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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.