American Prisoners of the RevolutionDandridge, Danske
History
American Prisoners of the Revolution
Dandridge, Danske
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Prisoners and prisons
“Utter derangement was a common sympton of yellow fever, and to increase
the horror of darkness which enshrouded us, for we were allowed no
light, the voice of warning would be heard, ‘Take care! There’s a madman
stalking through the ship with a knife in his hand!’”
Andros says that he sometimes found the man by whose side he had lain
all night a corpse in the morning. There were many sick with raging
fever, and their loud cries for water, which could only be obtained
on the upper deck, mingled with the groans of the dying, and the
execrations of the tormented sufferers. If they attempted to get water
from the upper deck, the sentry would push them back with his bayonet.
Andros, at one time, had a narrow escape with his life, from one of
these bayonet thrusts.
“In the morning the hatches were thrown open and we were allowed to
ascend. The first object we saw was a boat loaded with dead bodies
conveying them to the Long Island shore, where they were very slightly
covered with sand. * * * Let our disease be what it would we were
abandoned to our fate. No English physician ever came near us.”
Thirteen of the crew to which Andros belonged were on the Jersey. In a
short time all but three or four were dead. The healthiest died first.
They were seized vith yellow fever, which was an epidemic on the ship,
and died in a few hours. Andros escaped contagion longer than any of
his companions, with one exception. He says that the prisoners were
furnished with buckets and brushes to cleanse the ship, and vinegar to
sprinkle the floors, but that most of them had fallen into a condition
of apathy and despair, and that they seldom exerted themselves to
improve their condition.
“The encouragement to do so was small. The whole ship was equally
affected, and contained pestilence enough to desolate a world; disease
and death were wrought into her very timbers. At the time I left it is
to be supposed a more filthy, contagious, and deadly abode never existed
among a Christianized people.
“The lower hold and the orlop deck were such a terror that no man would
venture down into them. * * * Our water was good could we have had
enough of it: the bread was superlatively bad. I do not recollect seeing
any which was not full of living vermin, but eat it, worms and all, we
must, or starve. * * * A secret, prejudicial to a prisoner, revealed
to the guard, was death. Captain Young of Boston concealed himself in a
large chest belonging to a sailor going to be exchanged, and was carried
on board the cartel, and we considered his escape as certain, but the
secret leaked out, and he was brought back and one Spicer of Providence
being suspected as the traitor the enraged prisoners were about to cut
his throat. The guard rushed down and rescued him.
“I knew no one to be seduced into the British service. They tried to
force one of our crew into the navy, but he chose rather to die than
perform any duty, and he was again restored to the prison-ship.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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