Of the Capture of Ticonderoga: His Captivity and Treatment by the British

Mean time mortality raged to such an intolerable degree among the prisoners, that the very school boys in the streets knew the mental design of it in some measure; at least, they knew that they were starved to death. Some poor women contributed to their necessity, till their children were almost starved, and all persons of common understanding knew that they were devoted to the cruelest and worst of deaths. It was also proposed by some to make a written representation of the condition of the soldiery, and the officers to sign it, and that it should be couched in such terms, as though they were apprehensive that the General was imposed upon by his officers, in their daily returns to him of the state and condition of the prisoners; and that therefore the officers, moved with compassion, were constrained to communicate to him the facts relative to them, nothing doubting but that they would meet with a speedy redress; but this proposal was most generally negatived also, and for much the same reason offered in the other case; for it was conjectured that Gen. Howe's indignation would be moved against such officers as should attempt to whip him over his officers' backs; that he would discern that himself was really struck at, and not the officers who made the daily returns; and therefore self-preservation deterred the officers from either petitioning or remonstrating to Gen. Howe, either verbally or in writing; as also the consideration that no valuable purpose to the distressed would be obtained.

I made several rough drafts on the subject, one of which I exhibited to the colonels Magaw, Miles and Atlee, and they said that they would consider the matter; soon after I called on them, and some of the gentlemen informed me that they had written to the general on the subject, and I concluded that the gentleman thought it best that they should write without me, as there was such spirited aversion subsisting between the British and me.

In the mean time a colonel Hussecker, of the continental army, as he then reported, was taken prisoner, and brought to New-York, who gave out that the country was almost universally submitting to the English king's authority, and that there would be little or no more opposition to Great-Britain. This at first gave the officers a little shock, but in a few days they recovered themselves; for this colonel Hussecker, being a German, was feasting with general De Heister, his countryman, and from his conduct they were apprehensive that he was a knave; at least he was esteemed so by most of the officers; it was nevertheless a day of trouble. The enemy blasphemed. Our little army was retreating in New-Jersey, and our young men murdered by hundreds in New-York. The army of Britain and Heshland prevailed for a little season, as though it was ordered by Heaven to shew, to the latest posterity, what the British would have done if they could, and what the general calamity must have been, in consequence of their conquering the country, and to excite every honest man to stand forth in the defence of liberty, and to establish the independency of the United States of America forever. But this scene of adverse fortune did not discourage a Washington. The illustrious American hero remained immoveable. In liberty's cause he took up his sword. This reflection was his support and consolation in the day of his humiliation, when he retreated before the enemy, through New-Jersey into Pennsylvania. Their triumph only roused his indignation; and the important cause of his country, which lay near his heart, moved him to cross the Delaware again, and take ample satisfaction on his pursuers. No sooner had he circumvallated his haughty foes, and appeared in terrible array, but the host of Heshland fell. This taught America the intrinsic worth of perseverance, and the generous sons of freedom flew to the standard of their common safeguard and defence; from which time the arm of American liberty hath prevailed.11

This surprise and capture of the Hessians enraged the enemy, who were still vastly more numerous than the continental troops. They therefore collected, and marched from Princeton, to attack general Washington, who was then at Trenton, having previously left a detachment from their main body at Princeton, for the support of that place. This was a trying time, for our worthy general, though in possession of a late most astonishing victory, was by no means able to withstand the collective force of the enemy; but his sagacity soon suggested a stratagem to effect that which, by force, to him was at that time impracticable. He therefore amused the enemy with a number of fires, and in the night made a forced march, undiscovered by them, and next morning fell in with their rear-guard at Princeton, and killed and took most of them prisoners. The main body too late perceived their rear was attacked, hurried back with all speed, but to their mortification, found that they were out-generalled and baffled by general Washington, who was retired with his little army towards Morristown, and was out of their power.12 These repeated successes, one on the back of the other, chagrined the enemy prodigiously, and had an amazing operation in the scale of American politics, and undoubtedly was one of the corner stones, on which their fair structure of Independency has been fabricated, for the country at no one time has ever been so much dispirited, as just before the morning of this glorious success, which in part dispelled the gloomy clouds of oppression and slavery, which lay pending over America, big with the ruin of this and future generations, and enlightened and spirited her sons to redouble their blows on a merciless, and haughty, and I may add perfidious enemy.

