Historic Boyhoods

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The prisoners were now gathered together, and placed under one escort to be taken to the British prison at Camden, South Carolina. The journey was a very hard one. Both the Jackson boys and their cousin, Thomas Crawford, were suffering from wounds, but they were allowed no food or water as they were marched the forty miles. The soldiers even forbade the boys scooping up drinking water from one of the streams they crossed.

The prison at Camden was wretchedness itself. Two hundred and fifty men and boys were herded into one small enclosure. They were given no beds, no medicine, nor bandages to dress their wounds, only a little bad bread for food. The brothers were separated. Andrew was robbed of his coat and shoes; he was sick and hungry and worried, for he had no idea what had happened to his mother or brother. Then as a final horror smallpox broke out in the prison, and the fear of contagion was added to the other torments.

One day Andrew was lying in the sun near the prison gate when an officer was attracted by his youth and came up to talk with him. The officer seemed kind, and the boy poured out the miseries of the prison life to him. He told how the men were starved or given bad food, and how they were ill used by the guards. The officer was shocked and promised to look into the matter. When he did he found that the contractors were not giving the prisoners the food they were paid to provide, and he reported the matter to those in charge. Shortly after conditions improved.

Then news came to the prison that the American General Greene was coming to deliver them. They were tremendously excited at the report. General Greene had indeed marched on Camden with a small army of twelve hundred men, but as he had marched faster than his artillery he thought it best to wait on a hill outside the town until the guns should come up with him. Six days he stayed there, and then the British commander decided to attack him without further delay.

The prison yard would have given a good view of the battle but for a board fence which had lately been built on top of the wall. Andrew looked everywhere for a crack in the boards, but could find none. He managed, however, during the night to cut a hole with an old razor blade which had been given the prisoners to serve as a meat knife. Through this hole he saw something of the battle next day, and described what he saw to the men in the yard below him.

The Americans were not expecting the British attack. When the British general led out his nine hundred men early in the morning the Americans were scattered over the hill, washing their clothes, cleaning their guns, cooking, and playing cards. Andrew saw the enemy steal about the base of the hill. There was no way in which he could warn his countrymen. He saw the British steal up the hill, and break suddenly on the surprised soldiers. The colonials rushed for their arms, fell into line, met the charge. The American horse dashed upon the British rear, and a cheer went up from the waiting prisoners. Then the British made a second charge, and this time carried men and horses before them, down the slope and out into the plain. The Americans ceased firing, and finally broke in full retreat. The prisoners were in more wretched state than they had been before.

After the battle Andrew's spirits sank to the lowest ebb. He fell ill with the first symptoms of the dreaded smallpox. His brother was in even worse condition. The wound in his head had not healed, as it had never been properly treated. He also was ill, and it seemed as though both boys were about to fall victims to the plague.

Fortunately, at this great crisis, help suddenly appeared. Their devoted mother learned of the boys' state, and went by herself to Camden to see if she could not procure a transfer of prisoners. She saw the British general, and arranged that he should free her two sons and five of her neighbors in return for thirteen British soldiers who had been recently captured by a Waxhaw captain. The boys were set free, and joined their mother. She was shocked to find them so changed by hunger, illness, and wounds. Robert could not stand, and Andrew was little better off. They were free, however, at last, and Mrs. Jackson planned to get them home as soon as possible.

The mother could get only two horses. One she rode, and Robert was put on the other, and held in the saddle by two of the men just freed. Andrew dragged himself wearily behind, without hat, coat, or shoes. Forty miles of wilderness lay between Camden and the boys' old home at Waxhaw near the Catawba. The little party trudged along as best it could, and were only two miles from home when a cold, drenching rain started to fall. The boys, ill already, suffered terribly. Finally they reached home, and were put to bed. The cold rain had proved too severe for Robert, and two days later he died. Andrew, stricken with smallpox, as was his brother, was very ill for a long time.

While Andrew was still sick word came to Waxhaw that the condition of some of the men and boys in the Charleston prison ships was even worse than that of the men at Camden. Mrs. Jackson's nephews and many of her friends and neighbors were in the ships, and she felt that she must do something to relieve them. As soon as she could leave Andrew, she started with two other women to travel the hundred and sixty miles to Charleston.