American Prisoners of the RevolutionDandridge, Danske
History
American Prisoners of the Revolution
Dandridge, Danske
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Prisoners and prisons
“All the glory that was going (in the battle of Fort Washington) had, in
my idea of what had passed, been engrossed by the regiment of Rawlings,
which had been actively engaged, killed a number of the enemy, and lost
many themselves.
“About two o’clock Mr. B. sent me a plate amply supplied with corned
beef, cabbage, and the leg and wing of a turkey, with bread in
proportion.”
Though Mr. Graydon calls this gentleman Mr. Becket, it seems that there
was no young officer of that name at the battle of Fort Washington.
Becket appears to be a mistake for Lieutenant Onslow Beckwith. The
prisoners were now marched within six miles of New York and Graydon’s
party of officers were well quartered in a house. “Here,” he continues,
“for the first time we drew provisions for the famished soldiers. * *
* Previously to entering the city we were drawn up for about an hour on
the high ground near the East River. Here, the officers being separated
from the men, we were conducted into a church, where we signed a
parole.”
At this place a non-commissioned British officer, who had seen him at
the ordinary kept by his widowed mother in Philadelphia, when he was a
boy, insisted on giving him a dollar.
“Quarters were assigned for us in the upper part of the town, in what
was called ‘The holy ground.’ * * * I ventured to take board at four
dollars per week with a Mrs. Carroll. * * * Colonel Magaw, Major West,
and others, boarded with me.”
He was fortunate in obtaining his trunk and mattress. Speaking of the
prisons in which the privates were confined he says: “I once and
once only ventured to penetrate into these abodes of human misery and
despair. But to what purpose repeat my visit, when I had neither relief
to administer nor comfort to bestow? * * * I endeavoured to comfort them
with the hope of exchange, but humanity forbade me to counsel them to
rush on sure destruction. * * * Our own condition was a paradise to
theirs. * * * Thousands of my unhappy countrymen were consigned to slow,
consuming tortures, equally fatal and potent to destruction.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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