NEGOTIATIONS FOR EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS—CASE OF COLONEL ETHAN ALLEN—OF
GENERAL LEE—CORRESPONDENCE OF WASHINGTON WITH SIR WILLIAM HOWE ABOUT
EXCHANGES OF PRISONERS—REFEREES APPOINTED—LETTERS OF LEE FROM NEW
YORK—CASE OF COLONEL CAMPBELL—WASHINGTON’S ADVICE TO CONGRESS ON THE
SUBJECT OF RETALIATION—HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD HOWE ABOUT THE
TREATMENT OF PRISONERS—THE HORRORS OF THE JERSEY PRISON-SHIP AND THE
SUGAR HOUSE.
A cartel for the exchange of prisoners had been a subject of negotiation
previous to the affair of Trenton, without being adjusted. The British
commanders were slow to recognize the claims to equality of those they
considered rebels; Washington was tenacious in holding them up as
patriots ennobled by their cause.
Among the cases which came up for attention was that of Ethan Allen, the
brave, but eccentric captor of Ticonderoga. His daring attempts in the
“path of renown” had cost him a world of hardships. Thrown into irons as
a felon; threatened with a halter; carried to England to be tried for
treason; confined in Pendennis Castle; retransported to Halifax, and now
a prisoner in New York. “I have suffered every thing short of death,”
writes he to the Assembly of his native State, Connecticut. He had,
however, recovered health and suppleness of limb, and with them all his
swelling spirit and swelling rhetoric. “I am fired,” writes he, “with
adequate indignation to revenge both my own and my country’s wrongs. I
am experimentally certain I have fortitude sufficient to face the
invaders of America in the place of danger, spread with all the horrors
of war.” And he concludes with one of his magniloquent, but really
sincere expressions of patriotism: “Provided you can hit upon some
measure to procure my liberty, I will appropriate my remaining days, and
freely hazard my life in the service of the colony, and maintaining the
American Empire. I thought to have enrolled my name in the list of
illustrious American heroes, but was nipped in the bud!”[8]
Honest Ethan Allen! his name will ever stand enrolled on that list; not
illustrious, perhaps, but eminently popular.
His appeal to his native State had produced an appeal to Congress, and
Washington had been instructed, considering his long imprisonment, to
urge his exchange. This had scarce been urged, when tidings of the
capture of General Lee presented a case of still greater importance to
be provided for. “I feel much for his misfortune,” writes Washington,
“and am sensible that in his captivity our country has lost a warm
friend and an able officer.” By direction of Congress, he had sent in a
flag to inquire about Lee’s treatment, and to convey him a sum of money.
This was just previous to the second crossing of the Delaware.
Lee was now reported to be in rigorous confinement in New York, and
treated with harshness and indignity. The British professed to consider
him a deserter, he having been a lieutenant-colonel in their service,
although he alleged that he had resigned his commission before joining
the American army Two letters which he addressed to General Howe, were
returned to him unopened, enclosed in a cover directed to
_Lieutenant-colonel Lee_.
On the 13th of January, Washington addressed the following letter to Sir
William Howe. “I am directed by Congress to propose an exchange of five
of the Hessian field-officers taken at Trenton for Major-general Lee; or
if this proposal should not be accepted, to demand his liberty upon
parole, within certain bounds, as has ever been granted to your officers
in our custody. I am informed, upon good authority, that your reason for
keeping him hitherto in stricter confinement than usual is, that you do
not look upon him in the light of a common prisoner of war, but as a
deserter from the British service, as his resignation has never been
accepted, and that you intend to try him as such by a court-martial. I
will not undertake to determine how far this doctrine may be justifiable
among yourselves, but I must give you warning that Major-general Lee is
looked upon as an officer belonging to, and under the protection of the
United Independent States of America, and that any violence you may
commit upon his life and liberty, will be severely retaliated upon the
lives or liberties of the British officers, or those of their foreign
allies in our hands.”
In this letter he likewise adverted to the treatment of American
prisoners in New York; several who had recently been released, having
given the most shocking account of the barbarities they had experienced,
“which their miserable, emaciated countenances confirmed.”—“I would
beg,” added he, “that some certain rule of conduct towards prisoners may
be settled; and, if you are determined to make captivity as distressing
as possible, let me know it, that we may be upon equal terms, for your
conduct shall regulate mine.”
