ordered me on this service. I
accordingly went over on the 3rd of Feb. 1778, in my own Sloop.”
The Commandant at this time was General Robertson, by whom Boudinot was
very well treated, and allowed, in company with a British officer, to
visit the prisons. He continues: “Accordingly I went to the Provost
with the Officer, where we found near thirty Officers from Colonels
downwards, in close confinement in the Gaol in New York. After some
conversation with the late Ethan Allen, I told him my errand, on which
he was very free in his abuse of the British. *** We then proceeded
upstairs to the Room of their Confinement. I had the Officers drawn up
in a Ring and informed them of my mission, that I was determined to hear
nothing in secret. That I therefore hoped they would each of them in
their turn report to me faithfully and candidly the Treatment they
severally had received,--that my design was to obtain them the proper
redress, but if they kept back anything from an improper fear of their
keepers, they would have themselves only to blame for their want of
immediate redress. That for the purpose of their deliverance the British
officer attended. That the British General should be also well informed
of the Facts. On this, after some little hesitation from a dread of
their keeper, the Provost Martial, one of them began and informed us
that * * * some had been confined in the Dungeon for a night to await
the leisure of the General to examine them and forgot for months; for
being Committee men, &c, &c. That they had received the most cruel
Treatment from the Provost Martial, being locked up in the Dungeon on
the most trifling pretences, such as asking for more water to drink on
a hot day than usual--for sitting up a little longer in the Evening
than orders allowed--for writing a letter to the General making their
Complaints of ill-usage and throwing (it) out of the Windows. That some
of them were kept ten, twelve, and fourteen weeks in the Dungeon on
these trifling Pretenses. A Captain Vandyke had been confined eighteen
months for being concerned in setting fire to the City, When, on
my calling for the Provost Books, it appeared that he had been made
Prisoner and closely confined in the Provost four days before the fire
happened. A Major Paine had been confined eleven months for killing a
Captain Campbell in the Engagement when he was taken Prisoner, when on
examination it appeared that the Captain had been killed in another
part of the Action. The charge was that Major Paine when taken had no
commission, though acknowledged by us as a Major.
“Most of the cases examined into turned out wholly false or too trifling
to be regarded. It also appeared by the Declaration of some of the
Gentlemen that their water would be sometimes, as the Caprice of the
Provost Martial led him, brought up to them in the tubs they used in
their Rooms, and when the weather was so hot that they must drink or
perish. On hearing a number of these instances of Cruelty, I asked who
was the Author of them--they answered the provost keeper--I desired
the Officer to call him up that we might have him face to face. He
accordingly came in, and on being informed of what had passed, he was
asked if the complaints were true. He, with great Insolence answered
that every word was true--on which the British Officer, abusing him very
much, asked him how he dared to treat Gentlemen in that cruel Manner.
He, insolently putting his hands to his side, swore that he was as
absolute there as General Howe was at the head of his Army. I observed
to the Officer that now there could be no dispute about Facts, as the
fellow had acknowledged every word to be true. I stated all the Facts in
substance and waited again on General Robertson, who hoped I was quite
satisfied with the falsity of the reports I had heard. I then stated to
him the Facts and assured him that they turned out worse than anything
we had heard. On his hesitating as to the truth of this assertion--I
observed to him the propriety of having an Officer with me, to whom
I now appealed for the truth of the Facts. He being present confirmed
them--on which the General expressed great dissatisfaction, and promised
that the Author of them should be punished. I insisted that the Officers
should be discharged from his Power on Parole on Long Island, as other
Officers were--To this after receiving from me a copy of the Facts I had
taken down, he assented, & all were discharged except seven, who were
detained some time before I could obtain their release. I forgot to
mention that one Officer, Lieutenant--was taken Prisoner and brought in
with a wound through the leg. He was sent to the Provost to be examined,
next night he was put into the Dungeon and remained there ten weeks,
totally forgotten by the General, and never had his wound dressed
except as he washed it with a little Rum and Water given to him by the
Centinels, through the--hole out of their own rations. Captain--and a
Captain Chatham were confined with them and their allowance was four
pounds hard spoiled Biscuit, and two pounds Pork per week, which they
were obliged to eat raw. While they were thus confined for the
slightest Complaints, the Provost Martial would come down and beat them
unmercifully with a Rattan, and Knock them down with his fist. After
this I visited two Hospitals of our Sick Prisoners, and the Sugar
House:--in the two first were 211 Prisoners, and in the last about 190.
They acknowledged that for about two months past they fared pretty well,
being allowed two pounds of good Beef and a proportion of flour or Bread
per week, by Mr. Lewis, My Agent, over and above the allowance received
from the British, which was professed to be two thirds allowance;
but before they had suffered much from the small allowance they had
received, and and that their Bread was very bad, being mostly biscuit,
but that the British soldiers made the same complaint as to the bread.
From every account I received I found that their treatment had been
greatly changed for the better within a few months past, except at
the Provost. They all agreed that previous to the capture of General
Burgoyne, and for some time after, Their treatment had been cruel
beyond measure. That the Prisoners in the French church, amounting on an
average to three or four hundred, could not all lay down at once, that
from the 15th October to the first January they never received a single
stick of wood, and that for the most part they eat their Pork Raw, when
the Pews and Door, and Wood on Facings failed them for fuel.
“But as to my own personal knowledge I found General Robertson very
ready to agree to every measure for alleviating the miseries of War and
very candidly admitted many faults committed by the inferior Officers,
and even the mistakes of the General himself, by hearkening to the
representations of those around him. He showed me a letter from General
Howe who was in Philadelphia, giving orders that we should not be at
liberty to purchase blankets within their lines, and containing a copy
of an order I had issued that they should not purchase provisions within
ours, by way of retaliation, but he represented it as if my order was
first. I stated the facts to General Robertson, who assured me that
General Howe had been imposed upon, and requested me to state the facts
by way of letter, when he immediately wrote to General Howe, urging the
propriety of reversing his orders, which afterwards he did in a very
hypocritical manner as will appear hereafter.”
It does not seem that Cunningham was very seriously punished. It is
probable that he was sent away from New York to Philadelphia, then in
the hands of General Howe. Cunningham was Provost Marshal in that city
during the British occupancy, where his cruelties were, if possible,
more astrocious than ever before.
Dr. Albigense Waldo was a surgeon in the American army at Valley Forge,
and he declares in his Journal concerning the prisoners in Philadelphia
that “the British did not knock the prisoners in the head, or burn them
with torches, or flay them alive, or dismember them as savages do, but
they starved them slowly in a large and prosperous city. One of these
unhappy men, driven to the last extreme of hunger, is said to have
gnawed his own fingers to the first joint from the hand, before he
expired. Others ate the mortar and stone which they chipped from the
prison walls, while some were found with bits of wood and clay in
their mouths, which in their death agonies they had sucked to find
nourishment.” [Footnote: This account is quoted by Mr. Bolton in a
recent book called “The Private Soldier under Washington,” a valuable
contribution to American history.]
Boudinot has something to say about these wretched sufferers in the
City of Brotherly Love during the months of January and February, 1778.
“Various Reports having reached us with regard to the Extreme
Sufferings of our Prisoners in Philadelphia, I was directed by the
Commander-in-Chief to make particular inquiry into the truth. After some
time I obtained full Information of their Sufferings. It was proved by
some Militia of good Character that on being taken they were put under
the care of the General’s Guard, and kept four or five days without
the least food. That on the fifth day they were taken into the Provost,
where a small quantity of Raw Pork was given to them. One of their
number seized and devoured it with so much eagerness that he dropped
down dead:--that the Provost Martial used to sell their provisions and
leave them to starve, as he did their Allowance of Wood. I received
information from a British Officer who confided in my integrity, that he
happened in the Provost just at the time the Provost Martial was locking
up the Prisoners. He had ordered them from the Yard into the House. Some
of them being ill with the Dysentery could scarcely walk, and for not
coming faster he would beat them with his Rattan. One being delayed
longer than the rest. On his coming up Cunningham gave him a blow with
one of the large Keys of the Goal which killed him on the Spot. The
Officer, exceedingly affected with the sight, went next day and lodged
a formal Complaint of the Murder with General Howe’s Aid. After waiting
some days, and not discovering any measures taken for the tryal of
Cunningham, he again went to head quarters and requested to see the
General, but was refused. He repeated his Complaint to his Aid, and told
him if this passed unpunished it would become disreputable to wear a
British uniform. No notice being taken the Officer determined to furnish
me privately with the means of proof of the Facts, so that General
Washington might remonstrate to General Howe on the subject:--I reported
them with the other testimony I had collected to General Washington.
He accordingly wrote in pretty strong Terms to General Howe and fixed
a day, when if he did not receive a satisfactory answer, he would
retaliate on the prisoners in his Custody. On the day he received an
answer from General Howe, acknowledging that, on Examination he found
that Cunningham had sold the Prisoners’ rations publicly in the Market.
That he had therefor removed him from the Charge of the Prisoners
and appointed Mr. Henry H. Ferguson in his place. This gave us great
pleasure as we knew Mr. Ferguson to be a Gentleman of Character and
great Humanity, and the issue justified our expectations. But to our
great surprise Mr. Cunningham was only removed from the Charge of the
Prisons in Philadelphia, and sent to that of New York. Soon after this
great complaints being made of our Prisoners being likely to perish for
want of Cloathing and Blankets, having been mostly stripped and robbed
of their Cloaths when taken, application was made for permission to
purchase (with the provisions which the British wanted,) Blankets
and cloathing, which should be used only by the Prisoners while in
Confinement. This was agreed to, as we were informed by our own Agent
as well as by the British Commissioner. Provisions were accordingly
attempted to be sent in, when General Howe pretending to ignorance in
the business, forbid the provisions to be admitted, or the Blankets to
be purchased. On this I gave notice to the British Commissary that after
a certain day they must provide food for their prisoners south west of
New Jersey, and to be sent in from their lines, as they should no longer
be allowed to purchase provisions with us. The line drawn arose from our
being at liberty to purchase in New York. This made a great noise,
when General Howe on receiving General Robertson’s letter from New York
before mentioned, urging the propriety of the measures, issued an order
that every Person in Philadelphia, who had a Blanket to sell or to spare
should bring them into the King’s Stores. When this was done he then
gave my Agent permission to purchase Blankets and Cloathing, in the City
of Philadelphia. On my Agent attempting it he found every Blanket in the
City purchased by the Agents for the Army, so that not a Blanket could
be had. My Agent knowing the necessities of our Prisoners, immediately
employed persons in every part of the city and before General Howe could
discover his own omission, purchased up every piece of flannel he could
meet with, and made it up into a kind of Blanket, which answered our
purpose.”
Wherever General Howe and Cunningham were together, either in New York
or in Philadelphia, the most atrocious cruelties were inflicted upon
the American prisoners in their power, and yet some have endeavoured to
excuse General Howe, on what grounds it is difficult to determine. It
has been said that Cunningham _acted on higher authority than any in
America_, and that Howe in vain endeavored to mitigate the sufferings of
the prisoners. This, however, is not easy of belief. Howe must at least
have wilfully blinded himself to the wicked and murderous violence of
his subordinate. It was his duty to know how the prisoners at his mercy
fared, and not to employ murderers to destroy them by the thousands as
they were destroyed in the prisons of New York and Philadelphia.
Oliver Bunce, in His “Romance of the Revolution,” thus speaks of the
inhumanity of Cunningham.
“But of all atrocities those committed in the prisons and prison ships
of New York are the most execrable, and indeed there is nothing in
history to excel the barbarities there inflicted. Twelve thousand
suffered death by their inhuman, cruel, savage, and barbarous usage on
board the filthy and malignant prison ships--adding those who died and
were poisoned in the infected prisons in the city a much larger number
would be necessary to include all those who suffered by command of
British Generals in New York. The scenes enacted in these prisons
almost exceed belief. * * * Cunningham, the like of whom, for unpitying,
relentless cruelty, the world has not produced, * * * thirsted for
blood, and took an eager delight in murder.”
He remained in New York until November, 1783, when he embarked on board
a British man-of-war and America was no longer cursed with his presence.
He is said to have been hung for the crime of forgery on the tenth of
August, 1791. The newspapers of the day contained the accounts of his
death, and his dying confession. These accounts have, however, been
discredited by historians who have in vain sought the English records
for the date of his death. It is said that no man of the name of
Cunningham was hung in England in the year 1791. It is not possible
to find any official British record of his transactions while Provost
Marshal, and there seems a mystery about the disappearance of his books
kept while in charge of the Provost, quite as great as the mystery which
envelopes his death. But whether or no he confessed his many crimes;
whether or no he received in this world a portion of the punishment
he deserved, it is certain that the crimes were committed, and duly
recorded in the judgment book of God, before whose awful bar he has been
called to account for every one of them.
CHAPTER VI
THE CASE OF JABEZ FITCH
In presenting our gleanings from the books, papers, letters, pamphlets,
and other documents that have been written on the subject of our
prisoners during the Revolution, we will endeavor to follow some
chronological order, so that we may carry the story on month by month
and year by year until that last day of the British possession of New
York when Sergeant O’Keefe threw down upon the pavement of the Provost
the keys of that prison, and made his escape on board a British
man-of-war.
One of the prisoners taken on Long Island in the summer of 1776 was
Captain Jabez Fitch, who was captured on the 27th of August, of that
year. While a prisoner he contracted a scorbutic affection which
rendered miserable thirty years of his life.
On the 29th of August he was taken to the transport Pacific. It was a
very rainy day. The officers, of whom there were about twenty-five,
were in one boat, and the men “being between three and four hundred
in several other Boats, and had their hands tied behind them. In this
Situation we were carried by several Ships, where there appeared great
numbers of Women on Deck, who were very liberal of their Curses and
Execrations: they were also not a little Noisy in their Insults, but
clap’d their hands and used other peculiar gestures in so Extraordinary
a Manner yet they were in some Danger of leaping overboard in this
surprising Extacy.” On arriving at the Pacific, a very large transport
ship, they were told that all officers and men together were to be
shut down below deck. The master of the ship was a brute named Dunn. At
sundown all were driven down the hatches, with curses and execrations.
“Both ye lower Decks were very full of Durt,” and the rains had leaked
in and made a dreadful sloppy mess of the floor, so that the mud was
half over their shoes. At the same time they were so crowded that only
half their number could lie down at a time.
“Some time in the Evening a number of the Infernal Savages came down
with a lanthorn and loaded two small pieces or Cannon with Grape shot,
which were pointed through two Ports in such a manner as to Rake ye deck
where our people lay, telling us at ye same time with many Curses yt in
Case of any Disturbance or the least noise in ye Night, they were to be
Imediately fired on ye Damned Rebels.” When allowed to come on deck
“we were insulted by those Blackguard Villians in the most vulgar
manner....We were allowed no water that was fit for a Beast to Drink,
although they had plenty of good Water on board, which was used
plentifully by the Seamen, etc.
