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TITLE: AMERICAN PRISONERS OF THE REVOLUTION
AUTHOR: DANSKE DANDRIDGE
EBOOK: E00739 (O'Briens Book Cellar)

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

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

    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

    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)

  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

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

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