American Prisoners of the Revolution Part 22

SONNET

SUGGESTED BY A VISION OF THE JERSEY PRISON SHIP

BY W P P

O Sea! in whose unfathomable gloom A world forlorn of wreck and ruin lies, In thy avenging majesty arise, And with a sound as of the trump of doom Whelm from all eyes for aye yon living tomb, Wherein the martyr patriots groaned for years, A prey to hunger and the bitter jeers Of foes in whose relentless b.r.e.a.s.t.s no room Was ever found for pity or remorse; But haunting anger and a savage hate, That spared not e'en their victim's very corse, But left it, outcast, to its carrion fate Wherefore, arise, O Sea! and sternly sweep This floating dungeon to thy lowest deep

It was stated in the portion of the eloquent oration given in our last chapter that more than 11,000 prisoners perished on board the Jersey alone, during the s.p.a.ce of three years and a half that she was moored in the waters of Wallabout Bay. This statement has never been contradicted, as far as we know, by British authority. Yet we trust that it is exaggerated. It would give an average of more than three thousand deaths a year. The whole number of names copied from the English War Records of prisoners on board the Jersey is about 8,000. This, however, is an incomplete list. You will in vain search through its pages to find the recorded names of many prisoners who have left well attested accounts of their captivity on board that fatal vessel. All that we can say now is that the number who perished there is very great.

As late as 1841 the bones of many of these victims were still to be found on the sh.o.r.es of Walabout Bay, in and around the Navy Yard. On the 4th of February of that year some workmen, while engaged in digging away an embankment in Jackson Street, Brooklyn, near the Navy Yard, accidentally uncovered a quant.i.ty of human bones, among which was a skeleton having a pair of iron manacles still upon the wrists. (See Thompson's History of Long Island, Vol. 1, page 247.)

In a paper published at Fishkill on the 18th of May, 1783, is the following card: "To All Printers, of Public Newspapers:--Tell it to the world, and let it be published in every Newspaper throughout America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, to the everlasting disgrace and infamy of the British King's commanders at New York: That during the late war it is said that 11,644 American prisoners have suffered death by their inhuman, cruel, savage, and barbarous usage on board the filthy and malignant British prison ship called the Jersey, lying at New York.

Britons tremble, lest the vengeance of Heaven fall on your isle, for the blood of these unfortunate victims!

"An American"

"They died, the young, the loved, the brave, The death barge came for them, And where the seas yon black rocks lave Is heard their requiem They buried them and threw the sand Unhallowed o'er that patriot band

The black ship like a demon sate Upon the prowling deep, From her came fearful sounds of hate, Till pain stilled all in sleep It was the sleep that victims take, Tied, tortured, dying, at the stake.

Yet some the deep has now updug, Their bones are in the sun, Whether by sword or deadly drug They perished, one by one, Was it not dread for mortal eye To see them all so strangely die?

Are there those murdered men who died For freedom and for me?

They seem to point, in martyred pride To that spot upon the sea From whence came once the frenzied yell, From out that wreck, that prison h.e.l.l"

This rough but strong old poem was written many years ago by a Mr.

Whitman We have taken the liberty of retouching it to a slight degree.

It is well known that _twenty hogsheads_ of bones were collected in 1808 from the sh.o.r.es of the Wallabout, and buried under the auspices of the Tammany Society in a vault prepared for the purpose. These were but a small part of the remains of the victims of the prison ships. Many were, as we have seen, washed into the sea, and many more were interred on the sh.o.r.es of New York Harbor, before the prison ships were removed to the Wallabout. It will be better that we should give the accounts left to us by eye witnesses of the sufferings on board these prison ships, and we will therefore quote from the narrative of John Van d.y.k.e, who was confined on board the Jersey before her removal to the Wallabout.

Captain John Van d.y.k.e was taken prisoner in May, 1780, at which time he says: "We were put on board the prison ship Jersey, anch.o.r.ed off Fly Market. (New York City) This ship had been a hospital ship. When I came on board her stench was so great, and my breathing this putrid air--I thought it would kill me, but after being on board some days I got used to it, and as though all was a common smell. * * *

"On board the Jersey prison ship it was short allowance, so short a person would think it was not possible for a man to live on. They starved the American prisoners to make them enlist in their service. I will now relate a fact. Every man in a mess of six took his daily turn to get the mess's provisions. One day I went to the galley and drew a piece of salt, boiled pork. I went to our mess to divide it. * * * I cut each one his share, and each one eat our day's allowance in one mouthful of this salt pork and nothing else. One day called peaday I took the drawer of our doctor's chest (Dr. Hodges of Philadelphia) and went to the galley, which was the cooking place, with my drawer for a soup dish.

I held it under a large bra.s.s c.o.c.k, the cook turned it. I received the allowance of my mess, and behold! Brown water, and fifteen floating peas--no peas on the bottom of my drawer, and this for six men's allowance for 24 hours. The peas were all in the bottom of the kettle.

Those left would be taken to New York and, I suppose, sold.