Farthermore, this success had a mighty effect on General Howe and his council, and roused them to a sense of their own weakness, and convinced them that they were neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Their obduracy and death-designing malevolence, in some measure, abated or was suspended. The prisoners, who were condemned to the most wretched and crudest of deaths, and who survived to this period, though most of them died before, were immediately ordered to be sent within Gen. Washington's lines for an exchange, and, in consequence of it, were taken out of their filthy and poisonous places of confinement, and sent from New-York to their friends in haste; several of them fell dead in the streets of New-York, as they attempted to walk to the vessels in the harbor, for their intended embarkation. What numbers lived to reach the lines I cannot ascertain, but, from concurrent representations which I have since received from numbers of people who lived in and adjacent to such parts of the country, where they were received from the enemy, I apprehend that most of them died in consequence of the vile usage of the enemy. Some who were eye witnesses of that scene of mortality, more especially in that part which continued after the exchange took place, are of opinion, that it was partly in consequence of a slow poison; but this I refer to the doctors that attended them, who are certainly the best judges.

Upon the best calculation I have been able to make from personal knowledge, and the many evidences I have collected in support of the facts, I learn that, of the prisoners taken on Long-Island, Fort Washington, and some few others, at different times and places, about two thousand perished with hunger, cold and sickness, occasioned by the filth of their prisons, at New-York, and a number more on their passage to the continental lines. Most of the residue, who reached their friends, having received their death wound, could not be restored by the assistance of physicians and friends; but like their brother prisoners, fell a sacrifice to the relentless and scientific barbarity of Britain. I took as much pains as my circumstances would admit of, to inform myself not only of matters of fact, but likewise of the very design and aims of General Howe and his council. The latter of which I predicated on the former, and submit it to the candid public.

And lastly, the aforesaid success of the American arms had a happy effect on the continental officers who were on parole at New-York. A number of us assembled, but not in a public manner, and with full bowls and glasses, drank Gen. Washington's health, and were not unmindful of Congress and our worthy friends on the continent, and almost forgot that we were prisoners.

A few days after this recreation, a British officer of rank and importance in their army, whose name I shall not mention in this narrative, for certain reasons, though I have mentioned it to some of my close friends and confidants, sent for me to his lodgings, and told me, "That faithfulness, though in a wrong cause, had nevertheless recommended me to Gen. Sir William Howe, who was minded to make me a colonel of a regiment of new levies, alias tories, in the British service; and proposed that I should go with him, and some' other officers, to England, who would embark for that purpose in a few days, and there be introduced to Lord G. Germaine, and probably to the King; and that previously I should be clothed equal, to such an introduction, and, instead of paper rags, be paid in hard guineas; after this, should embark with Gen. Burgoyne, and assist in the reduction of the country, which infallibly would be conquered, and, when that should be done, I should have a large tract of land, either in the New-Hampshire grants, or in Connecticut, it would make no odds, as the country would be forfeited to the crown." I then replied, "That, if by faithfulness I had recommended myself to Gen. Howe, I should be loth, by unfaithfulness, to lose the General's good opinion; besides, that I viewed the offer of land to be similar to that which the devil offered Jesus Christ, To give him all the kingdoms of the world, if he would fall down and worship him; when at the same time, the damned soul had not one foot of land upon earth." This closed the conversation, and the gentleman turned from me with an air of dislike, saying, that I was a bigot; upon which I retired to my lodgings.13

Near the last of November, I was admitted to parole in New-York, with many other American officers, and on the 22d of January, 1777, was with them directed by the British commissary of prisoners to be quartered on the westerly part of Long-Island, and our parol continued. During my imprisonment there, no occurrences worth observation happened. I obtained the means of living as well as I desired, which in a great measure repaired my constitution, which had been greatly injured by the severities of an inhuman captivity. I now began to feel myself composed, expecting either an exchange, or continuance in good and honorable treatment; but alas! my visionary expectations soon vanished. The news of the conquest of Ticonderoga by general Burgoyne14 and the advance of his army into the country, made the haughty Britons again feel their importance, and with that, their insatiable thirst for cruelty.

The private prisoners at New-York, and some of the officers on parole, felt the severity of it. Burgoyne was to them a demi-god. To him they paid adoration: in him the tories placed their confidence, "and forgot the Lord their God," and served Howe, Burgoyne and Knyphausen,15 "and became vile in their own imagination, and their foolish hearts were darkened," professing to be great politicians and relying on foreign and merciless invaders, and with them seeking the ruin, bloodshed and destruction of their country; "became fools," expecting with them to share a dividend in the confiscated estates of their neighbors and countrymen who fought for the whole country, and the religion and liberties thereof. "Therefore, God gave them over to strong delusions, to believe a lie, that they all might be damned."