Sir William, in reply, proposed to send an officer of rank to
Washington, to confer upon a mode of exchange and subsistence of
prisoners. “This expedient,” observes he, “appearing to me effectual for
settling all differences, will, I hope, be the means of preventing a
repetition of the improper terms in which your letter is expressed and
founded on the grossest misrepresentations. I shall not make any further
comment upon it, than to assure you, that your threats of retaliating
upon the innocent such punishment as may be decreed in the circumstances
of Mr. Lee by the laws of his country, will not divert me from my duty
in any respect; at the same time, you may rest satisfied that the
proceedings against him will not be precipitated; and I trust that, in
this, or in any other event in the course of my command, you will not
have just cause to accuse me of inhumanity, prejudice, or passion.”
Sir William, in truth, was greatly perplexed with respect to Lee, and
had written to England to Lord George Germaine for instructions in the
case. “General Lee,” writes he, “being considered in the light of a
deserter, is kept a close prisoner; but I do not bring him to trial, as
a doubt has arisen, whether, by a public resignation of his half pay
prior to his entry into the rebel army, he was amenable to the military
law as a deserter.”
The proposal of Sir William, that all disputed points relative to the
exchange and subsistence of prisoners, should be adjusted by referees,
led to the appointment of two officers for the purpose; Colonel Walcott
by General Howe, and Colonel Harrison, “the old secretary,” by
Washington. In the contemplated exchanges was that of one of the Hessian
field-officers for Colonel Ethan Allen.
The haughty spirit of Lee had experienced a severe humiliation in the
late catastrophe; his pungent and caustic humor is at an end. In a
letter addressed shortly afterwards to Washington, and enclosing one to
Congress which Lord and General Howe had permitted him to send, he
writes, “as the contents are of the last importance to me, and perhaps
not less so to the community, I most earnestly entreat, my dear general,
that you will despatch it immediately, and order the Congress to be as
expeditious as possible.”
The letter contained a request that two or three gentlemen might be sent
immediately to New York, to whom he would communicate what he conceived
to be of the greatest importance. “If my own interests were alone at
stake,” writes he, “I flatter myself that the Congress would not
hesitate a single instant in acquiescing in my request; but this is far
from the case; the interests of the public are equally concerned. * *
Lord and General Howe will grant a safe conduct to the gentlemen
deputed.”
The letter having been read in Congress, Washington was directed to
inform General Lee that they were pursuing and would continue to pursue
every means in their power to provide for his personal safety, and to
obtain his liberty; but that they considered it improper to send any of
their body to communicate with him, and could not perceive how it would
tend to his advantage or the interest of the public.
Lee repeated his request, but with no better success. He felt this
refusal deeply; as a brief, sad note to Washington indicates.
“It is a most unfortunate circumstance for myself, and I think not
less so for the public, that Congress have not thought proper to
comply with my request. It could not possibly have been attended with
any ill consequences, and might with good ones. At least it was an
indulgence which I thought my situation entitled me to. But I am
unfortunate in every thing, and this stroke is the severest I have yet
experienced. God send you a different fate. Adieu, my dear general.
“Yours most truly and affectionately,
“CHARLES LEE.”
How different from the humorous, satirical, self-confident tone of his
former letters. Yet Lee’s actual treatment was not so harsh as had been
represented. He was in close confinement, it is true; but three rooms
had been fitted up for his reception in the Old City Hall of New York,
having nothing of the look of a prison excepting that they were secured
by bolts and bars.
Congress, in the mean time, had resorted to their threatened measure of
retaliation. On the 20th of February, they had resolved that the Board
of War be directed immediately to order the five Hessian field-officers
and Lieutenant-colonel Campbell into safe and close custody, “it being
the unalterable resolution of Congress to retaliate on them the same
punishment as may be inflicted on the person of General Lee.”
The Colonel Campbell here mentioned had commanded one of General
Fraser’s battalions of Highlanders, and had been captured on board of a
transport in Nantasket road, in the preceding summer. He was a member of
Parliament, and a gentleman of fortune. Retaliation was carried to
excess in regard to him, for he was thrown into the common jail at
Concord in Massachusetts.
From his prison he made an appeal to Washington, which at once touched
his quick sense of justice. He immediately wrote to the council of
Massachusetts Bay, quoting the words of the resolution of Congress. “By
this you will observe,” adds he, “that _exactly the same treatment_ is
to be shown to Colonel Campbell and the Hessian officers, that General
Howe shows to General Lee, and as he is only confined to a commodious
house with genteel accommodations, we have no right or reason to be more
severe on Colonel Campbell, who I would wish should upon the receipt of
this be removed from his present situation, and be put into a house
where he may live comfortably.”
