Produced by Dave Maddock, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team 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