THE TRUMBULL PAPERS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION
We will now quote from the Trumbull Papers and other productions, what
is revealed to the public of the state of the prisoners in New York
in 1776 and 1777. Some of our information we have obtained from a book
published in 1866 called “Documents and Letters Intended to Illustrate
the Revolutionary Incidents of Long Island, by Henry Onderdonk, Jr.” He
gives an affecting account of the wounding of General Woodhull, after
his surrender, and when he had given up his sword. The British
ruffians who held him insisted that he should cry, “God save the King!”
whereupon, taking off his hat, he replied, reverently, “God save all
of us!” At this the cruel men ran him through, giving him wounds that
proved mortal, though had they been properly dressed his life might have
been spared. He was mounted behind a trooper and carried to Hinchman’s
Tavern, Jamaica, where permission was refused to Dr. Ogden to dress
his wounds. This was on the 28th of August, 1776. Next day he was taken
westward and put on board an old vessel off New Utrecht. This had been a
cattle ship. He was next removed to the house of Wilhelmus Van Brunt at
New Utrecht. His arm mortified from neglect and it was decided to take
it off. He sent express to his wife that he had no hope of recovery, and
begged her to gather up what provisions she could, for he had a large
farm, and hasten to his bedside. She accordingly loaded a wagon with
bread, ham, crackers, butter, etc., and barely reached her husband
in time to see him alive. With his dying breath he requested her to
distribute the provisions she had brought to the suffering and starving
American prisoners.
Elias Baylis, who was old and blind, was chairman of the Jamaica
Committee of Safety. He was captured and first imprisoned in the church
at New Utrecht. Afterwards he was sent to the provost prison in New
York. He had a very sweet voice, and was an earnest Christian. In
the prison he used to console himself and his companions in misery by
singing hymns and psalms. Through the intervention of his friends, his
release was obtained after two months confinement, but the rigor of
prison life had been too much for his feeble frame. He died, in the arms
of his daughter, as he was in a boat crossing the ferry to his home.
While in the Presbyterian church in New Utrecht used as a prison by the
British, he had for companions, Daniel Duryee, William Furman, William
Creed, and two others, all put into one pew. Baylis asked them to get
the Bible out of the pulpit and read it to him. They feared to do this,
but consented to lead the blind man to the pulpit steps. As he returned
with the Bible in his hands a British guard met him, beat him violently
and took away the book. They were three weeks in the church at New
Utrecht. When a sufficient number of Whig prisoners were collected there
they would be marched under guard to a prison ship. One old Whig
named Smith, while being conducted to his destination, appealed to an
onlooker, a Tory of his acquaintance, to intercede for him. The cold
reply of his neighbor was, “Ah, John, you’ve been a great rebel!” Smith
turned to another of his acquaintances named McEvers, and said to him,
“McEvers, its hard for an old man like me to have to go to a prison!
Can’t you do something for me?”
“What have you been doing, John?”
“Why, I’ve had opinions of my own!”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do for you.”
McEvers then went to see the officers in charge and made such
representations to them that Smith was immediately released.
Adrian Onderdonk was taken to Flushing and shut up in the old Friends’
Meeting House there, which is one of the oldest places of worship in
America. Next day he was taken to New York. He, with other prisoners,
was paraded through the streets to the provost, with a gang of loose
women marching before them, to add insult to suffering.
Onderdonk says: “After awhile the rigor of the prison rules was somewhat
abated.” He was allowed to write home, which he did in Dutch, for
provisions, such as smoked beef, butter, etc. * * * His friends procured
a woman to do his washing, prepare food and bring it to him. * * *
One day as he was walking through the rooms followed by his constant
attendant, a negro with coils of rope around his neck, this man asked
Onderdonk what he was imprisoned for.
“‘I’ve been a Committee man,’” said he.
“‘Well,’ with an oath and a great deal of abuse, ‘You shall be hung
tomorrow.’”
This mulatto was named Richmond, and was the common hangman. He used
to parade the provost with coils of ropes, requesting the prisoners to
choose their own halters. He it was who hung the gallant Nathan Hale,
and was Cunningham’s accessory in all his brutal midnight murders. In
Gaine’s paper for August 4th, 1781, appears the following advertisement:
“One Guinea Reward, ran away a black man named Richmond, being the
common hangman, formerly the property of the rebel Colonel Patterson of
Pa.
“Wm. Cunningham.”