“Lieutenant Dowdswell, with a party of Marines sent on board for our
Guard; this Mr. Dowdswell treated us with considerable humanity, and
appeared to be a Gentleman, nor were the Marines in General so Insolent
as the Ships Crew....On the 31st the Commissary of Prisoners came on
Board and took down the names, etc, of the prisoners....he told us
Colonel Clark and many other Officers were confined at Flatbush. On
Sunday, September 1st, we were removed to the ship Lord Rochford,
commanded by one Lambert. This ship was much crowded. Most of
the Officers were lodged on the quarter deck. Some nights we were
considerably wet with rain.”
The Lord Rochford lay off New Utrecht. On the third of September the
officers that had been confined at Flatbush were brought on board the
snow called the Mentor. “On the fifth,” says Fitch, in his written
account, of which this is an abstract, “we were removed on board this
Snow, which was our prison for a long time. * * * We were about 90 in
number, and ye Field Officers had Liberty of ye Cabbin, etc. * * * This
Snow was commanded by one Davis, a very worthless, low-lived fellow. * *
* When we first met on board the Mentor we spent a considerable time in
Relating to each other ye particular Circumstances of our first being
Taken, and also ye various Treatment with which we met on yt occasion,
nor was this a disagreeable Entertainment in our Melancholy Situation.
* * * Many of the officers and men were almost Destitute of Clothes,
several having neither Britches, Stockings or Shoes, many of them when
first taken were stripped entirely naked. Corporal Raymond of the 17th
Regiment after being taken and Stripped was shamefully insulted and
Abused by Gen’l Dehightler, seized by ye Hair of his head, thrown on
the ground, etc. Some present, who had some small degree of humanity in
their Composition, were so good as to favor them (the prisoners) with
some old durty worn Garments, just sufficient to cover their nakedness,
and in this Situation (they) were made Objects of Ridicule for ye
Diversion of those Foreign Butchers.
“One Sam Talman (an Indian fellow belonging to the 17th Regiment) was
Stripped and set up as a mark for them to Shoot at for Diversion or
Practice, by which he Received two severe wounds, in the neck and arm
* * * afterwards they destroyed him with many hundreds others by
starvation in the prisons of New York.
“On October first orders came to land the prisoners in New York. This
was not done until the seventh. On Monday about four o’clock Mr. Loring
conducted us to a very large house on the West side of Broadway in the
corner south of Warren Street near Bridewell, where we were assigned a
small yard back of the house, and a Stoop in ye Front for our Walk. We
were also Indulged with Liberty to pass and Repass to an adjacent pump
in Ye Street.”
Although paroled the officers were closely confined in this place for
six weeks. Their provisions, he says: “were insufficient to preserve ye
Connection between Soul and Body, yet ye Charitable People of this City
were so good as to afford us very considerable Relief on this account,
but it was ye poor and those who were in low circumstances only who were
thoughtful of our Necessities, and provisions were now grown scarce and
Excessive dear. * * * Their unparalleled generosity was undoubtedly ye
happy means of saving many Lives, notwithstanding such great numbers
perished with hunger.
“Here we found a number of Officers made prisoners since we were,
Colonel Selden, Colonel Moulton, etc. They were first confined in Ye
City Hall. Colonel Selden died the Fryday after we arrived. He was
Buried in the New Brick Churchyard, and most of the Officers were
allowed to attend his Funeral. Dr. Thatcher of the British army attended
him, a man of great humanity.”
Captain Fitch declares that there were two thousand wounded British
and Hessians in the hospitals in New York after the battle of Fort
Washington, which is a much larger estimate than we have found in other
accounts. He says that the day of the battle was Saturday, November
16th, and that the prisoners were not brought to New York until the
Monday following. They were then confined in the Bridewell, as the City
Jail was then called, and in several churches. Some of them were soon
afterwards sent on board a prison ship, which was probably the Whitby.
“A number of the officers were sent to our place of confinement; Colonel
Rawlings, Colonel Hobby, Major (Otho) Williams, etc. Rawlings and
Williams were wounded, others were also wounded, among them Lieutenant
Hanson (a young Gent’n from Va.) who was Shot through ye Shoulder with a
Musq’t Ball of which wound he Died ye end of Dec’r.
“Many of ye charitable Inhabitants were denied admittance when they came
to Visit us.”
On the twentieth of November most of the officers were set at liberty on
parole. “Ye first Objects of our attention were ye poor men who had been
unhappily Captivated with us. They had been landed about ye same time yt
we were, and confined in several Churches and other large Buildings
and although we had often Received Intelligence from them with ye most
Deplorable Representation of their Miserable Situation, yet when we came
to visit them we found their sufferings vastly superior to what we had
been able to conceive. Nor are words sufficient to convey an Adequate
Idea of their Unparalled Calamity. Well might ye Prophet say, ‘They yt
be slain with ye sword are better than they yt be slain with hunger, for
these pine away, etc.’
“Their appearance in general Rather Resembled dead Corpses than living
men. Indeed great numbers had already arrived at their long home, and ye
Remainder appeared far advanced on ye same Journey: their accommodations
were in all respects vastly Inferior to what a New England Farmer would
have provided for his Cattle, and although ye Commissary pretended to
furnish them with two thirds of ye allowance of ye King’s Troops, yet
they were cheated out of one half of that. They were many times entirely
neglected from Day to Day, and received no Provision at all; they were
also frequently Imposed upon in Regard to ye Quality as well as Quantity
of their provision. Especially in the Necessary article of Bread of
which they often received such Rotten and mouldy stuff, as was entirely
unfit for use.
“* * * A large number of ye most feeble were Removed down to ye Quaker
Meeting House on Queen Street, where many hundreds of them perished in
a much more miserable Situation than ye dumb Beasts, while those whose
particular business it was to provide them relief, paid very little or
no attention to their unparalleled sufferings. This house I understand
was under ye Superintendence of one Dr. Dibuke * * * who had been
at least once convicted of stealing (in Europe) and had fled to this
country for protection: It was said he often made application of his
Cane among ye Sick instead of other medicines. * * * I have often been
in danger of being stabbed for attempting to speak to a prisoner in ye
yard. * * *
“About the 24th December a large number of prisoners were embarked on
a ship to be sent to New England. What privates of the 17th Regiment
remained living were Included in this number, but about one half had
already perished in Prison. I was afterwards informed that the Winds
being unfavourable and their accommodations and provisions on board ye
Ship being very similar to what they had been provided with before, a
large proportion of them perished before they could reach New England,
so that it is to be feared very few of them lived to see their native
homes.
“Soon after there was large numbers of the prisoners sent off by land
both to the Southward and Eastward so yt when ye Officers were Removed
over into Long Island in the latter part of January there remained but
very few of the privates in that City except those released by Death
which number was supposed to be about 1800.
“General Robertson, so famous for Politeness and Humanity was commanding
Officer at New York during the aforesaid treatment of the prisoners.
Governor Scheene was said to have visited the prisoners at the Churches
and manifested great dissatisfaction at their ill Usage, yet I was never
able to learn that ye poor Sufferers Rec’d any Advantage thereby.”
Captain Jabez Fitch was a prisoner eighteen months. After the Revolution
he lived in Vermont, where he died in 1812.
CHAPTER VII
THE HOSPITAL DOCTOR--A TORY’S ACCOUNT OF NEW YORK IN 1777--ETHAN ALLEN’S
ACCOUNT OF THE PRISONERS
The doctor spoken of by Jabez Fitch as Dr. Dibuke is perhaps the
notorious character described by Mr. Elias Boudinot in the Journal from
which we have already quoted. On page 35 of this book he gives us the
following:
“AN ACCOUNT OF THE FRENCHMAN WHO POISONED. AMERICAN PRISONERS IN NEW
YORK, AND WAS REWARDED FOR SO DOING BY GENERAL, HOWE
“When the British Army took possession of New York they found a
Frenchman in Goal, under Condemnation for Burglery and Robbery. He was
liberated. He was a very loos, ignorant man. Had been a Servant. This
fellow was set over our Prisoners in the Hospital, as a Surgeon, though
he knew not the least principle of the Art. Dr. McHenry, a Physician
of note in the American Army, and then a Prisoner, finding the extreme
ignorance of this man, and that he was really murdering our people,
remonstrated to the British Director of the Hospital, and refused
visiting our sick Prisoners if this man was not dismissed. A British
Officer, convinced that he had killed several of our People, lodged
a complaint against him, when he was ordered to be tryed by a Court
Martial, but the morning before the Court were to set, this Officer was
ordered off to St Johns, and the Criminal was discharged for want of
Evidence. During this man having the Charge of our Prisoners in the
Hospital, two of our Men deserted from the Hospital and came into our
Army when they were ordered to me for Examination. They Joined in this
story. That they were sick in the Hospital under the care of the above
Frenchman. That he came and examined them, and gave to each of them a
dose of Physick to be taken immediately. A Young Woman, their Nurse,
made them some private signs not to take the Physick immediately. After
the Doctor was gone, she told them she suspected the Powder was poison.
That she had several times heard this Frenchman say that he would have
ten Rebels dead in such a Room and five dead in such a Room the next
morning, and it always so happened. They asked her what they should do:
She told them their only chance was to get off, sick as they were,
that she would help them out and they must shift for themselves. They
accordingly got off safe, and brought the Physick with them. This was
given to a Surgeon’s Mate, who afterwards reported that he gave it to a
Dog, and that he died in a very short time. I afterwards saw an account
in a London Paper of this same Frenchman being taken up in England for
some Crime and condemned to dye. At his Execution he acknowledged the
fact of his having murdered a great number of Rebels in the Hospitals at
New York by poyson. That on his reporting to General Howe the number
of the Prisoners dead, he raised his pay. He further confessed that he
poisoned the wells used by the American Flying Camp, which caused such
an uncommon Mortality among them in the year 1776.”
Jabez Fitch seems to have been mistaken in thinking that General
Robertson instead of Lord Howe was commanding in New York at this time.
We will now give the account written by a Tory gentleman, who lived in
New York during a part of the Revolution, of Loring, the Commissary of
Prisons, appointed by General Howe in 1776. Judge Thomas Jones was a
noted loyalist of the day. Finding it inconvenient to remain in this
country after the war, he removed to England, where he died in 1792,
having first completed his “History of New York during the Revolution.”
He gives a much larger number of prisoners in that city in the year
1776 than do any of the other authorities. We will, however, give his
statements just as they were written.
“Upon the close of the campaign in 1776 there were not less than 10,000
prisoners (Sailors included) within the British lines in New York. A
Commissary of Prisoners was therefore appointed, and one Joshua Loring,
a Bostonian, was commissioned to the office with a guinea a day, and
rations of all kinds for himself and family. In this appointment there
was reciprocity. Loring had a handsome wife. The General, Sir William
Howe, was fond of her. Joshua made no objections. He fingered the cash:
the General enjoyed Madam. Everybody supposing the next campaign (should
the rebels ever risk another) would put a final period to the rebellion.
Loring was determined to make the most of his commission and by
appropriating to his own use nearly two thirds of the rations allowed
the prisoners, he actually starved to death about three hundred of the
poor wretches before an exchange took place, and which was not until
February, 1777, and hundreds that were alive at the time were so
emaciated and enfeebled for the want of provisions, that numbers died on
the road on their way home, and many lived but a few days after reaching
their habitations. The war continuing, the Commissaryship of Prisoners
grew so lucrative that in 1778 the Admiral thought proper to appoint one
for naval prisoners. Upon the French War a Commissary was appointed for
France. When Spain joined France another was appointed for Spain. When
Great Britain made war upon Holland a Commissary was appointed for
Dutch prisoners. Each had his guinea a day, and rations for himself and
family. Besides, the prisoners were half starved, as the Commissaries
filched their provisions, and disposed of them for their own use. It
is a known fact, also, that whenever an exchange was to take place the
preference was given to those who had, or could procure, the most money
to present to the Commissaries who conducted the exchange, by which
means large sums of money were unjustly extorted and demanded from the
prisoners at every exchange, to the scandal and disgrace of Britons.
We had five Commissaries of Prisoners, when one could have done all the
business. Each Commissary had a Deputy, a Clerk, a Messenger in full
pay, with rations of every kind.”
As Judge Jones was an ardent Tory we would scarcely imagine that he
would exaggerate in describing the corruptions of the commissaries.
He greatly deplored the cruelties with which he taxed General Howe and
other officials, and declared that these enormities prevented all hopes
of reconciliation with Great Britain.
We will next quote from the “Life of Ethan Allen,” written by himself,
as he describes the condition of the prisoners in the churches in New
York, more graphically than any of his contemporaries.
ETHAN ALLEN’S ACCOUNT OF THE AMERICAN PRISONERS
“Our number, about thirty-four, were all locked up in one common large
room, without regard to rank, education, or any other accomplishment,
where we continued from the setting to the rising sun, and as sundry of
them were infected with the gaol and other distempers, the furniture
of this spacious room consisted principally of excrement tubs. We
petitioned for a removal of the sick into hospitals, but were denied.
We remonstrated against the ungenerous usage of being confined with
the privates, as being contrary to the laws and customs of nations, and
particularly ungrateful in them, in consequence of the gentleman-like
usage which the British imprisoned officers met with in America; and
thus we wearied ourselves petitioning and remonstrating, but o no
purpose at all; for General Massey, who commanded at Halifax, was as
inflexible as the d---l himself. * * * Among the prisoners were five
who had a legal claim to a parole, James Lovel, Esq; Captain Francis
Proctor; a Mr. Rowland, Master of a Continental armed vessel; a Mr.
Taylor, his mate, and myself. * * * The prisoners were ordered to go
on board of a man-of-war, which was bound for New York, but two of them
were not able to go on board and were left in Halifax: one died and
the other recovered. This was about the 12th of October, 1776. * * * We
arrived before New York and cast an anchor the latter part of October,
where we remained several days, and where Captain Smith informed me that
he had recommended me to Admiral Howe, and General Sir Wm. Howe, as a
gentleman of honor and veracity, and desired that I might be treated
as such. Captain Burk was then ordered on board a prison ship in the
harbor. I took my leave of Captain Smith, and with the other prisoners
was sent on board a transport ship. * * * Some of the last days of
November the prisoners were landed at New York, and I was admitted to
parole with the other officers, viz: Proctor, Rowland, and Taylor.
