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.