After nearly four weeks imprisonment the friends of Adrian Onderdonk
procured his release. He was brought home in a wagon in the night, so
pale, thin, and feeble from bodily suffering that his family scarcely
recognized him. His constitution was shattered and he never recovered
his former strength.
Onderdonk says that women often brought food for the prisoners in little
baskets, which, after examination, were handed in. Now and then the
guard might intercept what was sent, or Cunningham, if the humor took
him, as he passed through the hall, might kick over vessels of soup,
placed there by the charitable for the poor and friendless prisoners.
EXTRACT FROM A BETTER FROM DR. SILAS HOLMES
“The wounded prisoners taken at the battle of Brooklyn were put in the
churches of Flatbush and New Utrecht, but being neglected and unattended
were wallowing in their own filth, and breathed an infected and impure
air. Ten days after the battle Dr. Richard Bailey was appointed to
superintend the sick. He was humane, and dressed the wounded daily; got
a sack bed, sheet, and blanket for each prisoner; and distributed the
prisoners into the adjacent barns. When Mrs. Woodhull offered to pay Dr.
Bailey for his care and attention to her husband, he said he had done no
more than his duty, and if there was anything due it was to me.”
Woodhull’s wounds were neglected nine days before Dr. Bailey was allowed
to attend them.
How long the churches were used as prisons cannot be ascertained, but
we have no account of prisoners confined in any of them after the year
1777. In the North Dutch Church in New York there were, at one time,
eight hundred prisoners huddled together. It was in this church that
bayonet marks were discernible on its pillars, many years after the war.
The provost and old City Hall were used as prisons until Evacuation Day,
when O’Keefe threw his ponderous bunch of keys on the floor and retired.
The prisoners are said to have asked him where they were to go.
“To hell, for what I care,” he replied.
“In the Middle Dutch Church,” says Mr. John Pintard, who was a nephew
of Commissary Pintard, “the prisoners taken on Long Island and at Fort
Washington, sick, wounded, and well, were all indiscriminately huddled
together, by hundreds and thousands, large numbers of whom died by
disease, and many undoubtedly poisoned by inhuman attendants for the
sake of their watches, or silver buckles.”
“What was called the Brick Church was at first used as a prison, but
soon it and the Presbyterian Church in Wall Street, the Scotch Church
in Cedar Street, and the Friends’ Meeting House were converted into
hospitals.”
Oliver Woodruff, who died at the age of ninety, was taken prisoner at
Fort Washington, and left the following record: “We were marched to New
York and went into different prisons. Eight hundred and sixteen went
into the New Bridewell (between the City Hall and Broadway); some into
the Sugar House; others into the Dutch Church. On Thursday morning they
brought us a little provision, which was the first morsel we got to eat
or drink after eating our breakfast on Saturday morning. * * * I was
there (in New Bridewell) three months. In the dungeons of the old City
Hall which stood on the site of what was afterwards the Custom House at
first civil offenders were confined, but afterwards whale-boatmen and
robbers.”
Robert Troup, a young lieutenant in Colonel Lasher’s battalion,
testified that he and Lieut. Edward Dunscomb, Adjutant Hoogland, and
two volunteers were made prisoners by a detachment of British troops at
three o’clock a m. on the 27th of August, 1776. They were carried before
the generals and interrogated, with threats of hanging. Thence they were
led to a house near Flatbush. At 9 a. m. they were led, in the rear
of the army, to Bedford. Eighteen officers captured that morning were
confined in a small soldier’s tent for two nights and nearly three days.
It was raining nearly all the time. Sixty privates, also, had but one
tent, while at Bedford the provost marshal, Cunningham, brought with him
a negro with a halter, telling them the negro had already hung several,
and he imagined he would hang some more. The negro and Cunningham also
heaped abuse upon the prisoners, showing them the halter, and calling
them rebels, scoundrels, robbers, murderers, etc.
From Bedford they were led to Flatbush, and confined a week in a house
belonging to a Mr. Leffert, on short allowance of biscuit and salt pork.
Several Hessians took pity on them and gave them apples, and once some
fresh beef.
From Flatbush after a week, he, with seventy or eighty other officers,
were put on board a snow, lying between Gravesend and the Hook, without
bedding or blankets; afflicted with vermin; soap and fresh water for
washing purposes being denied them. They drank and cooked with filthy
water brought from England. The captain charged a very large commission
for purchasing necessaries for them with the money they procured from
their friends.