The privates were put into the filthy churches in New York, with the
distressed prisoners that were taken at Fort Washington, and the second
night Sergeant Roger Moore, who was bold and enterprising, found means
to make his escape, with every of the remaining prisoners that were
taken with me, except three who were soon after exchanged: so that out
of thirty-one prisoners who went with me the round exhibited in these
sheets, two only died with the enemy, and three only were exchanged, one
of whom died after he came within our lines. All the rest at different
times made their escape from the enemy.
“I now found myself on parole, and restricted to the limits of the
city of New York, where I soon projected means to live in some measure
agreeable to my rank, though I was destitute of cash. My constitution
was almost worn out by such a long and barbarous captivity. * * * In
consequence of a regular diet and exercise my blood recruited, and
my nerves in a great measure recovered their former tone * * * in the
course of six months.
“* * * Those who had the misfortune to fall into the enemy’s hands at
Fort Washington * * * were reserved from immediate death to famish
and die with hunger: in fine the word rebel’ was thought by the enemy
sufficient to sanctify whatever cruelties they were pleased to inflict,
death itself not excepted. * * *
“The prisoners who were brought to New York were crowded into churches,
and environed with slavish Hessian guards, a people of a strange
language * * * and at other times by merciless Britons, whose mode of
communicating ideas being unintelligible in this country served only
to tantalize and insult the helpless and perishing; but above all the
hellish delight and triumph of the tories over them, as they were dying
by hundreds. This was too much for me to bear as a spectator; for I saw
the tories exulting over the dead bodies of their countrymen. I have
gone into the churches and seen sundry of the prisoners in the agonies
of death, in consequence of very hunger; and others speechless and
near death, biting pieces of chips; others pleading, for God’s sake for
something to eat, and at the same time shivering with the cold. Hollow
groans saluted my ears, and despair seemed to be imprinted on every of
their countenances. The filth in these churches, in consequence of the
fluxes, was almost beyond description. I have carefully sought to direct
my steps so as to avoid it, but could not. They would beg for God’s sake
for one copper or morsel of bread. I have seen in one of the churches
seven dead, at the same time, lying among the excrements of their
bodies.
“It was a common practice with the enemy to convey the dead from these
filthy places in carts, to be slightly buried, and I have seen whole
gangs of tories making derision, and exulting over the dead, saying
‘There goes another load of d----d rebels!’ I have observed the British
soldiers to be full of their blackguard jokes and vaunting on those
occasions, but they seemed to me to be less malignant than the Tories.
“The provision dealt out to the prisoners was by no means sufficient for
the support of life. It was deficient in Quantity, and much more so in
Quality. The prisoners often presented me with a sample of their bread,
which I certify was damaged to such a degree that it was loathsome and
unfit to be eaten, and I am bold to aver it as my opinion, that it had
been condemned and was of the very worst sort. I have seen and been
fed upon damaged bread, in the course of my captivity, and observed the
quality of such bread as has been condemned by the enemy, among which
was very little so effectually spoiled as what was dealt out to these
prisoners. Their allowance of meat, as they told me, was quite trifling
and of the basest sort. I never saw any of it, but was informed, bad as
it was, it was swallowed almost as quick as they got hold of it. I saw
some of them sucking bones after they were speechless; others who could
yet speak and had the use of their reason, urged me in the strongest
and most pathetic manner, to use my interest in their behalf: ‘For you
plainly see,’ said they, ‘that we are devoted to death and destruction,’
and after I had examined more particularly into their truly deplorable
condition and had become more fully apprized of the essential facts, I
was persuaded that it was a premeditated and systematized plan of the
British council to destroy the youths of our land, with a view thereby
to deter the country and make it submit to their despotism: but as I
could not do them any material service, and by any public attempt for
that purpose I might endanger myself by frequenting places the most
nauseous and contagious that could be conceived of, I refrained going
into the churches, but frequently conversed with such of the prisoners
as were admitted to come out into the yard, and found that the
systematical usage still continued. The guard would often drive me away
with their fixed bayonets. A Hessian one day followed me five or six
rods, but by making use of my legs, I got rid of the lubber.
“Sometimes I could obtain a little conversation notwithstanding their
severities.
“I was in one of the yards and it was rumoured among those in the
church, and sundry of the prisoners came with their usual complaints to
me, and among the rest a large-boned, tall young man, as he told me from
Pennsylvania, who was reduced to a mere skeleton. He said he was glad
to see me before he died, which he had expected to have done last night,
but was a little revived. He further informed me that he and his brother
had been urged to enlist into the British army, but had both resolved to
die first; that his brother had died last night, in consequence of that
resolve, and that he expected shortly to follow him; but I made the
other prisoners stand a little off and told him with a low voice to
enlist; he then asked whether it was right in the sight of God? I
assured him that it was, and that duty to himself obliged him to deceive
the British by enlisting and deserting the first opportunity; upon which
he answered with transport that he would enlist. I charged him not to
mention my name as his adviser, lest it should get air and I should be
closely confined, in consequence of it.
“The integrity of these suffering prisoners is incredible. Many hundreds
of them, I am confident, submitted to death rather than enlist in the
British service, which, I am informed, they most generally were
pressed to do. I was astonished at the resolution of the two brothers,
particularly; it seems that they could not be stimulated to such
exertions of heroism from ambition, as they were but obscure soldiers.
Strong indeed must the internal principle of virtue be which supported
them to brave death, and one of them went through the operation, as did
many hundreds others * * * These things will have their proper effect
upon the generous and brave.
“The officers on parole were most of them zealous, if possible, to
afford the miserable soldiers relief, and often consulted with one
another on the subject, but to no effect, being destitute of the means
of subsistence which they needed, nor could they project any measure
which they thought would alter their fate, or so much as be a mean of
getting them out of those filthy places to the privilege of fresh air.
Some projected that all the officers should go in procession to General
Howe and plead the cause of the perishing soldiers, but this proposal
was negatived for the following reasons: viz: because that General Howe
must needs be well acquainted and have a thorough knowledge of the state
and condition of the prisoners in every of their wretched apartments,
and that much more particular and exact than any officer on parole could
be supposed to have, as the General had a return of the circumstances of
the prisoners by his own officers every morning, of the number who
were alive, as also of the number who died every twenty-four hours: and
consequently the bill of mortality, as collected from the daily returns,
lay before him with all the material situations and circumstances of the
prisoners, and provided the officers should go in procession to General
Howe, according to the projection, it would give him the greatest
affront, and that he would either retort upon them, that it was no part
of their parole to instruct him in his conduct to prisoners; that
they were mutinying against his authority, and, by affronting him, had
forfeited their parole, or that, more probably, instead of saying one
word to them, would order them all into as wretched a confinement as the
soldiers whom they sought to relieve, for at that time the British, from
the General to the private centinel, were in full confidence, nor did
they so much as hesitate, but that they should conquer the country.
“Thus the consultation of the officers was confounded and broken to
pieces, in consequence of the dread which at the time lay on their minds
of offending General Howe; for they conceived so murderous a tryant
would not be too good to destroy even the officers on the least pretence
of an affront, as they were equally in his power with the soldiers;
and as General Howe perfectly understood the condition of the private
soldiers, it was argued that it was exactly such as he and his council
had devised, and as he meant to destroy them it would be to no purpose
for them to try to dissuade him from it, as they were helpless and
liable to the same fate, on giving the least affront. Indeed anxious
apprehensions disturbed them in their then circumstances.
“Meantime mortality raged to such an intolerable degree among the
prisoners that the very school boys in the street knew the mental design
of it in some measure; at least they knew that they were starved
to death. Some poor women contributed to their necessity till their
children were almost starved; and all persons of common understanding
knew that they were devoted to the cruellest and worst of deaths.
“It was also proposed by some to make a written representation of the
condition of the soldiery, and the officers to sign it, and that it
should be couched in such terms, as though they were apprehensive that
the General was imposed upon by his officers, in their daily returns to
him of the state and condition of the prisoners, and that therefor the
officers moved with compassion, were constrained to communicate to him
the facts relative to them, nothing doubting but that they would meet
with a speedy redress; but this proposal was most generally negatived
also, and for much the same reason offered in the other case; for it was
conjectured that General Howe’s indignation would be moved against such
officers as should attempt to whip him over his officers’ backs; that he
would discern that he himself was really struck at, and not the officers
who made the daily returns; and therefor self preservation deterred
the officers from either petitioning or remonstrating to General Howe,
either verbally or in writing; as also they considered that no valuable
purpose to the distressed would be obtained.
“I made several rough drafts on the subject, one of which I exhibited
to the Colonels Magaw, Miles, and Atlee; and they said that they would
consider the matter. Soon after I called on them, and some of the
gentlemen informed me that they had written to the General on the
subject, and I concluded that the gentlemen thought it best that they
should write without me, as there was such spirited aversion subsisting
between the British and me.”
Ethan Allen goes on to say: “Our little army was retreating in New
Jersey and our young men murdered by hundreds in New York.” He then
speaks of Washington’s success at Trenton in the following terms: “This
success had a mighty effect on General Howe and his council, and
roused them to a sense of their own weakness. * * * Their obduracy and
death-designing malevolence in some measure abated or was suspended.
The prisoners, who were condemned to the most wretched and cruellest
of deaths, and who survived to this period, _though most of them died
before,_ were immediately ordered to be sent within General Washington’s
lines, for an exchange, and in consequence of it were taken out of their
filthy and poisonous places of confinement, and sent out of New York to
their friends in haste. Several of them fell dead in the streets of New
York, as they attempted to walk to the vessels in the harbor, for their
intended embarkation. What number lived to reach the lines I cannot
ascertain, but, from concurrent representations which I have since
received from numbers of people who lived in and adjacent to such parts
of the country, where they were received from the enemy, _I apprehend
that most of them died in consequence of the vile usage of the enemy._
Some who were eye witnesses of the scene of mortality, more especially
in that part which continued after the exchange took place, are of
opinion that it was partly in consequence of a slow poison; but this
I refer to the doctors who attended them, who are certainly the best
judges.
“Upon the best calculation I have been able to make from personal
knowledge, and the many evidences I have collected in support of the
facts, I learn that, of the prisoners taken on Long Island and Fort
Washington and some few others, at different times and places, about
two thousand perished with hunger, cold, and sickness, occasioned by the
filth of their prisons, at New York; and a number more on their passage
to the continental lines; most of the residue who reached their
friends having received their death wound, could not be restored by
the assistance of their physicians and friends: but like their brother
prisoners, fell a sacrifice to the relentless and scientific barbarity
of the British. I took as much pains as the circumstances would admit of
to inform myself not only of matters of fact, but likewise of the very
design and aims of General Howe and his council, the latter of which I
predicated on the former, and submit it to the candid public.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDER GRAYDON
One of the most interesting and best memoirs of revolutionary times is
that written by Alexander Graydon, and as he was taken prisoner at Fort
Washington, and closely connected with the events in New York during the
winter of 1776-7, we will quote here his account of his captivity.
He describes the building of Fort Washington in July of 1776 by the men
of Magaw’s and Hand’s regiments. General Putnam was the engineer. It was
poorly built for defence, and not adapted for a siege.
Graydon was a captain in Colonel Shee’s Regiment, but, for some reason
or other, Shee went home just before the battle was fought, and his
troops were commanded by Cadwallader in his stead. Graydon puts the
number of privates taken prisoner at 2706 and the officers at about 210.
Bedinger, as we have already seen, states that there were 2673 privates
and 210 officers. He was a man of painstaking accuracy, and it is
quite probable that his account is the most trustworthy. As one of the
privates was Bedinger’s own young brother, a boy of fifteen, whom he
undoubtedly visited as often as possible, while Graydon only went
once to the prisons, perhaps Bedinger had the best opportunities for
computing the number of captives.
Graydon says that Colonel Rawlings was, some time late in the morning
of the 16th of November, attacked by the Hessians, when he fought with
great gallantry and effect as they were climbing the heights, until the
arms of the riflemen became useless from the foulness they contracted
from the frequent repetition of their fire.
Graydon, himself, becoming separated from his own men, mistook a party
of Highlanders for them, and was obliged to surrender to them. He
was put under charge of a Scotch sergeant, who said to him and his
companion, Forrest: “Young men, ye should never fight against your
King!”
Just then a British officer rode up at full gallop exclaiming, “What!
taking prisoners! Kill them, Kill every man of them!”
“My back was towards him when he spoke,” says Graydon, “and although
by this time there was none of that appearance of ferocity in the guard
which would induce much fear that they would execute his command, I yet
thought it well enough to parry it, and turning to him, I took off my
hat, saying, ‘Sir, I put myself under your protection!’
“No man was ever more effectually rebuked. His manner was instantly
softened; he met my salutation with an inclination of his body, and
after a civil question or two, as if to make amends for his sanguinary
mandate, rode off towards the fort, to which he had enquired the way.
“Though I had delivered up my arms I had not adverted to a cartouche
box which I wore about my waist, and which, having once belonged to
his British Majesty, presented in front the gilded letters, G. R.
Exasperated at this trophy on the body of a rebel, one of the soldiers
seized the belt with great violence, and in the act to unbuckle it, had
nearly jerked me off my legs. To appease the offended loyalty of the
honest Scot I submissively took it off and handed it to him, being
conscious that I had no longer any right to it. At this moment a Hessian
came up. He was not a private, neither did he look like a regular
officer. He was some retainer, however, to the German troops, and as
much of a brute as any one I have ever seen in human form. The wretch
came near enough to elbow us, and, half unsheathing his sword, with a
countenance that bespoke a most vehement desire to use it against us, he
grunted out in broken English, ‘Eh! you rebel! you damn rebel!’
“I had by this time entire confidence in our Scotchmen, and therefore
regarded the caitiff with the same indifference that I should have
viewed a caged wild beast, though with much greater abhorrence. * * *
“We were marched to an old stable, where we found about forty or fifty
prisoners already collected, principally officers, of whom I only
particularly recollect Lieutenant Brodhead of our battalion. We remained
on the outside of the building; and, for nearly an hour, sustained a
series of the most intolerable abuse. This was chiefly from the officers
of the light infantry, for the most part young and insolent puppies,
whose worthlessness was apparently their recommendation to a service,
which placed them in the post of danger, and in the way of becoming
food for powder, their most appropriate destination next to that of the
gallows. The term ‘rebel,’ with the epithet ‘damned’ before it, was
the mildest we received. We were twenty times told, sometimes with
a taunting affectation of concern, that we should every man of us be
hanged. * * * The indignity of being ordered about by such contemptible
whipsters, for a moment unmanned me, and I was obliged to apply my
handkerchief to my eyes. This was the first time in my life that I had
been the victim of brutal, cowardly oppression, and I was unequal to the
shock; but my elasticity of mind was soon restored, and I viewed it with
the indignant contempt it deserved.
