A BOY IN PRISON
In the winter of 1761 a boy was born in a German settlement near
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the third son of Henry Bedinger and his wife,
whose maiden name was Magdalene von Schlegel. These Germans, whom we
have already mentioned, moved, in 1762, to the neighborhood of the
little hamlet, then called Mecklenburg, Berkeley County, Virginia.
Afterwards the name of the town was changed to Shepherdstown, in honor
of its chief proprietor, Thomas Shepherd.
Daniel was a boy of fourteen when the first company of riflemen was
raised at Shepherdstown by the gallant young officer, Captain Hugh
Stephenson, in 1775.
The rendezvous of this company was the spring on his mother’s farm, then
called Bedinger’s Spring, where the clear water gushes out of a great
rock at the foot of an ancient oak. The son of Daniel Bedinger, Hon.
Henry Bedinger, Minister to the Court of Denmark in 1853, left a short
account of his father’s early history, which we will quote in this
place. He says: “When the war of the Revolution commenced my father’s
eldest brother Henry was about twenty-two years of age. His next
brother, Michael, about nineteen, and he himself only in his fifteenth
year. Upon the first news of hostilities his two brothers joined a
volunteer company under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson, and set
off immediately to join the army at Cambridge.
“My father himself was extremely anxious to accompany them, but they and
his mother, who was a widow, forbade his doing so, telling him he was
entirely too young, and that he must stay at home and take care of his
younger brothers and sisters. And he was thus very reluctantly compelled
to remain at home. At the expiration of about twelve months his brothers
returned home, and when the time for their second departure had arrived,
the wonderful tales they had narrated of their life in camp had wrought
so upon my father’s youthful and ardent imagination that he besought
them and his mother with tears in his eyes, to suffer him to accompany
them. But they, regarding his youth, would not give their consent, but
took their departure without him.
“However, the second night after their arrival in camp (which was at
Bergen, New Jersey), they were astonished by the arrival of my father,
he having run off from home and followed them all the way on foot, and
now appeared before them, haggard and weary and half starved by the
lengths of his march. * * * My father was taken prisoner at the battle
of Fort Washington, and the privations and cruel treatment which he then
underwent gave a blow to his constitution from which he never recovered.
After the close of the Revolution he returned home with a constitution
much shattered. * * *”
Many years after the Revolution Dr. Draper, who died in Madison,
Wisconsin, and left his valuable manuscripts to the Historical Society
of that State, interviewed an old veteran of the war, in Kentucky. This
venerable relic of the Revolution was Major George Michael Bedinger, a
brother of Daniel. Dr. Draper took down from his lips a short account
of the battle of Fort Washington, where his two brothers were captured.
Major G. M. Bedinger was not in service at that time, but must have
received the account from one or both of his brothers. Dr. Draper
says: “In the action of Fort Washington Henry Bedinger heard a Hessian
captain, having been repulsed, speak to his riflemen in his own
language, telling them to follow his example and reserve their fire
until they were close. Bedinger, recognizing his mother tongue, watched
the approach of the Hessian officer, and each levelled his unerring
rifle at the other. Both fired, Bedinger was wounded in the finger: the
ball passing, cut off a lock of his hair. The Hessian was shot through
the head, and instantly expired. Captain Bedinger’s young brother
Daniel, in his company, then but a little past fifteen, shot
twenty-seven rounds, and was often heard to say, after discharging his
piece, ‘There! take that, you----!’
“His youthful intrepidity, and gallant conduct, so particularly
attracted the attention of the officers, that, though taken prisoner, he
was promoted to an ensigncy, his commission dating back six months that
he might take precedence of the other ensigns of his company.
“These two brothers remained prisoners, the youngest but a few months,
and the elder nearly four years, both on prison ships, with the most
cruel treatment, in filthy holds, impure atmosphere, and stinted
allowance of food. With such treatment it was no wonder that but eight
hundred out of the 2800 prisoners taken at Fort Washington survived.
“During the captivity of his brother Henry, Major Bedinger would
by labor, loans at different times, and the property sold which he
inherited from his father, procure money to convey to the British
Commissary of Prisoners to pay his brother Henry’s board. Then he was
released from the filthy prison ship, limited on his parole of honor to
certain limits at Flatbush, and decently provisioned and better treated,
and it is pleasant to add that the British officers having charge of
these matters were faithful in the proper application of funds thus
placed in their hands. Major Bedinger made many trips on this labor of
fraternal affection. This, with his attention to his mother and family,
kept him from regularly serving in the army. But he, never the less,
would make short tours of service.”
So far we have quoted Dr. Draper’s recollections of an interview with
George Michael Bedinger in his extreme old age. We have already given
Henry Bedinger’s own acount of his captivity. What we know of Daniel’s
far severer treatment we will give in our own words.
It was four days before the privates taken at Fort Washington had one
morsel to eat. They were then given a little mouldy biscuit and raw
pork. They were marched to New York, and Daniel was lodged with many
others, perhaps with the whole company, in the Old Sugar House on
Liberty Street. Here he very nearly died of exposure and starvation.