After six weeks spent on the snow they were taken on the 17th of October
to New York and confined in a house near Bridewell. At first they were
not allowed any fuel, and afterwards only a little coal for three days
in the week. Provisions were dealt out very negligently, were scanty,
and of bad quality. Many were ill and most of them would have died had
their wants not been supplied by poor people and loose women of the
town, who took pity on them.
“Shortly after the capture of Fort Washington these officers were
paroled and allowed the freedom of the town. Nearly half the prisoners
taken on Long Island died. The privates were treated with great
inhumanity, without fuel, or the common necessaries of life, and were
obliged to obey the calls of nature in places of their confinement.”
It is said that the British did not hang any of the prisoners taken in
August on Long Island, but “played the fool by making them ride with a
rope around their necks, seated on coffins, to the gallows. Major Otho
Williams was so treated.”
“Adolph Myer, late of Colonel Lasher’s battalion, says he was taken by
the British at Montresor’s Island. They threatened twice to hang him,
and had a rope fixed to a tree. He was led to General Howe’s quarters
near Turtle Bay, who ordered him to be bound hand and foot. He was
confined four days on bread and water, in the ‘condemned hole’ of the
New Jail, without straw or bedding. He was next put into the
College, and then into the New Dutch Church, whence he escaped on the
twenty-fourth of January, 1777. He was treated with great inhumanity,
and would have died had he not been supported by his friends. * * * Many
prisoners died from want, and others were reduced to such wretchedness
as to attract the attention of the loose women of the town, from whom
they received considerable assistance. No care was taken of the sick,
and if any died they were thrown at the door of the prison and lay there
until the next day, when they were put in a cart and drawn out to the
intrenchments beyond the Jews’ burial ground, when they were interred
by their fellow prisoners, conducted thither for that purpose. The
dead were thrown into a hole promiscuously, without the usual rites of
sepulchre. Myer was frequently enticed to enlist.” This is one of the
few accounts we have from a prisoner who was confined in one of the
churches in New York, and he was so fortunate as to escape before it
was too late. We wish he had given the details of his escape. In such a
gloomy picture as we are obliged to present to our readers the only high
lights are occasional acts of humanity, and such incidents as fortunate
escapes.
It would appear, from many proofs, that the Hessian soldier was
naturally a good-natured being, and he seems to have been the most
humane of the prison guards. We will see, as we go on, instances of the
kindness of these poor exiled mercenaries, to many of whom the war
was almost as great a scene of calamity and suffering as it was to the
wretched prisoners under their care.
“Lieutenant Catlin, taken September 15th, ‘76, was confined in prison
with no sustenance for forty-eight hours; for eleven days he had only
two days allowance of pork offensive to the smell, bread hard, mouldy
and wormy, made of canail and dregs of flax-seed; water brackish. ‘I
have seen $1.50 given for a common pail full. Three or four pounds of
poor Irish pork were given to three men for three days. In one church
were 850 prisoners for near three months.’”
“About the 25th of December he with 225 men were put on board the
Glasgow at New York to be carried to Connecticut for exchange. They were
aboard eleven days, and kept on coarse broken bread, and less pork than
before, and had no fire for sick or well; crowded between decks, where
twenty-eight died through ill-usage and cold.” (This is taken from the
“History of Litchfield,” page 39.)
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER DATED NEW YORK, DEC. 26, 1776
“The distress of the prisoners cannot be communicated in words. Twenty
or thirty die every day; they lie in heaps unburied; what numbers of my
countrymen have died by cold and hunger, perished for want of the common
necessaries of life! I have seen it! This, sir, is the boasted British
clemency! I myself had well nigh perished under it. The New England
people can have no idea of such barbarous policy. Nothing can stop such
treatment but retaliation. I ever despised private revenge, but that of
the public must be in this case, both just and necessary; it is due to
the manes of our murdered countrymen, and that alone can protect the
survivors in the like situation. Rather than experience again their
barbarity and insults, may I fall by the sword of the Hessians.”