“For the greater convenience of guarding us we were now removed to the
barn of Colonel Morris’s house, which had been the head-quarters of our
army. * * * It was a good, new building. * * * There were from a hundred
and fifty to two hundred, comprising a motley group, to be sure. Men and
officers of all descriptions, regulars and militia, troops continental
and state, and some in hunting shirts, the mortal aversion of a red
coat. Some of the officers had been plundered of their hats, and some
of their coats, and upon the new society into which we were introduced,
with whom a showy exterior was all in all, we were certainly not
calculated to make a very favorable impression. I found Captain Tudor
here, of our regiment, who, if I mistake not, had lost his hat. * * * It
was announced, by an huzza, that the fort had surrendered.
“The officer who commanded the guard in whose custody we now were, was
an ill-looking, low-bred fellow of this dashing corps of light infantry.
* * * As I stood as near as possible to the door for the sake of air,
the enclosure in which we were being extremely crowded and unpleasant,
I was particularly exposed to his brutality; and repelling with some
severity one of his attacks, for I was becoming desperate and careless
of safety, the ruffian exclaimed, ‘Not a word, sir, or damme, I’ll give
you my butt!’ at the same time clubbing his fusee, and drawing it back
as if to give the blow, I fully expected it, but he contented himself
with the threat. I observed to him that I was in his power, and disposed
to submit to it, though not proof against every provocation. * * * There
were several British officers present, when a Serjeant-Major came to
take an account of us, and particularly a list of such of us as were
officers. This Serjeant, though not uncivil, had all that animated,
degagè impudence of air, which belongs to a self complacent,
non-commissioned officer of the most arrogant army in the world; and
with his pen in his hand and his paper on his knee applied to each of
us in his turn for his rank. * * * The sentinels were withdrawn to the
distance of about ten or twelve feet, and we were told that such of us
as were officers might walk before the door. This was a great relief to
us.”
The officers were lodged in the barn loft quite comfortably. A young
Lieutenant Beckwith had them in charge, and was a humane gentleman. In
the evening he told them he would send them, if possible, a bottle of
wine, but at any rate, a bottle of spirits. He kept his word as to the
spirits, which was all the supper the party in the loft had. “In the
morning a soldier brought me Mr. B.’s compliments, and an invitation
to come down and breakfast with him. * * * I thankfully accepted his
invitation, and took with me Forrest and Tudor. * * * He gave us a dish
of excellent coffee, with plenty of very good toast, which was the only
morsel we had eaten for the last twenty-four hours. * * * Our fellow
sufferers got nothing until next morning. * * *
“All the glory that was going (in the battle of Fort Washington) had, in
my idea of what had passed, been engrossed by the regiment of Rawlings,
which had been actively engaged, killed a number of the enemy, and lost
many themselves.
“About two o’clock Mr. B. sent me a plate amply supplied with corned
beef, cabbage, and the leg and wing of a turkey, with bread in
proportion.”
Though Mr. Graydon calls this gentleman Mr. Becket, it seems that there
was no young officer of that name at the battle of Fort Washington.
Becket appears to be a mistake for Lieutenant Onslow Beckwith. The
prisoners were now marched within six miles of New York and Graydon’s
party of officers were well quartered in a house. “Here,” he continues,
“for the first time we drew provisions for the famished soldiers. * *
* Previously to entering the city we were drawn up for about an hour on
the high ground near the East River. Here, the officers being separated
from the men, we were conducted into a church, where we signed a
parole.”
At this place a non-commissioned British officer, who had seen him at
the ordinary kept by his widowed mother in Philadelphia, when he was a
boy, insisted on giving him a dollar.
“Quarters were assigned for us in the upper part of the town, in what
was called ‘The holy ground.’ * * * I ventured to take board at four
dollars per week with a Mrs. Carroll. * * * Colonel Magaw, Major West,
and others, boarded with me.”
He was fortunate in obtaining his trunk and mattress. Speaking of the
prisons in which the privates were confined he says: “I once and
once only ventured to penetrate into these abodes of human misery and
despair. But to what purpose repeat my visit, when I had neither relief
to administer nor comfort to bestow? * * * I endeavoured to comfort them
with the hope of exchange, but humanity forbade me to counsel them to
rush on sure destruction. * * * Our own condition was a paradise to
theirs. * * * Thousands of my unhappy countrymen were consigned to slow,
consuming tortures, equally fatal and potent to destruction.”
The American officers on parole in New York prepared a memorial to Sir
William Howe on the condition of these wretched sufferers, and it was
signed by Colonels Magaw, Miles, and Atlee. This is, no doubt, the paper
of which Colonel Ethan Allen writes. Captain Graydon was commissioned to
deliver this document to Sir William Howe. He says: “The representation
which had been submitted to General Howe in behalf of the suffering
prisoners was more successful than had been expected. * * * The
propositions had been considered by Sir William Howe, and he was
disposed to accede to them. These were that the men should be sent
within our lines, where they should be receipted for, and an equal
number of the prisoners in our hands returned in exchange. * * * Our
men, no longer soldiers (their terms for which they had enlisted having
expired) and too debilitated for service, gave a claim to sound men,
immediately fit to take the field, and there was moreover great danger
that if they remained in New York the disease with which they were
infected might be spread throughout the city. At any rate hope was
admitted into the mansions of despair, the prison doors were thrown
open, and the soldiers who were yet alive and capable of being moved
were conveyed to our nearest posts, under the care of our regimental
surgeons, to them a fortunate circumstance, since it enabled them to
exchange the land of bondage for that of liberty. * * * Immediately
after the release of our men a new location was assigned to us. On the
22nd of January, 1777, we were removed to Long Island.”
CHAPTER IX
A FOUL PAGE OF ENGLISH HISTORY
We will not follow Mr. Graydon now to Long Island. It was then late in
January, 1777. The survivors of the American prisoners were, many
of them, exchanged for healthy British soldiers. The crime had been
committed, one of the blackest which stains the annals of English
history. By the most accurate computation at least two thousand helpless
American prisoners had been slowly starved, frozen, or poisoned to death
in the churches and other prisons in New York.
No excuse for this monstrous crime can be found, even by those who are
anxiously in search of an adequate one.
We have endeavored to give some faint idea of the horrors of that
hopeless captivity. As we have already said scarcely any one who endured
imprisonment for any length of time in the churches lived to tell the
tale. One of these churches was standing not many years ago, and the
marks of bayonet thrusts might plainly be seen upon its pillars. What
terrible deeds were enacted there we can only conjecture. We _know_ that
two thousand, healthy, high-spirited young men, many of them sons of
gentlemen, and all patriotic, brave, and long enduring, even unto death,
were foully murdered in these places of torment, compared to which
ordinary captivity is described by one who endured it as paradise. We
know, we say, that these young men perished awfully, rather than enlist
in the British army; that posterity has almost forgotten them, and
that their dreadful sufferings ought to be remembered wherever American
history is read.
We have already said that it is impossible now to obtain the names of
all who suffered death at the hands of their inhuman jailors during the
fall and winter of 1776-7. But we have taken Captain Abraham Shepherd’s
company of riflemen as a sample of the prisoners, and are able, thanks
to the pay roll now in our care, to indicate the fate of each man upon
the list.
It is a mistake to say that no prisoners deserted to the British. After
the account we have quoted from Ethan Allen’s book we feel sure that
no one can find the heart to blame the poor starving creatures who
endeavored to preserve their remains of life in this manner.
Henry Bedinger gives the names of seven men of this company who
deserted. They are Thomas Knox, a corporal; William Anderson, Richard
Neal, George Taylor, Moses McComesky, Anthony Blackhead and Anthony
Larkin. Thomas Knox did not join the British forces until the 17th of
January, 1777; William Anderson on the 20th of January, 1777. Richard
Neal left the American army on the tenth of August, 1776. He, therefore,
was not with the regiment at Fort Washington. George Taylor deserted
on the 9th of July, 1776, which was nine days after he enlisted. Moses
McComesky did not desert until the 14th of June, 1777. Anthony Blackhead
deserted November 15th, 1776, the day before the battle was fought;
Anthony Larkin, September 15th, 1776. We cannot tell what became of any
of these men. Those who died of the prisoners are no less than fifty-two
in this one company of seventy-nine privates and non-commissioned
officers. This may and probably does include a few who lived to be
exchanged. The date of death of each man is given, but not the place in
which he died.
A very singular fact about this record is that no less than _seventeen_
of the prisoners of this company died on the same day, which was the
fifteenth of February, 1777. Why this was so we cannot tell. We can
only leave the cause of their death to the imagination of our readers.
Whether they were poisoned by wholesale; whether they were murdered in
attempting to escape; whether the night being extraordinarily severe,
they froze to death; whether they were butchered by British bayonets, we
are totally unable to tell. The record gives their names and the date of
death and says that all seventeen were prisoners. That is all.
The names of these men are Jacob Wine, William Waller, Peter Snyder,
Conrad Rush, David Harmon, William Moredock, William Wilson, James
Wilson, Thomas Beatty, Samuel Davis, John Cassody, Peter Good, John
Nixon, Christopher Peninger, Benjamin McKnight, John McSwaine, James
Griffith, and Patrick Murphy.
Two or three others are mentioned as dying the day after. Is it possible
that these men were on board one of the prison ships which was set on
fire? If so we have been able to discover no account of such a disaster
on that date.
Many of the papers of Major Henry Bedinger were destroyed. It is
possible that he may have left some clue to the fate of these men, but
if so it is probably not now in existence. But among the letters and
memoranda written by him which have been submitted to us for inspection,
is a list, written on a scrap of paper, of the men that he recruited for
Captain Shepherd’s Company in the summer of 1776. This paper gives the
names of the men and the date on which each one died in prison. It is as
follows:
LIST OF MEN RAISED BY LIEUTENANT HENRY BEDINGER, AND THAT HE BROUGHT
FROM NEW TOWN, BERKELEY COUNTY, VA., AUGUST FIRST, 1776
Dennis Bush, Fourth Sergeant. (He was taken prisoner at Fort Washington,
but lived to be exchanged, and was paid up to October 1st, 1778, at the
end of the term for which the company enlisted.)
Conrad Cabbage, Prisoner, Died, Jan. 7th, 1777. John Cummins, Prisoner,
Died, Jan. 27th, 1777. Gabriel Stevens, Prisoner, Died, March 1st,
1777. William Donally, Prisoner, Died, Jan. 10th, 1777. David Gilmer,
Prisoner, Died, Jan. 26th, 1777. John Cassady, Prisoner, Died, Feb.
15th, 1777. Samuel Brown, Prisoner, Died, Feb. 26th, 1777. Peter Good,
Prisoner, Died, Feb. 13th, 1777. William Boyle, Prisoner, Died, Feb.
25th, 1777. John Nixon, Prisoner, Died, Feb. 18th, 1777. Anthony
Blackhead, deserted, Nov. 15th, 1776. William Case, Prisoner, Died,
March 15th, 1777. Caspar Myres, Prisoner, Died, Feb. 16th, 1777. William
Seaman, Prisoner, Died, July 8th, 1777. Isaac Price, Prisoner, Died,
Feb. 5th, 1777. Samuel Davis, Prisoner, Died, Feb. 15th, 1777.
William Seaman was the son of Jonah Seaman, living near Darkesville.
Isaac Price was an orphan, living with James’ Campbell’s father. Samuel
Davis came from near Charlestown.
Henry Bedinger.
This is all, but it is eloquent with what it does not say. All but two
of this list of seventeen young, vigorous riflemen died in prison or
from the effects of confinement. One, alone had sufficient vitality to
endure until the 8th of July, 1777. Perhaps he was more to be pitied
than his comrades.
We now begin to understand how it happened that, out of more than 2,600
privates taken prisoner at Fort Washington, 1,900 were dead in the space
of two months and four days, when the exchange of some of the survivors
took place. Surely this is a lasting disgrace to one of the greatest
nations of the world. If, as seems undoubtedly true, more men perished
in prison than on the battle fields of the Revolution, it is difficult
to see why so little is made of this fact in the many histories of that
struggle that have been written. We find that the accounts of British
prisons are usually dismissed in a few words, sometimes in an appendix,
or a casual note. But history was ever written thus. Great victories are
elaborately described; and all the pomp and circumstance of war is set
down for our pleasure and instruction. But it is due to the grand solemn
muse of history, who carries the torch of truth, that the other side,
the horrors of war, should be as faithfully delineated. Wars will not
cease until the lessons of their cruelty, their barbarity, and the dark
trail of suffering they leave behind them are deeply impressed upon
the mind. It is our painful task to go over the picture, putting in the
shadows as we see them, however gloomy may be the effect.
CHAPTER X
A BOY IN PRISON
In the winter of 1761 a boy was born in a German settlement near
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the third son of Henry Bedinger and his wife,
whose maiden name was Magdalene von Schlegel. These Germans, whom we
have already mentioned, moved, in 1762, to the neighborhood of the
little hamlet, then called Mecklenburg, Berkeley County, Virginia.
Afterwards the name of the town was changed to Shepherdstown, in honor
of its chief proprietor, Thomas Shepherd.
Daniel was a boy of fourteen when the first company of riflemen was
raised at Shepherdstown by the gallant young officer, Captain Hugh
Stephenson, in 1775.
The rendezvous of this company was the spring on his mother’s farm, then
called Bedinger’s Spring, where the clear water gushes out of a great
rock at the foot of an ancient oak. The son of Daniel Bedinger, Hon.
Henry Bedinger, Minister to the Court of Denmark in 1853, left a short
account of his father’s early history, which we will quote in this
place. He says: “When the war of the Revolution commenced my father’s
eldest brother Henry was about twenty-two years of age. His next
brother, Michael, about nineteen, and he himself only in his fifteenth
year. Upon the first news of hostilities his two brothers joined a
volunteer company under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson, and set
off immediately to join the army at Cambridge.
“My father himself was extremely anxious to accompany them, but they and
his mother, who was a widow, forbade his doing so, telling him he was
entirely too young, and that he must stay at home and take care of his
younger brothers and sisters. And he was thus very reluctantly compelled
to remain at home. At the expiration of about twelve months his brothers
returned home, and when the time for their second departure had arrived,
the wonderful tales they had narrated of their life in camp had wrought
so upon my father’s youthful and ardent imagination that he besought
them and his mother with tears in his eyes, to suffer him to accompany
them. But they, regarding his youth, would not give their consent, but
took their departure without him.