The 25th day of August, I was was apprehended, and, under pretext of artful, mean and pitiful pretences, that I had infringed on my parole, taken from a tavern, where there were more than a dozen officers present and, in the very place where those officers and myself were directed to be quartered, put under a strong guard and taken to New-York, where I expected to make my defence before the commanding officer; but, contrary to my expectations, and without the least solid pretence of justice or a trial, was again encircled with a strong guard with fixed bayonets, and conducted to the provost-goal in a lonely apartment, next above the dungeon, and was denied all manner of subsistence either by purchase or allowance. The second day I offered a guinea for a meal of victuals, but was denied it, and the third day I offered eight Spanish milled dollars for a like favor, but was denied, and all I could get out of the sergeant's mouth, was that by God he would obey his orders. I now perceived myself to be again in substantial trouble. In this condition I formed an oblique acquaintance with a Capt. Travis, of Virginia, who was in the dungeon below me, through a little hole which was cut with a pen-knife, through the floor of my apartment which communicated with the dungeon; it was a small crevice, through which I could discern but a very small part of his face at once, when he applied it to the hole; but from the discovery of him in the situation which we were both then in, I could not have known him, which I found to be true by an after acquaintance. I could nevertheless hold a conversation with him, and soon perceived him to be a gentleman of high spirits, who had a high sense of honor, and felt as big, as though he had been in a palace, and had treasures of wrath in store against the British. In fine I was charmed with the spirit of the man; he had been near or quite four months in that dungeon, with murderers, thieves, and every species of criminals, and all for the sole crime of unshaken fidelity to his country; but his spirits were above dejection, and his mind unconquerable. I engaged to do him every service in my power, and in a few weeks afterwards, with the united petitions of the officers, in the provost, procured his dismission from the dark mansion of fiends to the apartments of his petitioners.

And it came to pass on the 3d day, at the going down of the sun, that I was presented with a piece of boiled pork, and some biscuit, which the sergeant gave me to understand, was my allowance, and I fed sweetly on the same; but I indulged my appetite by degrees, and in a few days more, was taken from that apartment, and conducted to the next loft or story, where there were above twenty continental, and some militia officers, who had been taken, and imprisoned there, besides some private gentlemen, who had been dragged from their own homes to that filthy place by tories. Several of every denomination mentioned, died there, some before, and others after I was put there.

The history of the proceedings relative to, the provost only, were particular, would swell a volume larger than this, whole narrative. I shall therefore only notice such of the occurrences which are mostly extraordinary.

Capt. Vandyke bore, with an uncommon fortitude, near twenty months' confinement in this place, and in the mean time was very serviceable to others who were confined with him. The allegation against him, as the cause of his confinement, was very extraordinary. He was accused of setting fire to the city of New-York, at the time the west part of it was consumed, when it was a known fact, that he had been in the provost a week before the fire broke out; and in like manner, frivolous were the ostensible accusations against most of those who were there confined; the case of two militia officers excepted, who were taken in their attempting to escape from their parole; and probably there may be some other instances which might justify such a confinement.

Mr. William Miller, a committee man, from West Chester county, and state of New York, was taken from his bed in the dead of the night by his tory neighbors, and was starved for three days and nights in an apartment of the same gaol; add to this the denial of fire, and that in a cold season of the year, in which time he walked day and night, to defend himself against the frost, and when he complained of such a reprehensible conduct, the word rebel or committee man was deemed by the enemy a sufficient atonement for any inhumanity that they could invent or inflict. He was a man of good natural understanding, a close and sincere friend to the liberties of America, and endured fourteen months' cruel imprisonment with that magnanimity of soul, which reflects honor on himself and country.

Major Levi Wells, and Capt.. Ozias Bissel, were apprehended and taken under guard from their parole on Long-Island, to the provost, on as fallacious pretences as the former, and were there continued till their exchange took place which was near five months. Their fidelity and zealous attachment to their country's cause, which was more than commonly conspicuous was undoubtedly the real cause of their confinement.

Major Brinton Payne, Capt. Flahaven, and Capt. Randolph, who had at different times distinguished themselves by their bravery, especially at the several actions, in which they were taken, were all the provocation they gave, for which they suffered about a year's confinement, each in the same filthy gaol.

A few weeks after my confinement, on the like fallacious and wicked pretences, was brought to the same place, from his parole on Long-Island, Major Otho Holland Williams now a full Col. in the continental army. In his character are united the gentleman, officer, soldier, and friend; he walked through the prison with an air of great disdain; said he, "Is this the treatment which gentlemen of the continental army are to expect from the rascally British, when in their power? Heavens forbid it!" He was continued there about five months, and then exchanged for a British Major.

