American Prisoners of the Revolution | Page 2

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REVOLUTION, AND AN UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF ONE OF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 city, the New York of 1776.
These ditches were dug by American soldiers, as part of the
entrenchments, during Washington's occupation of Manhattan in the
spring of 1776. Little did these young men think that they were, in
some cases, literally digging a grave for themselves.
More than a hundred and thirty years have passed since the victims of
Cunningham's cruelty and rapacity were starved to death in churches
consecrated to the praise and worship of a God of love. It is a tardy
recognition that we are giving them, and one that is most imperfect, yet
it is all that we can now do. The ditches where they were interred have

long ago been filled up, built over, and intersected by streets. Who of
the multitude that daily pass to and fro over the ground that should be
sacred ever give a thought to the remains of the brave men beneath
their feet, who perished that they might enjoy the blessings of liberty?
Republics are ungrateful; they have short memories; but it is due to the
martyrs of the Revolution that some attempt should be made to tell to
the generations that succeed them who they were, what they did, and
why they suffered so terribly and died so grimly, without weakening,
and without betraying the cause of that country which was dearer to
them than their lives.
We have, for the most part, limited ourselves to the prisons and prison
ships in the city and on the waters of New York. This is because such
information as we have been able to obtain concerning the treatment of
American prisoners by the British relates, almost entirely, to that
locality.
It is a terrible story that we are about to narrate, and we warn the lover
of pleasant books to lay down our volume at the first page. We shall
see Cunningham, that burly, red-faced ruffian, the Provost Marshal,
wreaking his vengeance upon the defenceless prisoners in his keeping,
for the assault made upon him at the outbreak of the war, when he and
a companion who had made themselves obnoxious to the republicans
were mobbed and beaten in the streets of New York. He was rescued
by some friends of law and order, and locked up in one of the jails
which