Onderdonk, who quotes this fragment, gives us no clue to the writer. A
man named S. Young testifies that, “he was taken at Fort Washington
and, with 500 prisoners, was kept in a barn, and had no provisions
until Monday night, when the enemy threw into the stable, in a confused
manner, as if to so many hogs, a quantity of biscuits in crumbs, mostly
mouldy, and some crawling with maggots, which the prisoners were obliged
to scramble for without any division. Next day they had a little pork
which they were obliged to eat raw. Afterwards they got sometimes a bit
of pork, at other times biscuits, peas, and rice. They were confined
two weeks in a church, where they suffered greatly from cold, not being
allowed any fire. Insulted by soldiers, women, and even negroes. Great
numbers died, three, four, or more, sometimes, a day. Afterwards they
were carried on board a ship, where 500 were confined below decks.”
The date of this testimony is given as Dec. 15th, 1776: “W. D. says the
prisoners were roughly used at Harlem on their way from Fort Washington
to New York, where 800 men were stored in the New Bridewell, which was a
cold, open house, the windows not glazed. They had not one mouthful from
early Saturday morning until Monday. Rations per man for three days were
half a pound of biscuit, half a pound of pork, half a gill of rice, half
a pint of peas, and half an ounce of butter, the whole not enough for
one good meal, and they were defrauded in this petty allowance. They had
no straw to lie on, no fuel but one cart load per week for 800 men. At
nine o’clock the Hessian guards would come and put out the fire, and lay
on the poor prisoners with heavy clubs, for sitting around the fire.
“The water was very bad, as well as the bread. Prisoners died like
rotten sheep, with cold, hunger, and dirt; and those who had good
apparel, such as buckskin breeches, or good coats, were necessitated to
sell them to purchase bread to keep them alive.” Hinman, page 277.
“Mrs. White left New York Jan. 20th, 1777. She says Bridewell, the
College, the New Jail, the Baptist Meeting House, and the tavern lately
occupied by Mr. De la Montaigne and several other houses are filled with
sick and wounded of the enemy. General Lee was under guard in a small
mean house at the foot of King Street. Wm. Slade says 800 prisoners
taken at Fort Washington were put into the North church. On the first
of December 300 were taken from the church to the prison ship. December
second he, with others, was marched to the Grosvenor transport in the
North River; five hundred were crowded on board. He had to lie down
before sunset to secure a place.” Trumbull Papers.
“Henry Franklin affirms that about two days after the taking of Fort
Washington he was in New York, and went to the North Church, in which
were about 800 prisoners taken in said Fort. He inquired into their
treatment, and they told him they fared hard on account both of
provisions and lodging, for they were not allowed any bedding, or
blankets, and the provisions had not been regularly dealt out, so that
the modest or backward could get little or none, nor had they been
allowed any fuel to dress their victuals. The prisoners in New York were
very sickly, and died in considerable numbers.”
“Feb. 11, 1777. Joshua Loring, Commissary of Prisoners, says that but
little provisions had been sent in by the rebels for their prisoners.”
Gaine’s Mercury.
_Jan. 4th_. 1777. “Seventy-seven prisoners went into the Sugar House. N.
Murray says 800 men were in Bridewell. The doctor gave poison powders to
the prisoners, who soon died. Some were sent to Honduras to cut logwood;
women came to the prison-gate to sell gingerbread.” Trumbull Papers.
The _New York Gazette_ of May 6th, 1777, states that “of 3000 prisoners
taken at Fort Washington, only 800 are living.”
Mr. Onderdonk says: “There seems to have been no systematic plan adopted
by the citizens of New York for the relief of the starving prisoners.
We have scattering notices of a few charitable individuals, such as the
following:--‘Mrs. Deborah Franklin was banished from New York Nov. 21st,
1780, by the British commandant, for her unbounded liberality to the
American prisoners. Mrs. Ann Mott was associated with Mrs. Todd and Mrs.
Whitten in relieving the sufferings of American prisoners in New York,
during the Revolution. John Fillis died at Halifax, 1792, aged 68. He
was kind to American prisoners in New York. Jacob Watson, Penelope Hull,
etc., are also mentioned.’”
BRITISH ACCOUNT OF MORTALITY OF PRISONERS
“P. Dobbyn, master of a transport, thus writes from New York, Jan. 15th,
1777. ‘We had four or five hundred prisoners on board our ships, but
they had such bad distempers that each ship buried ten or twelve a day.’
Another writer, under date of Jan. 14th, ‘77, says, ‘The Churches are
full of American prisoners, who die so fast that 25 or 30 are buried
at a time, in New York City. General Howe gave all who could walk
their liberty, after taking their oath not to take up arms against his
Majesty.’” (From a London Journal.)