“However, the second night after their arrival in camp (which was at
Bergen, New Jersey), they were astonished by the arrival of my father,
he having run off from home and followed them all the way on foot, and
now appeared before them, haggard and weary and half starved by the
lengths of his march. * * * My father was taken prisoner at the battle
of Fort Washington, and the privations and cruel treatment which he then
underwent gave a blow to his constitution from which he never recovered.
After the close of the Revolution he returned home with a constitution
much shattered. * * *”
Many years after the Revolution Dr. Draper, who died in Madison,
Wisconsin, and left his valuable manuscripts to the Historical Society
of that State, interviewed an old veteran of the war, in Kentucky. This
venerable relic of the Revolution was Major George Michael Bedinger, a
brother of Daniel. Dr. Draper took down from his lips a short account
of the battle of Fort Washington, where his two brothers were captured.
Major G. M. Bedinger was not in service at that time, but must have
received the account from one or both of his brothers. Dr. Draper
says: “In the action of Fort Washington Henry Bedinger heard a Hessian
captain, having been repulsed, speak to his riflemen in his own
language, telling them to follow his example and reserve their fire
until they were close. Bedinger, recognizing his mother tongue, watched
the approach of the Hessian officer, and each levelled his unerring
rifle at the other. Both fired, Bedinger was wounded in the finger: the
ball passing, cut off a lock of his hair. The Hessian was shot through
the head, and instantly expired. Captain Bedinger’s young brother
Daniel, in his company, then but a little past fifteen, shot
twenty-seven rounds, and was often heard to say, after discharging his
piece, ‘There! take that, you----!’
“His youthful intrepidity, and gallant conduct, so particularly
attracted the attention of the officers, that, though taken prisoner, he
was promoted to an ensigncy, his commission dating back six months that
he might take precedence of the other ensigns of his company.
“These two brothers remained prisoners, the youngest but a few months,
and the elder nearly four years, both on prison ships, with the most
cruel treatment, in filthy holds, impure atmosphere, and stinted
allowance of food. With such treatment it was no wonder that but eight
hundred out of the 2800 prisoners taken at Fort Washington survived.
“During the captivity of his brother Henry, Major Bedinger would
by labor, loans at different times, and the property sold which he
inherited from his father, procure money to convey to the British
Commissary of Prisoners to pay his brother Henry’s board. Then he was
released from the filthy prison ship, limited on his parole of honor to
certain limits at Flatbush, and decently provisioned and better treated,
and it is pleasant to add that the British officers having charge of
these matters were faithful in the proper application of funds thus
placed in their hands. Major Bedinger made many trips on this labor of
fraternal affection. This, with his attention to his mother and family,
kept him from regularly serving in the army. But he, never the less,
would make short tours of service.”
So far we have quoted Dr. Draper’s recollections of an interview with
George Michael Bedinger in his extreme old age. We have already given
Henry Bedinger’s own acount of his captivity. What we know of Daniel’s
far severer treatment we will give in our own words.
It was four days before the privates taken at Fort Washington had one
morsel to eat. They were then given a little mouldy biscuit and raw
pork. They were marched to New York, and Daniel was lodged with many
others, perhaps with the whole company, in the Old Sugar House on
Liberty Street. Here he very nearly died of exposure and starvation.
There was no glass in the windows and scarce one of the prisoners was
properly clothed. When it snowed they were drifted over as they slept.
One day Daniel discovered in some vats a deposit of sugar which he was
glad to scrape to sustain life. A gentleman, confined with him in the
Old Sugar House, used to tell his descendants that the most terrible
fight he ever engaged in was a struggle with a comrade in prison for the
carcass of a decayed rat.
It is possible that Henry Bedinger, an officer on parole in New York,
may have found some means of communicating with his young brother, and
even of supplying him, sometimes, with food. Daniel, however, was soon
put on board a prison ship, probably the Whitby, in New York harbor.
Before the first exchange was effected the poor boy had yielded to
despair, and had turned his face to the wall, to die. How bitterly he
must have regretted the home he had been so ready to leave a few months
before! And now the iron had eaten into his soul, and he longed for
death, as the only means of release from his terrible sufferings.
Daniel’s father was born in Alsace, and he himself had been brought up
in a family where German was the familiar language of the household.
It seems that, in some way, probably by using his mother tongue, he had
touched the heart of one of the Hessian guards. When the officers
in charge went among the prisoners, selecting those who were to be
exchanged, they twice passed the poor boy as too far gone to be moved.
But he, with a sudden revival of hope and the desire to live, begged and
entreated the Hessian so pitifully not to leave him behind, that that
young man, who is said to have been an officer, declared that he would
be responsible for him, had him lifted and laid down in the bottom of
a boat, as he was too feeble to sit or stand. In this condition he
accompanied the other prisoners to a church in New York where the
exchange was effected. One or more of the American surgeons accompanied
the prisoners. In some way Daniel was conveyed to Philadelphia, where he
completely collapsed, and was taken to one of the military hospitals.
Here, about the first of January, 1777, his devoted brother, George
Michael Bedinger, found him. Major Bedinger’s son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger,
wrote an account of the meeting of these two brothers for Mrs. H. B.
Lee, one of Daniel’s daughters, which tells the rest of the story. He
said:
“My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not
recognize him. On inquiry if there were any (that had been) prisoners
there a feeble voice responded, from a little pile of straw and rags in
a corner, ‘Yes, Michael, there is one.’
“Overcome by his feelings my father knelt by the side of the poor
emaciated boy, and took him in his arms. He then bore him to a house
where he could procure some comforts in the way of food and clothing.
After this he got an armchair, two pillows, and some leather straps.
“He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair, supported him
by the pillows, swung him by the leather straps to his back, and carried
him some miles into the country, where he found a friendly asylum for
him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the
aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food,
until he partially recovered strength.
“But your father was very impatient to get home, and wished to proceed
before he was well able to walk, and did so leave, while my father
walked by his side, with his arm around him to support him. Thus they
travelled from the neighborhood of Philadelphia, to Shepherdstown
(Virginia) of course by short stages, when my father restored him safe
to his mother and family.
“Your father related some of the incidents of that trip to me when I
last saw him at Bedford (his home) in the spring of 1817, not more
than one year before his death. Our uncle, Henry Bedinger, was also a
prisoner for a long time, and although he suffered greatly his suffering
was not to be compared to your father’s.
“After your father recovered his health he again entered the service
and continued in it to the end of the war. He was made Lieutenant, and
I have heard my father speak of many battles he was in, but I have
forgotten the names and places.” [Footnote: Letter of Dr B. F. Bedinger
to Mrs H. B. Lee, written in 1871.]
After Daniel Bedinger returned home he had a relapse, and lay, for a
long time, at the point of death. He, however, recovered, and re-entered
the service, where the first duty assigned him was that of acting as one
of the guards over the prisoners near Winchester. He afterwards fought
with Morgan in the southern campaigns, was in the battle of the Cowpens,
and several other engagements, serving until the army was disbanded.
He was a Knight of the Order of the Cincinnati. His grandson, the Rev.
Henry Bedinger, has the original parchment signed by General Washington,
in his possession. This grandson is now the chaplain of the Virginia
branch of the Society.
In 1791 Daniel Bedinger married Miss Sarah Rutherford, a daughter of
Hon. Robert Rutherford, of Flowing Springs, in what is now Jefferson
County, West Virginia, but was then part of Berkeley County, Virginia.
Lieutenant Bedinger lived in Norfolk for many years. He was first
engaged in the Custom House in that city. In 1802 he accepted the
position of navy agent of the Gosport Navy Yard. He died in 1818 at his
home near Shepherdstown, of a malady which troubled him ever after
his confinement as a prisoner in New York. He hated the British with
a bitter hatred, which is not to be wondered at. He was an ardent
supporter of Thomas Jefferson, and wrote much for the periodicals of
the time. Withal he was a scholarly gentleman, and a warm and generous
friend. He built a beautiful residence on the site of his mother’s old
home near Sheperdstown; where, when he died in 1818, he left a large
family of children, and a wide circle of friends and admirers.
CHAPTER XI
THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE REVOLUTION
What we have been able to glean from the periodicals of the day about
the state of the prisons in New York during the years 1776 and 1777 we
will condense into one short chapter.
We will also give an abstract taken from a note book written by General
Jeremiah Johnson, who as a boy, lived near Wallabout Bay during the
Revolution and who thus describes one of the first prison ships used by
the British at New York. He says: “The subject of the naval prisoners,
and of the British prisons-ships, stationed at the Wallabout during the
Revolution, is one which cannot be passed by in silence. From printed
journals, published in New York at the close of the war, it appeared
that 11,500 American prisoners had died on board the prison ships.
Although this number is very great, yet if the numbers who perished had
been less, the Commissary of Naval Prisoners, David Sproat, Esq., and
his Deputy, had it in their power, by an official Return, to give the
true number taken, exchanged, escaped, and _dead_. Such a Return has
never appeared in the United States.
“David Sproat returned to America after the war, and resided in
Philadelphia, where he died. [Footnote: This is, we believe, a mistake.
Another account says he died at Kirkcudbright, Scotland, in 1792.] The
Commissary could not have been ignorant of the statement published here
on this interesting subject. We may, therefore, infer that about that
number, 11,500, perished in the Prison ships.
“A large transport called the Whitby, was the first prison ship anchored
in the Wallabout. She was moored near Remsen’s Mill about the 20th of
October, 1776, and was then crowded with prisoners. Many landsmen were
prisoners on board this vessel: she was said to be the most sickly of
all the prison ships. Bad provisions, bad water, and scanted rations
were dealt to the prisoners. No medical men attended the sick. Disease
reigned unrelieved, and hundreds died from pestilence, or were starved
on board this floating Prison. I saw the sand beach, between a ravine in
the hill and Mr. Remsen’s dock, become filled with graves in the course
of two months: and before the first of May, 1777, the ravine alluded to
was itself occupied in the same way.
“In the month of May, 1777, two large ships were anchored in the
Wallabout, when the prisoners were transferred from the Whitby to them.
These vessels were also very sickly from the causes before stated.
Although many prisoners were sent on board of them, and none exchanged,
death made room for all.
“On a Sunday afternoon about the middle of October, 1777, one of these
prison ships was burnt. The prisoners, except a few, who, it was said,
were burnt in the vessel, were removed to the remaining ship. It was
reported at the time, that the prisoners had fired their prison,
which, if true, proves that they preferred death, even by fire, to
the lingering sufferings of pestilence and starvation. In the month of
February, 1778, the remaining prison ship was burnt, when the prisoners
were removed from her to the ships then wintering in the Wallabout.”
One of the first notices we have in the newspapers of the day of
American prisoners is to the following effect: “London, August 5th,
1775. As every rebel, who is taken prisoner, has incurred the pain
of death by the law martial, it is said that Government will charter
several transports, after their arrival at Boston to carry the culprits
to the East Indies for the Company’s service. As it is the intention of
Government only to punish the ringleaders and commanders _capitally_,
and to suffer the inferior Rebels to redeem their lives by entering into
the East India Company’s service. This translation will only render them
more useful subjects than in their native country.”
This notice, copied from London papers, appeared in Holt’s _New York
Journal_, for October 19th, 1775. It proved to be no idle threat. How
many of our brave soldiers were sent to languish out their lives in the
British possessions in India, and on the coast of Africa, we have no
means of knowing. Few, indeed, ever saw their homes again, but we
will give, in a future chapter, the narrative of one who escaped from
captivity worse than death on the island of Sumatra.
An account of the mobbing of William Cunningham and John Hill is given
in both the Tory and Whig papers of the day. It occurred in March, 1775.
“William Cunningham and John Hill were mobbed by 200 men in New York,
dragged through the green, Cunningham was robbed of his watch and the
clothes torn off his back, etc., for being a Tory, and having made
himself obnoxious to the Americans. He has often been heard blustering
in behalf of the ministry, and his behavior has recommended him to
the favor of several men of eminence, both in the military and civil
departments. He has often been seen, on a footing of familiarity, at
their houses, and parading the streets on a horse belonging to one of
the gentlemen, etc., etc.”
The _Virginia Gazette_ in its issue for the first of July, 1775, says:
“On June 6th, 1775, the prisoners taken at Lexington were exchanged.
The wounded privates were soon sent on board the Levity. * * * At about
three a signal was made by the Levity that they were ready to deliver up
our prisoners, upon which General Putnam and Major Moncrief went to
the ferry, where they received nine prisoners. The regular officers
expressed themselves as highly pleased, those who had been prisoners
politely acknowledged the genteel kindness they had received from
their captors; the privates, who were all wounded men, expressed in the
strongest terms their grateful sense of the tenderness which had been
shown them in their miserable situation; some of them could do it only
by their tears. It would have been to the honor of the British arms
if the prisoners taken from us could with justice have made the same
acknowledgement. It cannot be supposed that any officers of rank or
common humanity were knowing to the repeated cruel insults that were
offered them; but it may not be amiss to hint to the upstarts concerned,
two truths of which they appear to be wholly ignorant, viz: That
compassion is as essential a part of the character of a truly brave man
as daring, and that insult offered to the person completely in the power
of the insulters smells as strong of cowardice as it does of cruelty.”
[Footnote: The first American prisoners were taken on the 17th of June,
1775. These were thrown indiscriminately into the jail at Boston without
any consideration of their rank. General Washington wrote to General
Gage on this subject, to which the latter replied by asserting that
the prisoners had been treated with care and kindness, though
indiscriminately, as he acknowledged no rank that was not derived from
the King. General Carleton during his command conducted towards the
American prisoners with a degree of humanity that reflected the
greatest honor on his character.” From Ramsay’s “History of the American
Revolution”]
At the battle of the Great Bridge “the Virginia militia showed the
greatest humanity and tenderness to the wounded prisoners. Several
of them ran through a hot fire to lift up and bring in some that were
bleeding, and whom they feared would die if not speedily assisted by the
surgeon. The prisoners had been told by Lord Dunmore that the Americans
would scalp them, and they cried out, ‘For God’s sake do not murder us!’
One of them who was unable to walk calling out in this manner to one of
our men, was answered by him: ‘Put your arm about my neck and I’ll show
you what I intend to do.’ Then taking him, with his arm over his
neck, he walked slowly along, bearing him with great tenderness to the
breastwork.” _Pennsylvania Evening Post_, January 6th, 1776.
The Great Bridge was built over the southern branch of the Elizabeth
River, twelve miles above Norfolk. Colonel William Woodford commanded
the Virginia militia on this occasion.
“The scene closed with as much humanity as it had been conducted
with bravery. The work of death being over, every one’s attention was
directed to the succor of the unhappy sufferers, and it is an undoubted
fact that Captain Leslie was so affected with the tenderness of our
troops towards those who were yet capable of assistance that he gave
signs from the fort of his thankfulness for it.” _Pennsylvania Evening
Post_, Jan. 6th, 1776.
