American Prisoners of the Revolution
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1 American Prisoners of the Revolution CHAPTER<p> PREFACE CHAPTER CHAPTER I CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX 2 CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII 3 CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER XXXII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER XXXIII CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER XXXVIII CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XL CHAPTER XL CHAPTER XLI CHAPTER XLI CHAPTER XLII CHAPTER XLII CHAPTER XLIII CHAPTER XLIII CHAPTER XLIV CHAPTER XLIV CHAPTER XLV American Prisoners of the Revolution 4 CHAPTER XLV CHAPTER XLVI CHAPTER XLVI Information about Project Gutenberg The Legal Small Print American Prisoners of the Revolution Project Gutenberg's American Prisoners of the Revolution, by Danske Dandridge Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: American Prisoners of the Revolution Author: Danske Dandridge American Prisoners of the Revolution 5 Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7829] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on May 20, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRISONERS OF THE REVOLUTION *** Produced by Dave Maddock, Charlz Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. 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 CHAPTER 6 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 CHAPTER 7 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 CHAPTER 8 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) CHAPTER 9 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 10 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 CHAPTER I 11 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.