When the battle had ended, and the enemy had set a guard, Corporal Van Arsdale, who had shown great spirit in the fight, and was among the last to cease firing, resolved not to be made a prisoner, and managed to escape from the fort; but he had only gone a short distance when he was shot in the calf of the leg, and seized by a British soldier while in the act of crossing a fence. He was conducted back into the fort, under a torrent of abuse from his captor, who threatened to take his life, and he himself expected instant death. His gun was demanded, and when delivered, the barrel was yet so hot from frequent firing that the soldier quickly dropped it, with another imprecation. Then the old musket, its last work so nobly done, was ruthlessly broken to pieces over the rocks. Van Arsdale and the other prisoners, two hundred and seventy-five in all, including twenty-eight officers, were kept under guard for a day or two at the forts, then put on board the British transports and taken to New York. Forty-four of Van Arsdale's regiment were among them including the brave colonel McClaughry (who was suffering from seven wounds),[25] and his brother-in-law Capt. Humphrey, of whom it was said by one Van Tuyl (among the last to escape from Fort Montgomery) that, when he left, Humphrey was yet throwing stones! The prisoners, on arriving at New York, October 10th, were landed, and the privates marched up to Livingston's Sugar House, in Liberty Street, between Nassau and William, and put in custody of Sergeant Woolly; excepting the badly wounded, who were sent to the hospital. The officers, with similar exception, were taken to the old City Hall, whence, two days after, they were marched up to the Provost, and placed in charge of the brutal Cunningham, where they remained till after the surrender of Burgoyne, when, retaliation being feared, nearly all the officers were sent (November 1st) to Long Island, upon parole.[26] The privates had all been removed from the Sugar House, October 24th, and put on board a prisonship, anchored opposite Governor's Island. Van Arsdale, and his friend Sears, needing surgical aid, were, with others, suffering from their wounds, taken directly to the Presbyterian Church in Beekman Street, known as the "Brick Church," and then used by the enemy as an hospital. Sears had been very badly hurt in the battle. After being shot in the leg, and stabbed in the side by a bayonet, which filled his shoes with blood, he was knocked down with the but of a gun and trampled upon by the invading column. At the hospital, the bullets being extracted and their wounds dressed, they began to mend, but only three weeks and three days elapsed, when they too were sent to the prisonship, and confined between decks. Winter had set in very inclement, their food was not only stale and unwholesome, but even this was limited in quantity to two-thirds of a British soldiers when at sea, which was one-third less than the allowance upon land; in consequence of