"One day in the week, called pudding day, we would receive three pounds of damaged flour, in it would be green lumps such as their men would not eat, and one pound of very bad raisins, one third raisin sticks. We would pick out the sticks, mash the lumps of flour, put all with some water into our drawer, mix our pudding and put it into a bag and boil it with a tally tied to it with the number of our mess. This was a day's allowance. We, for some time, drew a half pint of rum for each man. One day Captain Lard (Laird) who commanded the ship Jersey, came on board.

As soon as he was on the main deck of the ship he cried out for the boatswain. The boatswain arrived and in a very quick motion, took off his hat. There being on deck two half hogshead tubs where our allowance of rum was mixed into grog, Captain L., said, 'Have the prisoners had their allowance of rum today?' 'No, sir' answered the boatswain. Captain L. replied, 'd.a.m.n your soul, you rascal, heave it overboard.'

"The boatswain, with help, upset the tubs of rum on the middle deck. The grog rum run out of the scuppers of the ship into the river. I saw no more grog on board. * * * Every fair day a number of British officers and sergeants would come on board, form in two ranks on the quarter deck, facing inwards, the prisoners in the after part of the quarter deck. As the boatswain would call a name, the word would be 'Pa.s.s!' As the prisoners pa.s.sed between the ranks officers and sergeants stared them in the face. This was done to catch deserters, and if they caught nothing the sergeants would come on the middle deck and cry out 'Five guineas bounty to any man that will enter his Majesty's service!'

"Shortly after this party left the ship a Hessian party would come on board, and the prisoners had to go through the same routine of duty again.

"From the Jersey prison ship eighty of us were taken to the pink stern sloop-of-war Hunter, Captain Thomas Henderson, Commander. We were taken there in a large ship's long boat, towed by a ten-oar barge, and one other barge with a guard of soldiers in the rear.

"On board the ship Hunter we drew one third allowance, and every Monday we received a loaf of wet bread, weighing seven pounds for each mess.

This loaf was from Mr. John Pintard's father, of New York, the American Commissary, and this bread, with the allowance of provisions, we found sufficient to live on.

"After we had been on board some time Mr. David Sproat, the British Commissary of prisoners, came on board; all the prisoners were ordered aft; the roll was called and as each man pa.s.sed him Mr. Sproat would ask, 'Are you a seaman?' The answer was 'Landsman, landsman.' There were ten landsmen to one answer of half seaman. When the roll was finished Mr. Sproat said to our sea officers, 'Gentlemen, how do you make out at sea, for the most part of you are landsmen?'

"Our officers answered: 'You hear often how we make out. When we meet our force, or rather more than our force we give a good account of them.'

"Mr. Sproat asked, 'And are not your vessels better manned than these.

Our officers replied, 'Mr Sproat, we are the best manned out of the port of Philadelphia.' Mr. Sproat shrugged his shoulders saying, 'I cannot see how you do it.'"

We do not understand what John Van d.y.k.e meant by his expression "half seaman." It is probable that the sailors among the prisoners pretended to be soldiers in order to be exchanged. There was much more difficulty in exchanging sailors than soldiers, as we shall see. David Sproat was the British Commissary for Naval Prisoners alone. In a paper published in New York in April 28th, 1780, appears the following notice:--"I do hereby direct all Captains, Commanders, Masters, and Prize Masters of ships and other vessels, who bring naval prisoners into this port, immediately to send a list of their names to this office, No. 33 Maiden Lane, where they will receive an order how to dispose of them.

"(Signed) David Sproat."

The Jersey and some of the other prison ships often had landsmen among their prisoners, at least until the last years of the war, when they were so overcrowded with sailors, that there must have been scant room for any one else.

The next prisoner whose recollections we will consider is Captain Silas Talbot, who was confined on board the Jersey in the fall of 1780. He says: "All her port holes were closed. * * * There were about 1,100 prisoners on board. There were no berths or seats, to lie down on, not a bench to sit on. Many were almost without cloaths. The dysentery, fever, phrenzy and despair prevailed among them, and filled the place with filth, disgust and horror. The scantiness of the allowance, the bad quality of the provisions, the brutality of the guards, and the sick, pining for comforts they could not obtain, altogether furnished continually one of the greatest scenes of human distress and misery ever beheld. It was now the middle of October, the weather was cool and clear, with frosty nights, so that the number of deaths per day was _reduced to an average of ten_, and this number was considered by the survivors a small one, when compared with the terrible mortality that had prevailed for three months before. The human bones and skulls, yet bleaching on the sh.o.r.e of Long Island, and daily exposed, by the falling down of the high bank on which the prisoners were buried, is a shocking sight, and manifestly demonstrates that the Jersey prison ship had been as destructive as a field of battle."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE EXPERIENCE OF EBENEZER FOX

Ebenezer Fox, a prisoner on board the Jersey, wrote a little book about his dreadful experiences when he was a very old man. The book was written in 1838, and published by Charles Fox in Boston in 1848.

Ebenezer Fox was born in the East Parish of Roxbury, Ma.s.s., in 1763. In the spring of 1775 he and another boy named Kelly ran away to sea.

Fox shipped as a cabin boy in a vessel commanded by Captain Joseph Manchester.