In a letter to the President of Congress on the following day, he gives
his moderating counsels on the whole subject of retaliation. “Though I
sincerely commiserate,” writes he, “the misfortunes of General Lee, and
feel much for his present unhappy situation, yet with all possible
deference to the opinion of Congress, I fear that these resolutions will
not have the desired effect, are founded on impolicy, and will, if
adhered to, produce consequences of an extensive and melancholy
nature.” * * *
“The balance of prisoners is greatly against us, and a general regard to
the happiness of the whole should mark our conduct. Can we imagine that
our enemies will not mete the same punishments, the same indignities,
the same cruelties, to those belonging to us, in their possession, that
we impose on theirs in our power? Why should we suppose them to possess
more humanity than we have ourselves? Or why should an ineffectual
attempt to relieve the distresses of one brave, unfortunate man, involve
many more in the same calamities? * * * Suppose,” continues he, “the
treatment prescribed for the Hessians should be pursued, will it not
establish what the enemy have been aiming to effect by every artifice
and the grossest misrepresentations, I mean an opinion of our enmity
towards them, and of the cruel treatment they experience when they fall
into our hands, a prejudice which we on our part have heretofore thought
it politic to suppress, and to root out by every act of lenity and of
kindness?”
“Many more objections,” added he, “might be subjoined, were they
material. I shall only observe, that the present state of the army, if
it deserves that name, will not authorize the language of retaliation,
or the style of menace. This will be conceded by all who know that the
whole of our force is weak and trifling, and composed of militia (very
few regular troops excepted) whose service is on the eve of expiring.”
In a letter to Mr. Robert Morris also, he writes: “I wish, with all my
heart, that Congress had gratified General Lee in his request. If not
too late I wish they would do it still. I can see no possible evil that
can result from it; some good, I think, might. The request to see a
gentleman or two came from the _general_, not from the commissioners;
there could have been no harm, therefore, in hearing what _he_ had to
say on _any_ subject, especially as he had declared that his own
personal interest was deeply concerned. The resolve to put in close
confinement Lieutenant-colonel Campbell and the Hessian field-officers,
in order to retaliate upon them General Lee’s punishment, is, in my
opinion, injurious in every point of view, and must have been entered
into without due attention to the consequences. * * * * * If the resolve
of Congress respecting General Lee strikes you in the same point of view
it has done me, I could wish you would signify as much to that body as I
really think it fraught with every evil.”
Washington was not always successful in instilling his wise moderation
into public councils. Congress adhered to their vindictive policy,
merely directing that no other hardships should be inflicted on the
captive officers, than such confinement as was necessary to carry their
resolve into effect. As to their refusal to grant the request of Lee,
Robert Morris surmised they were fearful of the injurious effect that
might be produced in the court of France, should it be reported that
members of Congress visited General Lee by permission of the British
commissioners. There were other circumstances beside the treatment of
General Lee, to produce this indignant sensibility on the part of
Congress. Accounts were rife at this juncture, of the cruelties and
indignities almost invariably experienced by American prisoners at New
York; and an active correspondence on the subject was going on between
Washington and the British commanders, at the same time with that
regarding General Lee.
The captive Americans who had been in the naval service were said to be
confined, officers and men, in prison-ships, which, from their loathsome
condition, and the horrors and sufferings of all kinds experienced on
board of them, had acquired the appellation of _floating hells_. Those
who had been in the land service, were crowded into jails and dungeons
like the vilest malefactors; and were represented as pining in cold, in
filth, in hunger and nakedness.
“Our poor devoted soldiers,” writes an eye-witness, “were scantily
supplied with provisions of bad quality, wretchedly clothed, and
destitute of sufficient fuel, if indeed they had any. Disease was the
inevitable consequence, and their prisons soon became hospitals. A fatal
malady was generated, and the mortality, to every heart not steeled by
the spirit of party, was truly deplorable.”[8] According to popular
account, the prisoners confined on shipboard, and on shore, were
perishing by hundreds.