The first mention we can find of a British prison ship is in the _New
York Packet_ for the 11th of April, 1776: “Captain Hammond * * * Ordered
Captain Forrester, his prisoner, who was on board the Roebuck, up to the
prison ship at Norfolk in a pilot boat.”
_The Constitutional Gazette_ for the 19th of April, 1776, has this
announcement, and though it does not bear directly on the subject of
prisoners, it describes a set of men who were most active in taking
them, and were considered by the Americans as more cruel and vindictive
than even the British themselves.
“Government have sent over to Germany to engage 1,000 men called Jagers,
people brought up to the use of the rifle barrel guns in boar-hunting.
They are amazingly expert. Every petty prince who hath forests keeps a
number of them, and they are allowed to take apprentices, by which means
they are a numerous body of people. These men are intended to act in the
next campaign in America, and our ministry plume themselves much in the
thought of their being a complete match for the American riflemen.”
From Gaine’s _Mercury_, a notorious Tory paper published in New York
during the British occupancy, we take the following: “November 25th,
1776. There are now 5,000 prisoners in town, many of them half naked.
Congress deserts the poor wretches,--have sent them neither provisions
nor clothing, nor paid attention to their distress nor that of their
families. Their situation must have been doubly deplorable, but for
the humanity of the King’s officers. Every possible attention has been
given, considering their great numbers and necessary confinement, to
alleviate their distress arising from guilt, sickness, and poverty.”
This needs no comment. It is too unspeakably false to be worth
contradicting.
“New London, Conn., November 8th, 1776. Yesterday arrived E. Thomas, who
was captured September 1st, carried to New York, and put on board the
Chatham. He escaped Wednesday sennight.”
“New London, Nov. 20th, 1776. American officers, prisoners on parole,
are walking about the streets of New York, but soldiers are closely
confined, have but half allowance, are sickly, and die fast.”
“New London, Nov. 29th, 1776. A cartel arrived here for exchange of
seamen only. Prisoners had miserable confinement on board of store ships
and transports, where they suffered for want of the common necessaries
of life.”
“Exact from a letter written on board the Whitby Prison Ship. New York,
Dec. 9th, 1776. Our present situation is most wretched; more than 250
prisoners, some sick and without the least assistance from physician,
drug, or medicine, and fed on two-thirds allowance of salt provisions,
and crowded promiscuously together without regard, to color, person or
office, in the small room of a ship’s between decks, allowed to walk the
main deck only between sunrise and sunset. Only two at a time allowed to
come on deck to do what nature requires, and sometimes denied even that,
and use tubs and buckets between decks, to the great offence of every
delicate, cleanly person, and prejudice of all our healths. Lord Howe
has liberated all in the merchant service, but refuses to exchange those
taken in arms but for like prisoners.” (This is an extract from the
Trumbull Papers.)
From a Connecticut paper: “This may inform those who have friends in New
York, prisoners of war, that Major Wells, a prisoner, has come thence to
Connecticut on parole, to collect money for the much distressed officers
and soldiers there, and desires the money may be left at Landlord Betts,
Norwalk; Captain Benjamin’s, Stratford; Landlord Beers, New Haven;
Hezekiah Wylly’s, Hartford; and at said Well’s, Colchester, with proper
accounts from whom received, and to whom to be delivered. N. B. The
letters must not be sealed, or contain anything of a political nature.”
Conn. Papers, Dec. 6th, 1776.
“Conn. _Gazette_, Feb. 8th, 1777. William Gamble deposes that the
prisoners were huddled together with negroes, had weak grog; no swab
to clean the ship; bad oil; raw pork; seamen refused them water; called
them d----d rebels; the dead not buried, etc.”
“Lieut. Wm. Sterrett, taken August 27, 1776, deposes that his clothing
was stolen, that he was abused by the soldiers; stinted in food; etc.,
those who had slight wounds were allowed to perish from neglect. The
recruiting officers seduced the prisoners to enlist, etc.”
“March 7th, 1777. Forty-six prisoners from the Glasgow, transport ship,
were landed in New Haven, where one of them, Captain Craigie, died and
was buried.” (Their names are published in the Connecticut _Courant_.)
Connecticut _Gazette_ of April 30th, 1777, says: “The Connecticut
Assembly sent to New York a sufficient supply of tow shirts and trousers
for her prisoners, also £35 to Col. Ethan Allen, by his brother Levi.”
“Lt. Thos. Fanning, now on parole from Long Island at Norwich, a
prisoner to General Howe, will be at Hartford on his return to New
York about September 8th, whence he proposes to keep the public road to
King’s Bridge. Letters and money left at the most noted public houses
in the different towns, will be conveyed safe to the prisoners.
Extraordinaries excepted.” Connecticut _Gazette_, Aug. 15th, 1777.
“Jan. 8th, ‘77. A flag of truce vessel arrived at Milford after
a tedious passage of eleven days, from New York, having above 200
prisoners, whose rueful countenances too well discovered the ill
treatment they received in New York. Twenty died on the passage, and
twenty since they landed.” New Haven, Conn.
CHAPTER XII
THE TRUMBULL PAPERS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
We will now quote from the Trumbull Papers and other productions, what
is revealed to the public of the state of the prisoners in New York
in 1776 and 1777. Some of our information we have obtained from a book
published in 1866 called “Documents and Letters Intended to Illustrate
the Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, by Henry Onderdonk, Jr.” He
gives an affecting account of the wounding of General Woodhull, after
his surrender, and when he had given up his sword. The British
ruffians who held him insisted that he should cry, “God save the King!”
whereupon, taking off his hat, he replied, reverently, “God save all
of us!” At this the cruel men ran him through, giving him wounds that
proved mortal, though had they been properly dressed his life might have
been spared. He was mounted behind a trooper and carried to Hinchman’s
Tavern, Jamaica, where permission was refused to Dr. Ogden to dress
his wounds. This was on the 28th of August, 1776. Next day he was taken
westward and put on board an old vessel off New Utrecht. This had been a
cattle ship. He was next removed to the house of Wilhelmus Van Brunt at
New Utrecht. His arm mortified from neglect and it was decided to take
it off. He sent express to his wife that he had no hope of recovery, and
begged her to gather up what provisions she could, for he had a large
farm, and hasten to his bedside. She accordingly loaded a wagon with
bread, ham, crackers, butter, etc., and barely reached her husband
in time to see him alive. With his dying breath he requested her to
distribute the provisions she had brought to the suffering and starving
American prisoners.
Elias Baylis, who was old and blind, was chairman of the Jamaica
Committee of Safety. He was captured and first imprisoned in the church
at New Utrecht. Afterwards he was sent to the provost prison in New
York. He had a very sweet voice, and was an earnest Christian. In
the prison he used to console himself and his companions in misery by
singing hymns and psalms. Through the intervention of his friends, his
release was obtained after two months confinement, but the rigor of
prison life had been too much for his feeble frame. He died, in the arms
of his daughter, as he was in a boat crossing the ferry to his home.
While in the Presbyterian church in New Utrecht used as a prison by the
British, he had for companions, Daniel Duryee, William Furman, William
Creed, and two others, all put into one pew. Baylis asked them to get
the Bible out of the pulpit and read it to him. They feared to do this,
but consented to lead the blind man to the pulpit steps. As he returned
with the Bible in his hands a British guard met him, beat him violently
and took away the book. They were three weeks in the church at New
Utrecht. When a sufficient number of Whig prisoners were collected there
they would be marched under guard to a prison ship. One old Whig
named Smith, while being conducted to his destination, appealed to an
onlooker, a Tory of his acquaintance, to intercede for him. The cold
reply of his neighbor was, “Ah, John, you’ve been a great rebel!” Smith
turned to another of his acquaintances named McEvers, and said to him,
“McEvers, its hard for an old man like me to have to go to a prison!
Can’t you do something for me?”
“What have you been doing, John?”
“Why, I’ve had opinions of my own!”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do for you.”
McEvers then went to see the officers in charge and made such
representations to them that Smith was immediately released.
Adrian Onderdonk was taken to Flushing and shut up in the old Friends’
Meeting House there, which is one of the oldest places of worship in
America. Next day he was taken to New York. He, with other prisoners,
was paraded through the streets to the provost, with a gang of loose
women marching before them, to add insult to suffering.
Onderdonk says: “After awhile the rigor of the prison rules was somewhat
abated.” He was allowed to write home, which he did in Dutch, for
provisions, such as smoked beef, butter, etc. * * * His friends procured
a woman to do his washing, prepare food and bring it to him. * * *
One day as he was walking through the rooms followed by his constant
attendant, a negro with coils of rope around his neck, this man asked
Onderdonk what he was imprisoned for.
“‘I’ve been a Committee man,’” said he.
“‘Well,’ with an oath and a great deal of abuse, ‘You shall be hung
tomorrow.’”
This mulatto was named Richmond, and was the common hangman. He used
to parade the provost with coils of ropes, requesting the prisoners to
choose their own halters. He it was who hung the gallant Nathan Hale,
and was Cunningham’s accessory in all his brutal midnight murders. In
Gaine’s paper for August 4th, 1781, appears the following advertisement:
“One Guinea Reward, ran away a black man named Richmond, being the
common hangman, formerly the property of the rebel Colonel Patterson of
Pa.
“Wm. Cunningham.”
After nearly four weeks imprisonment the friends of Adrian Onderdonk
procured his release. He was brought home in a wagon in the night, so
pale, thin, and feeble from bodily suffering that his family scarcely
recognized him. His constitution was shattered and he never recovered
his former strength.
Onderdonk says that women often brought food for the prisoners in little
baskets, which, after examination, were handed in. Now and then the
guard might intercept what was sent, or Cunningham, if the humor took
him, as he passed through the hall, might kick over vessels of soup,
placed there by the charitable for the poor and friendless prisoners.
EXTRACT FROM A BETTER FROM DR. SILAS HOLMES
“The wounded prisoners taken at the battle of Brooklyn were put in the
churches of Flatbush and New Utrecht, but being neglected and unattended
were wallowing in their own filth, and breathed an infected and impure
air. Ten days after the battle Dr. Richard Bailey was appointed to
superintend the sick. He was humane, and dressed the wounded daily; got
a sack bed, sheet, and blanket for each prisoner; and distributed the
prisoners into the adjacent barns. When Mrs. Woodhull offered to pay Dr.
Bailey for his care and attention to her husband, he said he had done no
more than his duty, and if there was anything due it was to me.”
Woodhull’s wounds were neglected nine days before Dr. Bailey was allowed
to attend them.
How long the churches were used as prisons cannot be ascertained, but
we have no account of prisoners confined in any of them after the year
1777. In the North Dutch Church in New York there were, at one time,
eight hundred prisoners huddled together. It was in this church that
bayonet marks were discernible on its pillars, many years after the war.
The provost and old City Hall were used as prisons until Evacuation Day,
when O’Keefe threw his ponderous bunch of keys on the floor and retired.
The prisoners are said to have asked him where they were to go.
“To hell, for what I care,” he replied.
“In the Middle Dutch Church,” says Mr. John Pintard, who was a nephew
of Commissary Pintard, “the prisoners taken on Long Island and at Fort
Washington, sick, wounded, and well, were all indiscriminately huddled
together, by hundreds and thousands, large numbers of whom died by
disease, and many undoubtedly poisoned by inhuman attendants for the
sake of their watches, or silver buckles.”
“What was called the Brick Church was at first used as a prison, but
soon it and the Presbyterian Church in Wall Street, the Scotch Church
in Cedar Street, and the Friends’ Meeting House were converted into
hospitals.”
Oliver Woodruff, who died at the age of ninety, was taken prisoner at
Fort Washington, and left the following record: “We were marched to New
York and went into different prisons. Eight hundred and sixteen went
into the New Bridewell (between the City Hall and Broadway); some into
the Sugar House; others into the Dutch Church. On Thursday morning they
brought us a little provision, which was the first morsel we got to eat
or drink after eating our breakfast on Saturday morning. * * * I was
there (in New Bridewell) three months. In the dungeons of the old City
Hall which stood on the site of what was afterwards the Custom House at
first civil offenders were confined, but afterwards whale-boatmen and
robbers.”
Robert Troup, a young lieutenant in Colonel Lasher’s battalion,
testified that he and Lieut. Edward Dunscomb, Adjutant Hoogland, and
two volunteers were made prisoners by a detachment of British troops at
three o’clock a m. on the 27th of August, 1776. They were carried before
the generals and interrogated, with threats of hanging. Thence they were
led to a house near Flatbush. At 9 a. m. they were led, in the rear
of the army, to Bedford. Eighteen officers captured that morning were
confined in a small soldier’s tent for two nights and nearly three days.
It was raining nearly all the time. Sixty privates, also, had but one
tent, while at Bedford the provost marshal, Cunningham, brought with him
a negro with a halter, telling them the negro had already hung several,
and he imagined he would hang some more. The negro and Cunningham also
heaped abuse upon the prisoners, showing them the halter, and calling
them rebels, scoundrels, robbers, murderers, etc.
From Bedford they were led to Flatbush, and confined a week in a house
belonging to a Mr. Leffert, on short allowance of biscuit and salt pork.
Several Hessians took pity on them and gave them apples, and once some
fresh beef.
From Flatbush after a week, he, with seventy or eighty other officers,
were put on board a snow, lying between Gravesend and the Hook, without
bedding or blankets; afflicted with vermin; soap and fresh water for
washing purposes being denied them. They drank and cooked with filthy
water brought from England. The captain charged a very large commission
for purchasing necessaries for them with the money they procured from
their friends.
After six weeks spent on the snow they were taken on the 17th of October
to New York and confined in a house near Bridewell. At first they were
not allowed any fuel, and afterwards only a little coal for three days
in the week. Provisions were dealt out very negligently, were scanty,
and of bad quality. Many were ill and most of them would have died had
their wants not been supplied by poor people and loose women of the
town, who took pity on them.
“Shortly after the capture of Fort Washington these officers were
paroled and allowed the freedom of the town. Nearly half the prisoners
taken on Long Island died. The privates were treated with great
inhumanity, without fuel, or the common necessaries of life, and were
obliged to obey the calls of nature in places of their confinement.”
It is said that the British did not hang any of the prisoners taken in
August on Long Island, but “played the fool by making them ride with a
rope around their necks, seated on coffins, to the gallows. Major Otho
Williams was so treated.”
