American Prisoners of the Revolution

by Danske Dandridge

“This privilege alone was a sufficient compensation for all the duty which was required of them.

“Their routine of service was to wash down that part of the upper deck and gangways where the prisoners were permitted to walk; to spread the awning, or to hoist on board the wood, water, and other supplies, from the boats in which the same were brought alongside the ship.

“When the prisoners ascended to the upper deck in the morning, if the day was fair, each carried up his hammock and bedding, which were all placed upon the spar-deck, or booms. The Working-party then took the sick and disabled who remained below, and placed them in the bunks prepared for them upon the centre-deck; they then, if any of the prisoners had died during the night, carried up the dead bodies, and laid them upon the booms; after which it was their duty to wash down the main decks below; during which operation the prisoners remained on the upper deck, except such as chose to go below and volunteer their services in the performance of this duty.

“Around the railing of the hatchway leading from the centre to the lower decks, were placed a number of large tubs for the occasional use of the prisoners during the night, and as general receptacles of filth. Although these were indispensably necessary to us, yet they were highly offensive. It was a part of the duty of the Working-party to carry these on deck, at the time when the prisoners ascended in the morning, and to return them between decks in the afternoon.

“Our beds and clothing were kept on deck until nearly the hour when we were to be ordered below for the night. During this interval * * * the decks washed and cleared of all incumbrance, except the poor wretches who lay in the bunks, it was quite refreshing after the suffocating heat and foul vapors of the night to walk between decks. There was then some circulation of air through the ship, and, for a few hours, our existence was, in some degree, tolerable.

“About two hours before sunset the order was usually issued for the prisoners to carry their hammocks, etc., below. After this had been done we were all either to retire between decks, or to remain above until sunset according to our own pleasure. Everything which we could do conducive to cleanliness having then been performed, if we ever felt anything like enjoyment in this wretched abode, it was during this brief interval, when we breathed the cool air of the approaching night, and felt the luxury of our evening pipe. But short indeed was this interval of repose. The Working-party was soon ordered to carry the tubs below, and we prepared to descend to our gloomy and crowded dungeons. This was no sooner done than the gratings were closed over the hatchways, the sentinels stationed, and we left to sicken and pine beneath our accumulated torments; with our guards above crying aloud, through the long night, ‘All’s well!”’

Captain Dring says that at that time the Jersey was used for seamen alone. The average number on board was one thousand. It consisted of the crews of vessels of all the nations with which the English were at war. But the greater number had been captured on board American vessels.

There were three hospital ships in the Wallabout; the Stromboli, the Hunter, and the Scorpion. [Footnote: At one time as we have seen, the Scorpion was a prison ship, from which Freneau was sent to the Hunter hospital ship.] There was not room enough on board these ships for all the sick, and a part of the upper deck of the Jersey was therefore prepared for their accommodation. These were on the after part of the upper deck, on the larboard side, where those who felt the symptoms of approaching sickness could lie down, in order to be found by the nurses as soon as possible.

Few ever returned from the hospital ships to the Jersey. Dring knew but three such instances during his imprisonment. He says that “the outward appearance of these hospitals was disgusting in the highest degree. The sight of them was terrible to us. Their appearance was even more shocking than that of our own miserable hulk.

“On board the Jersey among the prisoners were about half a dozen men known by the appellation of nurses. I never learned by whom they were appointed, or whether they had any regular appointment at all. But one fact I knew well; they were all thieves. They were, however, sometimes useful in assisting the sick to ascend from below to the gangway on the upper deck, to be examined by the visiting Surgeon who attended from the Hunter every day, when the weather was good. If a sick man was pronounced by the Surgeon to be a proper subject for one of the hospital ships, he was put into the boat waiting alongside; but not without the loss or detention of his effects, if he had any, as these were at once taken by the nurses, as their own property. * * * I had found Mr. Robert Carver, our Gunner while on board the Chance, sick in one of the bunks where those retired who wished to be removed. He was without a bed or pillow, and had put on all the wearing apparel which he possessed, wishing to preserve it, and being sensible of his situation. I found him sitting upright in the bunk, with his great-coat on over the rest of his garments, and his hat between his knees. The weather was excessively hot, and, in the place where he lay, the heat was overpowering. I at once saw that he was delirious, a sure presage that the end was near. I took off his great-coat, and having folded and placed it under his head for a pillow, I laid him upon it, and went immediately to prepare him some tea. I was absent but a few minutes, and, on returning, met one of the thievish Nurses with Carver’s great-coat in his hand. On ordering him to return it his reply was that it was a perquisite of the Nurses, and the only one they had; that the man was dying, and the great-coat could be of no further use to him. I however, took possession of the coat, and on my liberation, returned it to the family of the owner. Mr Carver soon after expired where he lay. We procured a blanket in which to wrap his body, which was thus prepared for interment. Others of the crew of the Chance had died before that time. Mr Carver was a man of strong and robust constitution. Such men were subject to the most violent attacks of the fever, and were also its most certain victims.”