“They further threatened to send them all into the East Indies, and sell them there for slaves.
“In these and numberless other ways did the British officers seem to rack their inventions to insult, terrify, and vex the poor prisoners. The meanest, upstart officers among them would insult and abuse our colonels and chief officers.
“In this situation, without clothes, without victuals or drink, or even water, or with those which were base and unwholesome; without fire, a number of them sick, first with a contagious and nauseous distemper; these, with others, crowded by hundreds into close confinement, at the most unwholesome season of the year, and continued there for four months without blankets, bedding, or straw; without linen to shift or clothes to cover their bodies;—No wonder they all became sickly, and having at the same time no medicine, no help of physicians, nothing to refresh or support nature, died by scores in a night, and those who were so far gone as to be unable to help themselves lay uncared for, till death, more kind than Britons, put an end to their misery.
“By these means, and in this way, 1,500 brave Americans, who had nobly gone forth in defence of their injured, oppressed country, but whom the chance at war had cast into the hands of our enemies, died in New York, many of whom were very amiable, promising youths, of good families, the very flower of our land; and of those who lived to come out of prison, the greater part, as far as I can learn, are dead or dying. Their constitutions are broken; the stamina of nature worn out; they cannot recover—they die. Even the few that might have survived are dying of the smallpox. For it seems that our enemies determining that even these, whom a good constitution and a kind Providence had carried through unexampled sufferings, should not at last escape death, just before their release from imprisonment infected them with that fatal distemper.
“To these circumstances we subjoin the manner in which they buried those of our people who died. They dragged them out of the prison by one leg or one arm, piled them up without doors, there let them lie until a sufficient number were dead to make a cart load, then loaded them up in a cart, drove the cart thus loaded out to the ditches made by our people when fortifying New York; there they would tip the cart, tumble the corpses together into the ditch, and afterwards slightly cover them with earth. * * * While our poor prisoners have been thus treated by our foes, the prisoners we have taken have enjoyed the liberty of walking and riding about within large limits at their pleasure; have been freely supplied with every necessary, and have even lived on the fat of the land. None have been so well fed, so plump, and so merry as they; and this generous treatment, it is said, they could not but remember. For when they were returned in the exchange of prisoners, and saw the miserable, famished, dying state of our prisoners, conscious of the treatment they had received, they could not refrain from tears.” Connecticut Journal, Jan. 30th, 1777.
In April of the year 1777 a committee that was appointed by Congress to inquire into the doings of the British on their different marches through New York and New Jersey reported that “The prisoners, instead of that humane treatment which those taken by the United States experienced, were in general treated with the greatest barbarity. Many of them were kept near four days without food altogether. * * * Freemen and men of substance suffered all that generous minds could suffer from the contempt and mockery of British and foreign mercenaries. Multitudes died in prison. When they were sent out several died in being carried from the boats on shore, or upon the road attempting to go home. The committee, in the course of their inquiry, learned that sometimes the common soldiers expressed sympathy with the prisoners, and the foreigners (did this) more than the English. But this was seldom or never the case with the officers, nor have they been able to hear of any charitable assistance given them by the inhabitants who remained in, or resorted to the city of New York, which neglect, if universal, they believe was never known to happen in any similar case in a Christian country.”
We have already shown that some of the citizens of New York, even a number of the profligate women of the town, did their best to relieve the wants of the perishing prisoners. But the guards were very strict, and what they could do was inadequate to remove the distresses under which these victims of cruelty and oppression died. As we are attempting to make this work a compendium of all the facts that can be gathered upon the subject, we must beg the reader’s indulgence if we continue to give corroborating testimony of the same character, from the periodicals of the day. We will next quote from the New Hampshire Gazette, date of February 4th, 1779.
“It is painful to repeat the indubitable accounts we are constantly receiving, of the cruel and inhuman treatment of the subjects of these States from the British in New York and other places. They who hear our countrymen who have been so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of those unrelenting tyrants, relate the sad story of their captivity, the insults they have received, and the slow, cool, systematic manner in which great numbers of those who could not be prevailed on to enter their service have been murdered, must have hearts of stone not to melt with pity for the sufferers, and burn with indignation at their tormentors. As we have daily fresh instances to prove the truth of such a representation, public justice requires that repeated public mention should be made of them. A cartel vessel lately arrived at New London in Connecticut, carrying about 130 American prisoners from the prison ships in New York. Such was the condition in which these poor creatures were put on board the cartel, that in the short run, 16 died on board; upwards of sixty when they were landed, were scarcely able to move, and the remainder greatly emaciated and enfeebled; and many who continue alive are never likely to recover their former health. The greatest inhumanity was experienced by the prisoners in a ship of which one Nelson, a Scotchman, had the superintendence. Upwards of 300 American prisoners were confined at a time, on board this ship. There was but one small fire-place allowed to cook the food of such a number. The allowance of the prisoners was, moreover, frequently delayed, insomuch that, in the short days of November and December, it was not begun to be delivered out until 11 o’clock in the forenoon so that the whole could not be served until three. At sunset the fire was ordered to be quenched; no plea from the many sick, from their absolute necessity, the shortness of the time or the smallness of the hearth, was allowed to avail. The known consequence was that some had not their food dressed at all; many were obliged to eat it half raw. On board the ship no flour, oatmeal, and things of like nature, suited to the condition of infirm people, were allowed to the many sick, nothing but ship-bread, beef, and pork. This is the account given by a number of prisoners, who are credible persons, and this is but a part of their sufferings; so that the excuse made by the enemy that the prisoners were emaciated and died by contagious sickness, which no one could prevent, is futile. It requires no great sagacity to know that crowding people together without fresh air, and feeding, or rather starving them in such a manner as the prisoners have been, must unavoidably produce a contagion. Nor is it a want of candor to suppose that many of our enemies saw with pleasure this contagion, which might have been so easily prevented, among the prisoners who could not be persuaded to enter the service.”
THE CASE OF CAPTAIN BIRDSALL
Soon after the battle of Long Island Captain Birdsall, a Whig officer, made a successful attempt to release an American vessel laden with flour for the army, which had been captured in the Sound by the British. Captain Birdsall offered, if the undertaking was approved of by his superior officer, to superintend the enterprise himself. The proposal was accepted, when Birdsall, with a few picked men, made the experiment, and succeeded in sending the vessel to her original destination. But he and one of his men fell into the hands of the enemy. He was sent to the Provost Jail under surveillance of “that monster in human shape, the infamous Cunningham.” He requested the use of pen, ink, and paper, for the purpose of acquainting his family of his situation. On being refused he made a reply which drew from the keeper some opprobious epithets, accompanied by a thrust from his sword, which penetrated the shoulder of his victim, and caused the blood to flow freely. Being locked up alone in a filthy apartment, and denied any assistance whatever, he was obliged to dress the wound with his own linen, and then to endure, in solitude and misery, every indignity which the malice of the Provost Master urged him to inflict upon a damned rebel, who, he declared, ought to be hung. “After several months of confinement and starvation he was exchanged.”