“Adolph Myer, late of Colonel Lasher’s battalion, says he was taken by
the British at Montresor’s Island. They threatened twice to hang him,
and had a rope fixed to a tree. He was led to General Howe’s quarters
near Turtle Bay, who ordered him to be bound hand and foot. He was
confined four days on bread and water, in the ‘condemned hole’ of the
New Jail, without straw or bedding. He was next put into the
College, and then into the New Dutch Church, whence he escaped on the
twenty-fourth of January, 1777. He was treated with great inhumanity,
and would have died had he not been supported by his friends. * * * Many
prisoners died from want, and others were reduced to such wretchedness
as to attract the attention of the loose women of the town, from whom
they received considerable assistance. No care was taken of the sick,
and if any died they were thrown at the door of the prison and lay there
until the next day, when they were put in a cart and drawn out to the
intrenchments beyond the Jews’ burial ground, when they were interred
by their fellow prisoners, conducted thither for that purpose. The
dead were thrown into a hole promiscuously, without the usual rites of
sepulchre. Myer was frequently enticed to enlist.” This is one of the
few accounts we have from a prisoner who was confined in one of the
churches in New York, and he was so fortunate as to escape before it
was too late. We wish he had given the details of his escape. In such a
gloomy picture as we are obliged to present to our readers the only high
lights are occasional acts of humanity, and such incidents as fortunate
escapes.
It would appear, from many proofs, that the Hessian soldier was
naturally a good-natured being, and he seems to have been the most
humane of the prison guards. We will see, as we go on, instances of the
kindness of these poor exiled mercenaries, to many of whom the war
was almost as great a scene of calamity and suffering as it was to the
wretched prisoners under their care.
“Lieutenant Catlin, taken September 15th, ‘76, was confined in prison
with no sustenance for forty-eight hours; for eleven days he had only
two days allowance of pork offensive to the smell, bread hard, mouldy
and wormy, made of canail and dregs of flax-seed; water brackish. ‘I
have seen $1.50 given for a common pail full. Three or four pounds of
poor Irish pork were given to three men for three days. In one church
were 850 prisoners for near three months.’”
“About the 25th of December he with 225 men were put on board the
Glasgow at New York to be carried to Connecticut for exchange. They were
aboard eleven days, and kept on coarse broken bread, and less pork than
before, and had no fire for sick or well; crowded between decks, where
twenty-eight died through ill-usage and cold.” (This is taken from the
“History of Litchfield,” page 39.)
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER DATED NEW YORK, DEC. 26, 1776
“The distress of the prisoners cannot be communicated in words. Twenty
or thirty die every day; they lie in heaps unburied; what numbers of my
countrymen have died by cold and hunger, perished for want of the common
necessaries of life! I have seen it! This, sir, is the boasted British
clemency! I myself had well nigh perished under it. The New England
people can have no idea of such barbarous policy. Nothing can stop such
treatment but retaliation. I ever despised private revenge, but that of
the public must be in this case, both just and necessary; it is due to
the manes of our murdered countrymen, and that alone can protect the
survivors in the like situation. Rather than experience again their
barbarity and insults, may I fall by the sword of the Hessians.”
Onderdonk, who quotes this fragment, gives us no clue to the writer. A
man named S. Young testifies that, “he was taken at Fort Washington
and, with 500 prisoners, was kept in a barn, and had no provisions
until Monday night, when the enemy threw into the stable, in a confused
manner, as if to so many hogs, a quantity of biscuits in crumbs, mostly
mouldy, and some crawling with maggots, which the prisoners were obliged
to scramble for without any division. Next day they had a little pork
which they were obliged to eat raw. Afterwards they got sometimes a bit
of pork, at other times biscuits, peas, and rice. They were confined
two weeks in a church, where they suffered greatly from cold, not being
allowed any fire. Insulted by soldiers, women, and even negroes. Great
numbers died, three, four, or more, sometimes, a day. Afterwards they
were carried on board a ship, where 500 were confined below decks.”
The date of this testimony is given as Dec. 15th, 1776: “W. D. says the
prisoners were roughly used at Harlem on their way from Fort Washington
to New York, where 800 men were stored in the New Bridewell, which was a
cold, open house, the windows not glazed. They had not one mouthful from
early Saturday morning until Monday. Rations per man for three days were
half a pound of biscuit, half a pound of pork, half a gill of rice, half
a pint of peas, and half an ounce of butter, the whole not enough for
one good meal, and they were defrauded in this petty allowance. They had
no straw to lie on, no fuel but one cart load per week for 800 men. At
nine o’clock the Hessian guards would come and put out the fire, and lay
on the poor prisoners with heavy clubs, for sitting around the fire.
“The water was very bad, as well as the bread. Prisoners died like
rotten sheep, with cold, hunger, and dirt; and those who had good
apparel, such as buckskin breeches, or good coats, were necessitated to
sell them to purchase bread to keep them alive.” Hinman, page 277.
“Mrs. White left New York Jan. 20th, 1777. She says Bridewell, the
College, the New Jail, the Baptist Meeting House, and the tavern lately
occupied by Mr. De la Montaigne and several other houses are filled with
sick and wounded of the enemy. General Lee was under guard in a small
mean house at the foot of King Street. Wm. Slade says 800 prisoners
taken at Fort Washington were put into the North church. On the first
of December 300 were taken from the church to the prison ship. December
second he, with others, was marched to the Grosvenor transport in the
North River; five hundred were crowded on board. He had to lie down
before sunset to secure a place.” Trumbull Papers.
“Henry Franklin affirms that about two days after the taking of Fort
Washington he was in New York, and went to the North Church, in which
were about 800 prisoners taken in said Fort. He inquired into their
treatment, and they told him they fared hard on account both of
provisions and lodging, for they were not allowed any bedding, or
blankets, and the provisions had not been regularly dealt out, so that
the modest or backward could get little or none, nor had they been
allowed any fuel to dress their victuals. The prisoners in New York were
very sickly, and died in considerable numbers.”
“Feb. 11, 1777. Joshua Loring, Commissary of Prisoners, says that but
little provisions had been sent in by the rebels for their prisoners.”
Gaine’s Mercury.
_Jan. 4th_. 1777. “Seventy-seven prisoners went into the Sugar House. N.
Murray says 800 men were in Bridewell. The doctor gave poison powders to
the prisoners, who soon died. Some were sent to Honduras to cut logwood;
women came to the prison-gate to sell gingerbread.” Trumbull Papers.
The _New York Gazette_ of May 6th, 1777, states that “of 3000 prisoners
taken at Fort Washington, only 800 are living.”
Mr. Onderdonk says: “There seems to have been no systematic plan adopted
by the citizens of New York for the relief of the starving prisoners.
We have scattering notices of a few charitable individuals, such as the
following:--‘Mrs. Deborah Franklin was banished from New York Nov. 21st,
1780, by the British commandant, for her unbounded liberality to the
American prisoners. Mrs. Ann Mott was associated with Mrs. Todd and Mrs.
Whitten in relieving the sufferings of American prisoners in New York,
during the Revolution. John Fillis died at Halifax, 1792, aged 68. He
was kind to American prisoners in New York. Jacob Watson, Penelope Hull,
etc., are also mentioned.’”
BRITISH ACCOUNT OF MORTALITY OF PRISONERS
“P. Dobbyn, master of a transport, thus writes from New York, Jan. 15th,
1777. ‘We had four or five hundred prisoners on board our ships, but
they had such bad distempers that each ship buried ten or twelve a day.’
Another writer, under date of Jan. 14th, ‘77, says, ‘The Churches are
full of American prisoners, who die so fast that 25 or 30 are buried
at a time, in New York City. General Howe gave all who could walk
their liberty, after taking their oath not to take up arms against his
Majesty.’” (From a London Journal.)
CHAPTER XIII
A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE PROVOST
An old man named John Fell was taken up by the British, and confined
for some months in the Provost prison. He managed to secrete writing
materials and made notes of his treatment. He was imprisoned for being
a Whig and one of the councilmen of Bergen, New Jersey. We will give his
journal entire, as it is quoted by Mr. Onderdonk.
April 23rd, 1777. Last night I was taken prisoner from my house by 25
armed men (he lived in Bergen) who brought me down to Colonel Buskirk’s
at Bergen Point, and from him I was sent to Gen. Pigot, at N. Y., who
sent me with Captain Van Allen to the Provost Jail.
24th. Received from Mrs. Curzon, by the hands of Mr. Amiel, $16, two
shirts, two stocks, some tea, sugar, pepper, towels, tobacco, pipes,
paper, and a bed and bedding.
May 1st. Dr. Lewis Antle and Capt. Thomas Golden at the door, refused
admittance.
May 2nd. 6 10 P. M. died John Thomas, of smallpox, aged 70 & inoculated.
5th. Capt. Colden has brought from Mr. Curson $16.00.
11. Dr. Antle came to visit me. Nero at the door. (A dog?)
13. Cold weather.
20. Lewis Pintard came per order of Elias Boudinot to offer me money.
Refused admittance. Capt. Colden came to visit me.
21. Capt and Mrs Corne came to visit me, and I was called downstairs to
see them.
23. Lewis Pintard came as Commissary to take account of officers, in
order to assist them with money.
24. Every person refused admittance to the Provost.
25. All prisoners paraded in the hall: supposed to look for deserters.
27. Rev. Mr. Hart and Col. Smith brought to the Provost from Long
Island.
29. Stormy in Provost.
30. Not allowed to fetch good water.
31. Bad water; proposing buying tea-water, but refused. This night ten
prisoners from opposite room ordered into ours, in all twenty.
June 1. Continued the same today.
2. The people ordered back to their own room.
3. Captain Van Zandt sent to the dungeon for resenting Captain
Cunningham’s insulting and abusing me.
4. Capt. Adams brought into our room. At 9 P.M. candles ordered out.
7. Captain Van Zandt returned from the dungeon.
8. All prisoners paraded and called over and delivered to care of Sergt.
Keath. (O’Keefe, probably.) And told we are all alike, no distinction to
be made.
10. Prisoners very sickly.
11. Mr Richards from Connecticut exchanged.
12. Exceeding strict and severe. “Out Lights!”
13. Melancholy scene, women refused speaking to their sick husbands, and
treated cruelly by sentries.
14. Mr. James Ferris released on parole. People in jail very sickly and
not allowed a doctor.
17. Capt. Corne came to speak to me; not allowed.
18. Letter from prisoners to Sergeant Keath, requesting more privileges.
19. Received six bottles claret and sundry small articles, but the note
not allowed to come up.
20. Memorandum sent to Gen. Pigot with list of grievances.
21. Answered. “Grant no requests made by prisoners.”
22. Mrs. Banta refused speaking to her son.
23. Mr Haight died.
24. Nineteen prisoners from Brunswick. Eighteen sent to the Sugar House.
25. Dr Bard came to visit Justice Moore, but his wife was refused, tho’
her husband was dying.
26. Justice Moore died and was carried out.
27. Several sick people removed below.
30. Provost very sickly and some die.
July 3. Received from Mrs Curson per Mrs. Marriner, two half Joes.
6. Received of E. Boudinot, per Pintard, ten half Joes.
7. Capt. Thomas Golden came to the grates to see me.
9. Two men carried out to be hung for desertion, reprieved.
11. Mr Langdon brought into our room.
13. The Sergeant removed a number of prisoners from below.
14. Messrs Demarests exchanged. Dr. Romaine ordered to visit the sick.
15. A declaration of more privileges, and prisoners allowed to speak at
the windows.
17. Peter Zabriskie had an order to speak with me, and let me know that
all was well at home
19. Sergt. from Sugar House came to take account of officers in the
Provost. Capt. Cunningham in town.
21. Sergt. took account of officers. Capt. Jas. Lowry died.
22. Mr. Miller died. Capt. Lowry buried.
Aug. 1. Very sick. Weather very hot.
5. Barry sent to the dungeon for bringing rum for Mr Phillips without
leave of the Sergt. Everything looks stormy.
6. Warm weather. Growing better. Mr. Pintard came to supply prisoners of
war with clothes.
10. Two prisoners from Long Island and four Lawrences from Tappan.
11. John Coven Cromwell from White Plains. Freeland from Polly (?) Fly
whipped about salt.
12. Sergt. Keath took all pens and ink out of each room, and forbid the
use of any on pain of the dungeon.
13. Abraham Miller discharged.
14. Jacobus Blauvelt died in the morning, buried at noon.
16. Capt. Ed. Travis brought into our room from the dungeon, where he
had long been confined and cruelly treated.
17. Mr. Keath refused me liberty to send a card to Mr Amiel for a lb of
tobacco.
21. Capt. Hyer discharged from the Provost.
25. Barry brought up from the dungeon, and Capt. Travis sent down again
without any provocation.
26. Badcock sent to dungeon for cutting wood in the evening. Locks
put on all the doors, and threatened to be locked up. Col. Ethan Allen
brought to the Provost from Long Island and confined below.
27. Badcock discharged from below.
30. 5 P.M. all rooms locked up close.
31. A.M. Col Allen brought into our room.
Sep. 1. Pleasant weather. Bad water.
4. Horrid scenes of whipping.
6. Lewis Pintard brought some money for the officers. P.M. Major Otho H.
Williams brought from Long Island and confined in our room. Major Wells
from same place confined below. A. M. William Lawrence of Tappan died.
8. Campbell, Taylor, John Cromwell, and Buchanan from Philadelphia
discharged.
10. Provisions exceedingly ordinary,--pork very rusty, biscuit bad.
12. Capt. Travis, Capt. Chatham and others brought out of dungeon.
14. Two prisoners from Jersey, viz: Thomas Campbell of Newark and
Joralemon. (Jos. Lemon?)
16. Troops returned from Jersey. Several prisoners brought to Provost
viz:--Capt. Varick, Wm. Prevost Brower, etc. Seventeen prisoners from
Long Island.
22. Nothing material. Major Wells brought from below upstairs.
24. Received from Mr. Curson per Mr. Amiel four guineas, six bottles of
wine, and one lb tobacco.
26. Mr. Pintard carried list of prisoners and account of grievances to
the General Capt. Chatham and others carried to dungeon.
28. Yesterday a number of soldiers were sent below, and several
prisoners brought out of dungeon. Statement of grievances presented to
General Jones which much displeased Sergt. Keath who threatened to lock
up the rooms.
29. Last night Sergt. K. locked up all the rooms. Rev. Mr. Jas. Sears
was admitted upstairs.
30. Sent Mr. Pintard a list of clothing wanted for continental and state
prisoners in the Provost. Sergt. locks up all the rooms.
Oct. 2. Candles ordered out at eight.--Not locked up.
4. Locked up. Great numbers of ships went up North River. Received
sundries from Grove Bend. Three pair ribbed hose, three towels.
