American Prisoners of the RevolutionDandridge, Danske
History
American Prisoners of the Revolution
Dandridge, Danske
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Prisoners and prisons
The poor woman wept as she told her story, and the escaped prisoner wept
with her. This woman and her two sons were Dutch, and their house was
only nine miles from Brooklyn ferry. She now directed the boy to a house
at Oyster Bay where she said there was a man who would assist him to
escape.
After running many risks he found the house at last, but the woman
who answered his knock told him that her husband was away and when he
explained who he was she became very angry, and said that it was her
duty to give him up. So he ran away from her, and at last fell into the
hands of a party of British, who recaptured him, and declared that they
would send him immediately back to the prison ship. They were quartered
in a house near Oyster Bay, and here they locked him in a room, and he
was told to lie down on some straw to sleep, as it was now night. In
the night the fleas troubled him so much that he was very restless. A
sentinel had been placed to guard him, and when this wretch heard him
moving in the dark he exclaimed, “Lie still, G--d---you,” and pricked
him several times with his bayonet, so that the poor boy felt the fresh
blood running down his body. He begged the sentinel to spare his life,
declaring that it was hard he should be killed merely because the fleas
had made him restless. He now did not dare to move, and was obliged to
endure the attacks the fleas and the stiffness of his wounds in perfect
silence until the sentinel was relieved. The next sentinel was kind and
humane and seemed to compassionate his sufferings. He said that some
men were natural brutes, and seemed to take an interest in the boy, but
could do little for him. At daylight he was sent to the quarters of a
Tory colonel a mile from the guard room. The colonel was a tall man of
fine appearance, who examined him, and then said he must be sent back to
the Jersey. The poor lad was now left in an unlocked room on the ground
floor of the colonel’s house. He was given his breakfast, and a mulatto
man was set to guard him. Now there was a pantry opening into this room,
and a negro girl, who appeared very friendly with the mulatto, called
him to eat his breakfast in this pantry. The mulatto, while eating,
would look out every few minutes. Just after one of these inspections
the boy got up softly, with his shoes in his hands, stepped across the
room, out at the back door, and concealed himself in a patch of standing
hemp. From thence he made his way into an orchard, and out into a wood
lot. Here he hid himself and remained quiet for several hours, and
although he heard several persons talking near him, he was not pursued.
At last he stole out, walked about six miles, and at night fall entered
a barn and slept there. He was in rather better case than before his
recapture, for a doctor belonging to the British service had taken pity
on him the night before, and had furnished him with warm clothes, shoes,
and a little money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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