AMERICAN PRISONERS OF THE REVOLUTION

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.)

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