He made several cruises and returned home. In 1779 he enlisted, going as a subst.i.tute for the barber to whom he was apprenticed. His company was commanded by Captain William Bird of Boston in a regiment under Colonel Proctor. Afterwards he signed ship's papers and entered the naval service on a twenty gun ship called the Protector, Captain John F.

Williams of Ma.s.sachusetts. On the lst of April, 1780, they sailed for a six months cruise, and on the ninth of June, 1780, fought the Admiral Duff until she took fire and blew up. A short time afterwards the Protector was captured by two English ships called the Roebuck and Mayday.

Fox concealed fifteen dollars in the crown of his hat, and fifteen more in the soles of his shoes.

All the prisoners were sent into the hold. One third of the crew of the Protector were pressed into the British service. The others were sent to the Jersey. Evidently this prison ship had already become notorious, for Fox writes: "The idea of being incarcerated in this floating pandemonium filled us with horror, but the ideas we had formed of its horror fell far short of the reality. * * * The Jersey was removed from the East River, and moored with chain cables at the Wallabout in consequence of the fears entertained that the sickness which prevailed among the prisoners might spread to the sh.o.r.e. * * * I now found myself in a loathsome prison, among a collection of the most wretched and disgusting looking objects that I ever beheld in human form.

"Here was a motley crew, covered with rags and filth; visages pallid with disease; emaciated with hunger and anxiety; and hardly retaining a trace of their original appearance. Here were men, who had once enjoyed life while riding over the mountain wave or roaming through pleasant fields, full of health and vigor, now shrivelled by a scanty and unwholesome diet, ghastly with inhaling an impure atmosphere, exposed to contagion; in contact with disease, and surrounded with the horrors of sickness, and death. Here, thought I, must I linger out the morning of my life" (he was seventeen) "in tedious days and sleepless nights, enduring a weary and degrading captivity, till death should terminate my sufferings, and no friend will know of my departure.

"A prisoner on board the 'Old Jersey!' The very thought was appalling. I could hardly realize my situation.

"The first thing we found it necessary to do after our capture was to form ourselves into small parties called messes, consisting of six in each, as previous to doing this, we could obtain no food. All the prisoners were obliged to fast on the first day of their arrival, and seldom on the second could they obtain any food in season for cooking it. * * * All the prisoners fared alike; officers and sailors received the same treatment on board of this old hulk. * * * We were all 'rebels.' The only distinction known among us was made by the prisoners themselves, which was shown in allowing those who had been officers previous to their captivity, to congregate in the extreme afterpart of the ship, and to keep it exclusively to themselves as their place of abode. * * * The prisoners were confined in the two main decks below.

The lowest dungeon was inhabited by those prisoners who were foreigners, and whose treatment was more severe than that of the Americans.

"The inhabitants of this lower region were the most miserable and disgusting looking objects that can be conceived. Daily washing in salt water, together with their extreme emaciation, caused the skin to appear like dried parchment. Many of them remained unwashed for weeks; their hair long, and matted, and filled with vermin; their beards never cut except occasionally with a pair of shears, which did not improve their comeliness, though it might add to their comfort. Their clothes were mere rags, secured to their bodies in every way that ingenuity could devise.

"Many of these men had been in this lamentable condition for two years, part of the time on board other prison ships; and having given up all hope of ever being exchanged, had become resigned to their situation.

These men were foreigners whose whole lives had been one continual scene of toil, hardship, and suffering. Their feelings were blunted; their dispositions soured; they had no sympathies for the world; no home to mourn for; no friends to lament for their fate. But far different was the condition of the most numerous cla.s.s of prisoners, composed mostly of young men from New England, fresh from home.

"They had reason to deplore the sudden change in their condition. * * *

The thoughts of home, of parents, brothers, sisters, and friends, would crowd upon their minds, and brooding on what they had been, and what they were, their desire for home became a madness. The dismal and disgusting scene around; the wretched objects continually in sight; and 'hope deferred which maketh the heart sick', produced a state of melancholy that often ended in death,--the death of a broken heart."

Fox describes the food and drink, the prison regulations, deaths, and burials, just as they were described by Captain Dring, who wrote the fullest account of the Jersey, and from whose memoirs we shall quote further on. He says of their shallow graves in the sand of the Wallabout: "This was the last resting place of many a son and a brother,--young and n.o.ble-spirited men, who had left their happy homes and kind friends to offer their lives in the service of their country.

* * * Poor fellows! They suffered more than their older companions in misery. They could not endure their hopeless and wearisome captivity:--to live on from day to day, denied the power of doing anything; condemned to that most irksome and heart-sickening of all situations, utter inactivity; their restless and impetuous spirits, like caged lions, panted to be free, and the conflict was too much for endurance, enfeebled and worn out as they were with suffering and confinement. * * * The fate of many of these unhappy victims must have remained forever unknown to their friends; for in so large a number, no exact account could be kept of those who died, and they rested in a nameless grave; while those who performed the last sad rites were hurried away before their task was half completed, and forbid to express their horror and indignation at this insulting negligence towards the dead. * * *