There was no glass in the windows and scarce one of the prisoners was
properly clothed. When it snowed they were drifted over as they slept.
One day Daniel discovered in some vats a deposit of sugar which he was
glad to scrape to sustain life. A gentleman, confined with him in the
Old Sugar House, used to tell his descendants that the most terrible
fight he ever engaged in was a struggle with a comrade in prison for the
carcass of a decayed rat.
It is possible that Henry Bedinger, an officer on parole in New York,
may have found some means of communicating with his young brother, and
even of supplying him, sometimes, with food. Daniel, however, was soon
put on board a prison ship, probably the Whitby, in New York harbor.
Before the first exchange was effected the poor boy had yielded to
despair, and had turned his face to the wall, to die. How bitterly he
must have regretted the home he had been so ready to leave a few months
before! And now the iron had eaten into his soul, and he longed for
death, as the only means of release from his terrible sufferings.
Daniel’s father was born in Alsace, and he himself had been brought up
in a family where German was the familiar language of the household.
It seems that, in some way, probably by using his mother tongue, he had
touched the heart of one of the Hessian guards. When the officers
in charge went among the prisoners, selecting those who were to be
exchanged, they twice passed the poor boy as too far gone to be moved.
But he, with a sudden revival of hope and the desire to live, begged and
entreated the Hessian so pitifully not to leave him behind, that that
young man, who is said to have been an officer, declared that he would
be responsible for him, had him lifted and laid down in the bottom of
a boat, as he was too feeble to sit or stand. In this condition he
accompanied the other prisoners to a church in New York where the
exchange was effected. One or more of the American surgeons accompanied
the prisoners. In some way Daniel was conveyed to Philadelphia, where he
completely collapsed, and was taken to one of the military hospitals.
Here, about the first of January, 1777, his devoted brother, George
Michael Bedinger, found him. Major Bedinger’s son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger,
wrote an account of the meeting of these two brothers for Mrs. H. B.
Lee, one of Daniel’s daughters, which tells the rest of the story. He
said:
“My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not
recognize him. On inquiry if there were any (that had been) prisoners
there a feeble voice responded, from a little pile of straw and rags in
a corner, ‘Yes, Michael, there is one.’
“Overcome by his feelings my father knelt by the side of the poor
emaciated boy, and took him in his arms. He then bore him to a house
where he could procure some comforts in the way of food and clothing.
After this he got an armchair, two pillows, and some leather straps.
“He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair, supported him
by the pillows, swung him by the leather straps to his back, and carried
him some miles into the country, where he found a friendly asylum for
him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the
aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food,
until he partially recovered strength.
“But your father was very impatient to get home, and wished to proceed
before he was well able to walk, and did so leave, while my father
walked by his side, with his arm around him to support him. Thus they
travelled from the neighborhood of Philadelphia, to Shepherdstown
(Virginia) of course by short stages, when my father restored him safe
to his mother and family.
“Your father related some of the incidents of that trip to me when I
last saw him at Bedford (his home) in the spring of 1817, not more
than one year before his death. Our uncle, Henry Bedinger, was also a
prisoner for a long time, and although he suffered greatly his suffering
was not to be compared to your father’s.
“After your father recovered his health he again entered the service
and continued in it to the end of the war. He was made Lieutenant, and
I have heard my father speak of many battles he was in, but I have
forgotten the names and places.” [Footnote: Letter of Dr B. F. Bedinger
to Mrs H. B. Lee, written in 1871.]
After Daniel Bedinger returned home he had a relapse, and lay, for a
long time, at the point of death. He, however, recovered, and re-entered
the service, where the first duty assigned him was that of acting as one
of the guards over the prisoners near Winchester. He afterwards fought
with Morgan in the southern campaigns, was in the battle of the Cowpens,
and several other engagements, serving until the army was disbanded.
He was a Knight of the Order of the Cincinnati. His grandson, the Rev.
Henry Bedinger, has the original parchment signed by General Washington,
in his possession. This grandson is now the chaplain of the Virginia
branch of the Society.
In 1791 Daniel Bedinger married Miss Sarah Rutherford, a daughter of
Hon. Robert Rutherford, of Flowing Springs, in what is now Jefferson
County, West Virginia, but was then part of Berkeley County, Virginia.
Lieutenant Bedinger lived in Norfolk for many years. He was first
engaged in the Custom House in that city. In 1802 he accepted the
position of navy agent of the Gosport Navy Yard. He died in 1818 at his
home near Shepherdstown, of a malady which troubled him ever after
his confinement as a prisoner in New York. He hated the British with
a bitter hatred, which is not to be wondered at. He was an ardent
supporter of Thomas Jefferson, and wrote much for the periodicals of
the time. Withal he was a scholarly gentleman, and a warm and generous
friend. He built a beautiful residence on the site of his mother’s old
home near Sheperdstown; where, when he died in 1818, he left a large
family of children, and a wide circle of friends and admirers.