American Prisoners of the RevolutionDandridge, Danske
History
American Prisoners of the Revolution
Dandridge, Danske
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Prisoners and prisons
Cornelius continued in the Continental service until January 1st,
1781, and received an honorable discharge. After the war he settled
at Yorktown, Westchester County, and came to be known as the “beloved
physician.” He was very gentle and kind, and a great Presbyterian. He
died in 1823, and left descendants, one of whom is Judge C. M. Tompkins,
of Washington, D. C.
As we have seen, Cunningham was not always in charge of the Provost. It
appears that, during his absence in Philadelphia and other places, where
he spread death and destruction, he left Sergeant O’Keefe, almost as
great a villian as himself, in charge of the hapless prisoners in New
York. It is to be hoped that his boast that he had killed more Americans
than all the King’s forces is an exaggeration. It may, however, be true
that in the years 1776 and 1777 he destroyed more American soldiers than
had, at that time, fallen on the field of battle.
When an old building that had been used as a prison near the City Hall
was torn down a few years ago to make way for the Subway Station of
the Brooklyn Bridge, a great number of skeletons were found _in its
cellars_. That these men starved to death or came to their end by
violence cannot be doubted. New York, at the time of the Revolution,
extended to about three-quarters of a mile from the Battery, its suburbs
lying around what is now Fulton Street. Cornelius speaks of the Bowery
as about three-quarters of a mile from New York! “St. Paul’s Church,”
says Mr. Haltigan, in his very readable book called “The Irish in the
American Revolution,” “where Washington attended divine service, is now
the only building standing that existed in those days, and that is a
veritable monument to Irish and American patriotism. * * * On the Boston
Post Road, where it crossed a brook in the vicinity of Fifty-Second
street and Second avenue, then called Beekman’s Hill, William Beekman
had an extensive country house. During the Revolution this house was the
British headquarters, and residence of Sir William Howe, where Nathan
Hale was condemned to death, and where Major Andrè received his last
instructions before going on his ill-fated mission to the traitor
Arnold.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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