A statement made by a Captain Gamble, recently confined on board of a
prison-ship, had especially roused the ire of Congress, and by their
directions had produced a letter from Washington to Lord Howe. “I am
sorry,” writes he, “that I am under the disagreeable necessity of
troubling your lordship with a letter, almost wholly on the subject of
the cruel treatment which our officers and men in the naval department,
who are unhappy enough to fall into your hands, receive on board the
prison-ships in the harbor of New York.” After specifying the case of
Captain Gamble, and adding a few particulars, he proceeds: “From the
opinion I have ever been taught to entertain of your lordship’s
humanity, I will not suppose that you are privy to proceedings of so
cruel and unjustifiable a nature; and I hope, that, upon making the
proper inquiry, you will have the matter so regulated, that the unhappy
persons whose lot is captivity, may not in future have the miseries of
cold, disease, and famine, added to their other misfortunes. You may
call us rebels, and say that we deserve no better treatment; but
remember, my lord, that, supposing us rebels, we still have feelings as
keen and sensible as loyalists, and will, if forced to it, most
assuredly retaliate upon those upon whom we look as the unjust invaders
of our rights, liberties and properties. I should not have said thus
much, but my injured countrymen have long called upon me to endeavor to
obtain a redress of their grievances, and I should think myself as
culpable as those who inflict such severities upon them, were I to
continue silent,” &c.
Lord Howe, in reply (Jan. 17), expressed himself surprised at the matter
and language of Washington’s letter, “so different from the liberal vein
of sentiment he had been habituated to expect on every occasion of
personal intercourse or correspondence with him.” He was surprised, too,
that “the idle and unnatural report” of Captain Gamble, respecting the
dead and dying, and the neglect of precautions against infection, should
meet with any credit. “Attention to preserve the lives of these men,”
writes he, “whom we esteem the misled subjects of the king, is a duty as
binding on us, where we are able from circumstances to execute it with
effect, as any you can plead for the interest you profess in their
welfare.”
He denied that prisoners were ill treated in his particular department
(the naval). They had been allowed the general liberty of the
prison-ship, until a successful attempt of some to escape, had rendered
it necessary to restrain the rest within such limits as left the
commanding parts of the ship in possession of the guard. They had the
same provisions in quality and quantity that were furnished to the
seamen of his own ship. The want of cleanliness was the result of their
own indolence and neglect. In regard to health, they had the constant
attendance of an American surgeon, a fellow-prisoner; who was furnished
with medicines from the king’s stores; and the visits of the physician
of the fleet.
“As I abhor every imputation of wanton cruelty in multiplying the
miseries of the wretched,” observes his lordship, “of treating them with
needless severity, I have taken the trouble to state these several
facts.”
In regard to the hint at retaliation, he leaves it to Washington to act
therein as he should think fit; but adds he grandly, “the innocent at my
disposal will not have any severities to apprehend from me on that
account.”
We have quoted this correspondence the more freely, because it is on a
subject deeply worn into the American mind; and about which we have
heard too many particulars, from childhood upwards, from persons of
unquestionable veracity, who suffered in the cause, to permit us to
doubt about the fact. The _Jersey Prison-ship_ is proverbial in our
revolutionary history; and the bones of the unfortunate patriots who
perished on board, form a monument on the Long Island shore. The horrors
of the _Sugar House_ converted into a prison, are traditional in New
York; and the brutal tyranny of Cunningham, the provost marshal, over
men of worth confined in the common jail, for the sin of patriotism, has
been handed down from generation to generation.
That Lord Howe and Sir William were ignorant of the extent of these
atrocities we really believe, but it was their duty to be well informed.
War is, at best, a cruel trade, that habituates those who follow it to
regard the sufferings of others with indifference. There is not a doubt,
too, that a feeling of contumely deprived the patriot prisoners of all
sympathy in the early stages of the Revolution. They were regarded as
criminals rather than captives. The stigma of _rebels_ seemed to take
from them all the indulgences, scanty and miserable as they are, usually
granted to prisoners of war. The British officers looked down with
haughty contempt upon the American officers, who had fallen into their
hands. The British soldiery treated them with insolent scurrility. It
seemed as if the very ties of consanguinity rendered their hostility
more intolerant, for it was observed that American prisoners were better
treated by the Hessians than by the British. It was not until our
countrymen had made themselves formidable by their successes that they
were treated, when prisoners, with common decency and humanity.
The difficulties arising out of the case of General Lee interrupted the
operations with regard to the exchange of prisoners; and gallant men, on
both sides, suffered prolonged detention in consequence; and among the
number the brave, but ill-starred Ethan Allen.
Lee, in the mean time, remained in confinement, until directions with
regard to him should be received from government. Events, however, had
diminished his importance in the eyes of the enemy; he was no longer
considered the American palladium. “As the capture of the Hessians and
the manœuvres against the British took place after the surprise of
General Lee,” observes a London writer of the day, “we find that he is
not the only efficient officer in the American service.”[9]