TREATMENT OF THE HESSIAN PRISONERS—THEIR INTERVIEWS WITH
WASHINGTON—THEIR RECEPTION BY THE PEOPLE.
The Hessian prisoners were conveyed across the Delaware by Johnson’s
Ferry, into Pennsylvania; the private soldiers were marched off
immediately to Newtown; the officers, twenty-three in number, remained
in a small chamber in the Ferry House, where, according to their own
account, they passed a dismal night; sore at heart that their recent
triumphs at White Plains and Fort Washington should be so suddenly
eclipsed.
On the following morning they were conducted to Newtown under the escort
of Colonel Weedon. His exterior, writes Lieutenant Piel, spoke but
little in his favor, yet he won all our hearts by his kind and friendly
conduct.
At Newtown the officers were quartered in inns and private houses, the
soldiers in the church and jail. The officers paid a visit to Lord
Stirling, whom some of them had known from his being captured at Long
Island. He received them with great kindness. “Your general, Van
Heister,” said he, “treated me like a brother when I was a prisoner, and
so, gentlemen, will you be treated by me.”
“We had scarce seated ourselves,” continues Lieutenant Piel, “when a
long, meagre, dark-looking man, whom we took for the parson of the
place, stepped forth and held a discourse in German, in which he
endeavored to set forth the justice of the American side in this war. He
told us he was a Hanoverian born; called the king of England nothing but
the Elector of Hanover, and spoke of him so contemptuously that his
garrulity became intolerable. We answered that we had not come to
America to inquire which party was in the right; but to fight for the
king.
“Lord Stirling, seeing how little we were edified by the preacher,
relieved us from him by proposing to take us with him to visit General
Washington. The latter received us very courteously, though we
understood very little of what he said, as he spoke nothing but English,
a language in which none of us at that time were strong. In his aspect
shines forth nothing of the great man that he is universally considered.
His eyes have scarce any fire. There is, however, a smiling expression
on his countenance when he speaks, that wins affection and respect. He
invited four of our officers to dine with him; the rest dined with Lord
Stirling.” One of those officers who dined with the commander-in-chief,
was the satirical lieutenant whom we have so often quoted, and who was
stationed at the picket on the morning of the attack. However
disparagingly he may have thought of his unfortunate commander, he
evidently had a very good opinion of himself.
“General Washington,” writes he in his journal, “did me the honor to
converse a good deal with me concerning the unfortunate affair. I told
him freely my opinion that our dispositions had been bad, otherwise we
should not have fallen into his hands. He asked me if I could have made
better dispositions, and in what manner? I told him yes; stated all the
faults of our arrangements, and showed him how I would have done; and
would have managed to come out of the affair with honor.”
We have no doubt, from the specimens furnished in the lieutenant’s
journal, that he went largely into his own merits and achievements, and
the demerits and shortcomings of his luckless commander. Washington, he
added, not only applauded his exposition of what he would have done, but
made him a eulogy thereupon, and upon his watchfulness and the defence
he had made with his handful of men when his picket was attacked. Yet
according to his own account, in his journal, with all his watchfulness,
he came near being caught napping.
“General Washington,” continues he, “is a courteous and polite man, but
very cautious and reserved; talks little; and has a crafty (listige)
physiognomy.” We surmise the lieutenant had the most of the talk on that
occasion, and that the crafty or sly expression in Washington’s
physiognomy, may have been a lurking but suppressed smile, provoked by
the lieutenant’s self-laudation and wordiness.
The Hessian prisoners were subsequently transferred from place to place,
until they reached Winchester in the interior of Virginia. Wherever they
arrived, people thronged from far and near to see these terrible beings
of whom they had received such formidable accounts; and were surprised
and disappointed to find them looking like other men. At first they had
to endure the hootings and revilings of the multitude, for having hired
themselves out to the trade of blood; and they especially speak of the
scoldings they received from old women in the villages, who upbraided
them for coming to rob them of their liberty. “At length,” writes the
corporal in his journal, “General Washington had written notices put up
in town and country, that we were innocent of this war and had joined in
it not of our free will, but through compulsion. We should, therefore,
be treated not as enemies, but friends. From this time,” adds he,
“things went better with us. Every day came many out of the towns, old
and young, rich and poor, and brought us provisions, and treated us with
kindness and humanity.”[160]