5. Garret Miller, of Smith’s Cove, signed his will in prison, in
presence of Benjamin Goldsmith, Abr. Skinner, and myself. C. G. Miller
died of small-pox--P. M. Buried.
7. Wm. Prevost discharged from Provost.
8. Capt. Chatham and Lewis Thatcher brought out of dungeon.
10. Mr. Pintard sent up blankets, shoes, and stockings for the
prisoners.
12. Lt. Col. Livingstone and upwards of twenty officers from Fort
Montgomery and Clinton, all below.
13. Received from Mr. Pintard a letter by flag from Peter R. Fell, A. M.
Mr. Noble came to the grates to speak to me.
14. Sergt. Keath sent Lt. Mercer and Mr. Nath. Fitzrandolph to the
dungeon for complaining that their room had not water sufficient.
15. Mr. Pintard brought sundry articles for the prisoners.
17. Mr. Antonio and other prisoners brought here from up North River.
19. Ben Goldsmith ill of smallpox, made his will and gave it to me. Died
two A. M. Oct. 20.
21. Glorious news from the Northward.
22. Confirmation strong as Holy Writ. Beef, loaf bread, and butter drawn
today.
23. Weather continues very cold. Ice in the tub in the hall. A number
of vessels came down North River. Mr. Wm. Bayard at the door to take out
old Mr. Morris.
24. Prisoners from the Sugar House sent on board ships.
25. Rev. Mr. Hart admitted on parole in the city. Sergt. Woolley from
the Sugar House came to take names of officers, and says an exchange is
expected.
28. Last night and today storm continues very severe. Provost in a
terrible condition. Lt. Col. Livingston admitted upstairs a few minutes.
Nov. 1. Lt. Callender of the train ordered back on Long Island; also
several officers taken at Fort Montgomery sent on parole to Long Island.
3. In the evening my daughter, Elizabeth Colden, came to see me,
accompained by Mayor Matthews.
5. Elizabeth Colden came to let me know she was going out of town.
Yesterday Sergt refused her the liberty of speaking to me. Gen.
Robertson’s Aid-decamp came to inquire into grievances of prisoners.
16. Jail exceedingly disagreeable.--many miserable and shocking objects,
nearly starved with cold and hunger,--miserable prospect before me.
18. The Town Major and Town Adjutant came with a pretence of viewing the
jail.
19. Peter and Cor. Van Tassel, two prisoners from Tarrytown, in our
room.
20 Mr. Pintard sent three barrels of flour to be distributed among the
prisoners.
21. Mr. Pintard came for an account of what clothing the prisoners
wanted.
24. Six tailors brought here from prison ship to work in making clothes
for prisoners. They say the people on board are very sickly. Three
hundred sent on board reduced to one hundred.
25. Mr. Dean and others brought to jail from the town.
26. Dean locked up by himself, and Mr. Forman brought upstairs attended
by Rev. Mr. Inglis, and afterwards ordered downstairs. New order--one of
the prisoners ordered to go to the Commissary’s and see the provisions
dealt out for the prisoners. Vast numbers of people assembled at the
Provost in expectation of seeing an execution.
27. John, one of the milkmen, locked upstairs with a sentry at his
door. A report by Mr. Webb that a prisoner, Herring, was come down to be
exchanged for Mr Van Zandt or me.
30. Captain Cunningham came to the Provost.
Dec. 1. Capt. Money came down with Mr Webb to be exchanged for Major
Wells.
2. Col. Butler visited the Provost and promised a doctor should attend.
Received from Mr Bend cloth for a great coat, etc. Mr. Pmtard took a
list of clothing wanted for the prisoners.
3. Several prisoners of war sent from here on board the prison shop, &
some of the sick sent to the hospital, Dr Romaine being ordered by Sir
H. Clinton to examine the sick Prisoners sickly: cause, cold. Prisoners
in upper room (have) scanty clothing and only two bushels of coal for
room of twenty men per week.
5. Mr. Blanch ordered out; said to be to go to Morristown to get
prisoners exchanged. Cold.
7. Mr. Webb came to acquaint Major Wells his exchange was agreed to with
Capt. Money.
8. Major Gen. Robertson, with Mayor came to Provost to examine
prisoners. I was called and examined, and requested my parole. The
General said I had made bad use of indulgence granted me, in letting my
daughter come to see me. * * *
9. Major Wells exchanged.
10. Mr. Pintard sent 100 loaves for the prisoners. A. M. Walter Thurston
died. Prisoners very sickly and die very fast from the hospitals and
prison ships.
11. Some flags from North River.
12. Abel Wells died, a tailor from the prison ship. Mr. Pintard brought
letters for sundry people.
14. Sunday. Guards more severe than ever notwithstanding General
Robertson’s promise of more indulgence. Capt. Van Zandt brought from
Long Island.
16. Sent message to Mr Pintard for wood. Cold and entirely out of wood.
17. Commissary Winslow came and released Major Winslow on his parole on
Long Island.
18. Mr Pintard sent four cords of wood for the prisoners.
19. Capt. John Paul Schoot released on parole. Mr Pintard with clothing
for the people.
21. A paper found at the door of the Provost, intimating that three
prisoners had a rope concealed in a bag in one of the rooms in order to
make their escape. The Sergt. examined all the rooms, and at night we
were all locked up.
22. Received from Mr Pintard 100 loaves and a quarter of beef.
24. Distributed clothing, etc., to the prisoners.
28. Gen. Robertson sent a doctor to examine me in consequence of the
petition sent by Col. Allen for my releasement. The doctor reported to
Dr. Mallet.
29. Gen. Robertson sent me word I should be liberated in town, provided
I procured a gentleman in town to be responsible for my appearance.
Accordingly I wrote to Hon. H. White, Esq.
30. Dr Romaine, with whom I sent the letter, said Mr White had a number
of objections, but the doctor hoped to succeed in the afternoon. Mr.
Winslow came and told the same story I heard the day before.
31. Sergt. Keath brought a message from the General to the same purpose
as yesterday. N. B. I lost the memoranda from this date to the time of
my being liberated from the Provost on Jan. 7, 1778.
New York Feb. 11. ‘78. Received a letter from Joshua Loring, Esq,
Commissary of Prisoners, with leave from Gen. Robertson for my having
the bounds of the city allowed me.
March. 23. Wrote to Major Gen. Robertson and told him this was the
eleventh month of my imprisonment.
Fell’s note to the general follows, in which he begs to be liberated to
the house of Mrs. Marriner, who kept an ordinary in the town. A card in
reply from the general states that it is impossible to comply with his
request until Mr. Fell’s friends give him sufficient security that he
will not attempt to escape. A Mr. Langdon having broken his faith in
like circumstances has given rise to a rule, which it is out of the
general’s power to dispense with, etc, etc.
“Feb. 4, 1778. I delivered to Mr. Pintard the wills of Garret Miller
and Benjamin Goldsmith, to be forwarded to their respective families.
Present E. Boudinot.
“May 20 ‘78, I had my parole extended by order of Gen. Daniel Jones, to
my own house in Bergen County, for thirty days.
“July 2. I left town, and next day arrived safe home.
“Nov. 15, 1778 I received a certificate from A. Skinner, Deputy Com. of
Prisoners of my being exchanged for Gov. Skene. Signed by Joshua Loring,
Commissary General of Prisoners, dated New York, Oct 26 1778.”
CHAPTER XIV
FURTHER TESTIMONY OF CRUELTIES ENDURED BY AMERICAN PRISONERS
Mr. Fell’s notes on his imprisonment present the best picture we
can find of the condition of the Provost Jail during the term of
his captivity. We have already seen how Mr Elias Boudinot, American
Commissary of Prisoners, came to that place of confinement, and what
he found there. This was in February, 1778. Boudinot also describes
the sufferings of the American prisoners in the early part of 1778 in
Philadelphia, and Mr. Fell speaks of Cunningham’s return to New York.
He had, it appears, been occupied in starving prisoners in Philadelphia
during his absence from the Provost, to which General Howe sent him
back, after he had murdered one of his victims in Philadelphia with the
great key.
It appears that the prisoners in the Provost sent an account of their
treatment to General Jones, by Mr. Pintard, in September, 1777, several
months before the visit of Mr. Elias Boudinot. They complained that
they were closely confined in the jail without distinction of rank
or character, amongst felons, a number of whom were under sentence
of death: that their friends were not allowed to speak to them, even
through the grates: that they were put on the scanty allowance of two
pounds hard biscuit, and two pounds of raw pork per week, without fuel
to dress it. That they were frequently supplied with water from a pump
where all kinds of filth was thrown, by which it was rendered obnoxious
and unwholesome, the effects of which were to cause much sickness. That
good water could have been as easily obtained. That they were denied the
benefit of a hospital; not permitted to send for medicine, nor to have
the services of a doctor, even when in the greatest distress. That
married men and others who lay at the point of death were refused
permission to have their wives or other relations admitted to see them.
And that these poor women, for attempting to gain admittance, were often
beaten from the prison door. That commissioned officers, and others,
persons of character and reputation, were frequently, without a cause,
thrown into a loathsome dungeon, insulted in a gross manner, and vilely
abused by a Provost Marshal, who was allowed to be one of the basest
characters in the British Army, and whose power was so unlimited, that
he had caned an officer, on a trivial occasion; and frequently beaten
the sick privates when unable to stand, “many of whom are daily
obliged to enlist in the New Corps to prevent perishing for want of the
necessaries of life.
“Neither pen, ink, or paper allowed (to prevent their treatment being
made public) the consequence of which indeed, the prisoners themselves
dread, knowing the malignant disposition of their keeper.”
The Board of War reported on the 21 of January, 1778, that there were
900 privates and 300 officers in New York, prisoners, and that “the
privates have been crowded all summer in sugar houses, and the officers
boarded on Long Island, except about thirty, who have been confined in
the Provost-Guard, and in most loathsome jails, and that since Oct. 1st,
all those prisoners, both officers and privates, have been confined
in prisons, prison ships, or the Provost.” Lists of prisoners in the
Provost; those taken by the Falcon, Dec. 1777, and those belonging to
Connecticut who were in the Quaker and Brick Meeting House hospitals in
Jan. 1778, may be found in the Trumbull Papers, VII, 62.
It seems that General Lee, while a prisoner in New York, in 1778, drew
a prize of $500 in the New York Lottery, and immediately distributed
it among the prisoners in that city. A New London, Connecticut,
paper, dated Feb. 20, 1778, states that “it is said that the American
prisoners, since we have had a Commissary in New York, are well served
with good provisions, which are furnished at the expense of the States,
and they are in general very healthy.”
We fear this was a rose-colored view of the matter, though there is
no doubt that our commissaries did what they could to alleviate the
miseries of captivity.
Onderdonk quotes from Gaine’s _Mercury_ an advertisement for nurses in
the hospital, but it is undated. “Nurses wanted immediately to attend
the prison hospitals in this city. Good recommendations required, signed
by two respectable inhabitants. Lewis Pintard.”
From the New York _Gazette_, May 6, 1778, we take the following:
“Colonel Miles, Irvin, and fifty more exchanged.”
“Conn. _Gazette_. July 10, ‘78. About three weeks ago Robert Shefield,
of Stonington, made his escape from New York after confinement in a
prison ship. After he was taken he, with his crew of ten, were thrust
into the fore-peak, and put in irons. On their arrival at New York they
were carried on board a prison ship, and to the hatchways, on opening
which, tell not of Pandora’s box, for that must be an alabaster box in
comparison to the opening of these hatches. True there were gratings (to
let in air) but they kept their boats upon them. The steam of the hold
was enough to scald the skin, and take away the breath, the stench
enough to poison the air all around.
“On his descending these dreary mansions of woe, and beholding the
numerous spectacles of wretchedness and despair, his soul fainted within
him. A little epitome of hell,--about 300 men confined between decks,
half Frenchmen. He was informed there were three more of these vehicles
of contagion, which contained a like number of miserable Frenchmen also,
who were treated worse, if possible, than Americans.
“The heat was so intense that (the hot sun shining all day on deck) they
were all naked, which also served the well to get rid of vermin, but the
sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks
were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying,
praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts;
others delirious, raving and storming,--all panting for breath; some
dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could
not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until
they had been dead ten days.
“One person alone was admitted on deck at a time, after sunset, which
occasioned much filth to run into the hold, and mingle with the bilge
water, which was not pumped out while he was aboard, notwithstanding the
decks were leaky, and the prisoners begged permission to let in water
and pump it out again.
“While Mr. Sheffield was on board, which was six days, five or six died
daily, and three of his people. He was sent for on shore as evidence in
a Court of Admiralty for condemning his own vessel, and happily escaped.
“He was informed in New York that the fresh meat sent in to our
prisoners by our Commissary was taken by the men-of-war for their own
use. This he can say: he did not see any aboard the ship he was in, but
they were well supplied with soft bread from our Commissaries on shore.
But the provision (be it what it will) is not the complaint. Fresh air
and fresh water, God’s free gift, is all their cry.”
“New London, Conn. July 31. 78. Last week 500 or 600 prisoners were
released from confinement at New York and sent out chiefly by way of New
Jersey, being exchanged.”
“New London Conn. Sep. 26, 78. All American prisoners are nearly sent
out of New York, but there are 615 French prisoners still there.”
“Oct 18, 78. The Ship, Good Hope, lies in the North River.”
“New London Dec. 18, 78. A Flag with 70 men from the horrible prison
ships of New York arrived: 30 very sickly, 2 died since they arrived.”
“N. London. Dec. 25, 78. A cartel arived here from New York with 172
American prisoners. They were landed here and in Groton, the greater
part are sickly and in most deplorable condition, owing chiefly to the
ill usage in the prison ships, where numbers had their feet and legs
frozen”
CHAPTER XV
THE OLD SUGAR HOUSE--TRINTY CHURCHYARD
We will now take our readers with us to the Sugar House on Liberty
Street, long called the Old Sugar House, and the only one of the three
Sugar Houses which appear to have been used as a place of confinement
for American prisoners of war after the year 1777.
We have already mentioned this dreary abode of wretchedness, but it
deserves a more elaborate description.
From Valentine’s Manual of the Common Council of New York for 1844 we
will copy the following brief sketch of the British Prisons in New York
during the Revolution.
“The British took possession of New York Sep. 15, ‘76, and the capture
of Ft. Washington, Nov. 16, threw 2700 prisoners into their power.
To these must be added 1000 taken at the battle of Brooklyn, and such
private citizens as were arrested for their political principles, in
New York City and on Long Island, and we may safely conclude that Sir
William Howe had at least 5000 prisoners to provide for.
“The sudden influx of so many prisoners; the recent capture of the city,
and the unlooked-for conflagration of a f
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