Revolutionary Martyrs The Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park honors the forgotten victims of the American Revolution—the more than 11,500 Americans held captive on British prison ships who died of disease, starvation, violence and neglect. BY SHARONMcDONNELL PHOTO BY CLINTON IRVING JONES. IMAGES PROVIDED BY ABBY WEISSMAN AND THE FORT GREENE PARK CONSERVANCY American Spirit • March/April 2007 43 Standing almost 150 feet tall at the summit of Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., and flanked by a granite staircase 100 feet wide, the Prison Ship Martyrs’ “Turn out your dead!” Monument overlooks Wallabout Bay, the site where more than 11,500 American British guards yelled each prisoners of war were held captive in unspeakable conditions and died on 16 morning, since the deaths British prison ships between 1776 and The Jersey was nicknamed “Hell” by its inhabitants. 1783. According to government esti- were so frequent. Bodies were mates, more than twice as many tant defenses built on high land in Americans died on the prison ships than Brooklyn to protect New York from the buried in shallow graves in all the battles of the Revolutionary British. It was one of several defenses War. The story of the “prison ship mar- supervised by Colonel Rufus Putnam. along the shore. tyrs,” as they are called, represent one of “If New York was the key to the con- the most tragic chapters in our nation’s tinent, then Long Island was the key to General Nathanael Greene early history—yet one of its least known. New York, and the key to the defense of Long Island was Brooklyn Heights,” says ‘Turn Out Your Dead!’ David McCullough in his book 1776 In 1776, Fort Greene Park was the site (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Despite Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long were so frequent. Bodies were buried in lamp could not be kept burning, by Sof Fort Putnam, one of the most impor- fierce battles waged during the Battle of Island) under the leadership of Major shallow graves along the shore. reason of which the boys were not missed General Nathanael Greene on August Robert Sheffield of Stonington, till they had been dead 10 days.” 27, 1776, the greatly outnumbered Conn., one of 350 men jammed in a Of the 16 prison ships, the Jersey, which Continental Army lost. Shortly there- small compartment below deck aboard a was nicknamed “Hell” by its inhabitants, after, the British took control of New prison ship, escaped in 1778, telling the was the most notorious. A prisoner on the York City and Long Island and occupied Connecticut Gazette: Jersey, who said the deaths were about 10 them until the war ended. “Their sickly countenances and ghastly per day, recalled, “At the time I was on The British needed space to imprison looks were truly horrible. Some swearing board, there were about 1,100 prisoners, captured seamen and soldiers, as well as and blaspheming; some crying, praying, no berths to lie in, or benches to sit on; civilians suspected of Revolutionary and wringing their hands, and stalking many were without clothes. Dysentery, sympathies, but the churches, the old about like ghosts; others delirious, raving, fever, pleurisy, and despair prevailed. The City Hall and Columbia College (then and storming; some groaning and scantiness and bad quality of provisions, named King’s College) weren’t enough. dying—all panting for breath; some dead the brutality of the guards, and the sick A fire had destroyed many New York and corrupting—air so foul at times that a pining for comforts they could not obtain, buildings earlier in the year, so the British turned to ships to detain their prisoners. Most prison ships were anchored in Wallabout Bay on the shore of the future Brooklyn Navy Yard, directly across the East River from Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The ships held American prisoners from all over—including seamen impris- oned in Charleston, S.C., after the British occupation in 1780, St. Augustine, Fla., and Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were all eventually transferred to prison ships in New York. Known to their once-inhabitants as floating horrors, infamous for cattle-like conditions, merciless treatment by British guards and rampant disease, death was a common occurrence on the GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK prison ships. THE “Turn out your dead!” British guards Despite fierce battles waged during the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island), the greatly A 19th-century color engraving illustrates the interior of the HMS Jersey, a prison ship anchored off Brooklyn during the British occupation of New York. yelled each morning, since the deaths outnumbered Continental Army lost. The British occupied New York City and Long Island until the war ended. 44 Daughters of the American Revolution American Spirit • March/April 2007 45 altogether furnished the cruelest scene of commander General William Howe. Support grew to honor the ship naval, who perished in the noisome horror ever beheld.” “You may call us rebels, and say that we prisoners with a permanent and more prison ships anchored in the Wallabout Another Jersey prisoner, Captain deserve no better treatment. But, remem- meaningful monument, but it still took a Bay during the Revolutionary War”—as Thomas Dring, a 25-year-old from ber, my Lord, that supposing us rebels, we century. Poet Walt Whitman, editor of well as city, state and federal officials, Newport, R.I., survived—though sur- still have feelings as keen and sensible as The Brooklyn Daily Eagle—the biggest daily Congress finally approved funds to rounded by men suffering from small- Loyalists, and will, if forced to it, most newspaper in Brooklyn, which was then build the Prison Ships Martyrs’ pox—by inoculating himself with a pin. assuredly retaliate upon those upon an independent city—wrote almost daily Memorial, and the architectural firm “On looking about me, I soon found a whom we look as the unjust invaders of in 1846 about how Brooklyn needed a McKim, Mead and White won a 1905 man in the proper stage of the disease, our rights, liberties and properties.” public park as a “lung” where its dense competition to design it. and desired him to favor me with some of Prisoners could be released if they population could relax and breathe fresh Dedicated in 1908 in a ceremony the matter for the purpose ... The only renounced the Revolutionary cause and air. Inspired by the Society of Old attended by newly elected President instrument which I could procure, for pledged loyalty to King George III. Some Brooklynites, he also rallied support in his William Howard Taft, the monument the purpose of inoculation, was a com- bribed their way to freedom; others were pages to build a monument to the prison was the last public work designed by mon pin ... exchanged for British prisoners. It’s ship martyrs. Stanford White. Featuring an eight-ton The next morning I found that the unknown how many escaped the ships The grandson of a militiaman in the bronze urn and four 300-pound bronze wound had begun to fester; a sure symp- this way. After the war ended in 1783, the Revolutionary War, Whitman heard eagles, the monument was the world’s tom that the application had taken effect.” remaining prisoners were freed, and the many stories about the war throughout tallest freestanding Doric column. A A poem penned by J.M. Scott refer- prison ships abandoned. his childhood. Patriotic heroes permeate plaza, flanked at each corner by the ences both the Jersey and the Scorpion: his poems: George Washington weeps for crowning granite shafts and guarded by The Memorial Gains Allies his dead and his defeat at the Battle of two cannons, covered the tomb beneath Let the dark Scorpion’s bulk narrate Long after the war was over, bones and Brooklyn in the Leaves of Grass poem, “The it. Sculptor Alexander Weinman, The dismal tale of English hate skulls from ship prisoners kept washing Sleepers,” and the prison ship martyrs best known for his statue of “Civic Her horrid scenes let Jersey tell up on the shores of Brooklyn. Some were appear in “Song of Myself”: Fame” that tops the Municipal Building And mock the shadows where demons dwell. General George Washington com- collected and stored in a vault funded by in Manhattan, designed the monu- There shrieks of pain, and the dying groan, plained about the prison ships in a the Tammany Society near the Navy Yard What sobers the Brooklyn boy as he looks ment’s two eagles. Unheeded fall on ears of stone. January 13, 1777, letter to British in 1806. down the shores of the Wallabout and remembers the prison ships. A Neglected Monument In the century since it was built, the Whitman and other supporters of the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Memorial has public park soon got their wish. The City often been as neglected as the history it of Brooklyn commissioned Frederick commemorates. In the 1930s, the mon- Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, fresh ument fell into disrepair due to lack of from their success designing Manhattan’s funding and community interest. Central Park, to design several parks in However, the monument may finally 1864, one of which was the 30-acre win the attention it so sorely deserves: a Washington Park, now known as Fort restoration funded by the New York Greene Park. The remains of the prison City Parks and Recreation Department ship martyrs were temporarily laid to rest is under way and expected to be com- in nearby Prospect Park, but were trans- pleted in fall 2007, and a rededication is ferred to a brick crypt in Fort Greene anticipated in 2008.