Johny Fell, Esq. now a member of Congress for the state of New-Jersey, was taken from his own house by a gang of infamous tories, and by order of a British General was sent to the provost, where he was continued near one year. The stench of the gaol, which was very loathsome and unhealthy, occasioned a hoarseness of the lungs, which proved fatal to many who were there confined, and reduced this gentleman near to the point of death; he was indeed given over by his friends who were about him, and himself concluded he must die. I could not endure the thought that so worthy a friend to America should have his life stolen from him in such a mean, base, and scandalous manner, and that his family and friends should be bereaved of so great and desirable a blessing, as his further care, usefulness and example, might prove to them. I therefore wrote a letter to George Robertson, who commanded in town, and being touched with the most sensible feelings of humanity, which dictated my pen to paint dying distress in such lively colors that it wrought conviction even on the obduracy of a British General, and produced his order to remove the now honorable John Fell, Esq. out of a gaol, to private lodgings in town; in consequence of which he slowly recovered his health. There is so extraordinary a circumstance which intervened concerning this letter, that it is worth noticing.

Previous to sending it, I exhibited the same to the gentleman on whose behalf it was written, for his approbation, and he forbid me to send it in the most positive and explicit terms; his reason was, "That the enemy knew, by every morning's report, the condition of all the prisoners, mine in particular, as I have been gradually coming to my end for a considerable time, and they very well knew it, and likewise determined it should be accomplished, as they had served many others; that, to ask a favor, would give the merciless enemy occasion to triumph over me in my last moments, and therefore I will ask no favors from them, but resign myself to my supposed fate." But the letter I sent without his knowledge, and I confess I had but little expectations from it, yet could not be easy till I had sent it. I may be worth a remark, that this gentleman was an Englishman born, and from the beginning of the revolution has invariably asserted and maintained the cause of liberty.

The British have made so extensive an improvement of the provost during the present revolution till of late, that a very short definition will be sufficient for the dullest apprehensions. It may be with propriety called the British inquisition, and calculated to support their oppressive measures and designs, by suppressing the spirit of liberty; as also a place to confine the criminals, and most infamous wretches of their own army, where many gentlemen of the American army, and citizens thereof, were promiscuously confined, with every species of criminals; but they divided into different apartments, and kept at as great a remove as circumstances permitted; but it was nevertheless at the option of a villainous sergeant, who had the charge of the provost, to take any gentleman from their room, and put them into the dungeon, which was often the case. At two different times I was taken down stairs for that purpose, by a file of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and the sergeant brandishing his sword at the same time, and having been brought, to the door of the dungeon, I there flattered the vanity of the sergeant, whose name was Keef, by which means I procured the surprising favor to return to my companions; but some of the high mettled young gentlemen could not bear his insolence, and determined to keep at a distance, and neither please nor displease the villain, but none could keep clear of his abuse; however, mild measures were the best; he did not hesitate to call us damned rebels, and use us with the coarsest language. The Capts. Flahaven, Randolph and Mercer, were the objects of his most flagrant and repeated abuses, who were many times taken to the dungeon, and there continued at his pleasure. Capt. Flahaven took cold in the dungeon, and was in a declining state of health, but an exchange delivered him, and in all probability saved his life. It was very mortifying to bear with the insolence of such a vicious and ill-bred, imperious rascal. Remonstrances against him were preferred to the commander of the town, but no relief could be obtained, for his superiors were undoubtedly well pleased with his abusive conduct to the gentlemen, under the severities of his power; and remonstrating against his infernal conduct, only served to confirm him in authority; and for this reason I never made any remonstrances on the subject, but only stroked him, for I knew that he was but a cat's paw in the hands of the British officers, and that, if he should use us well, he would immediately be put out of that trust, and a worse man appointed to succeed him; but there was no need of making any new appointment; for Cunningham, their provost marshall, and Keef, his deputy, were as great rascals as their army could boast of, except one Joshua Loring, an infamous tory, who was commissionary of prisoners; nor can any of these be supposed to be equally criminal with Gen. Sir William Howe and his associates, who prescribed and directed the murders and cruelties, which were by them perpetrated. This Loring is a monster! – There is not his like in human shape. He exhibits a smiling countenance, seems to wear a phiz of humanity, but has been instrumentally capable of the most consummate acts of wickedness, which were first projected by an abandoned British council clothed with the authority of a Howe, murdering premeditatedly, in cold blood, near or quite two thousand helpless prisoners, and that in the most clandestine, mean and shameful manner, at New-York. He is the most mean spirited, cowardly, deceitful, and destructive animal in God's creation below, and legions of infernal devils, with all their tremendous horrors, are impatiently ready to receive Howe and him, with all their detestable accomplices, into the most exquisite agonies of the hottest regions of hell fire.16

The 6th day of July, 1777, Gen. St. Clair, and the army under his command, evacuated Ticonderoga, and retreated with the main body through Hubbardton into Castleton, which was but six miles distant, when his rear-guard, commanded by Col. Seth Warner, was attacked at Hubbarton by a body of the enemy of about two thousand, commanded by General Fraser. Warner's command consisted of his own and two other regiments, viz. Francis's and Hale's, and some scattering and enfeebled soldiers. His whole number, according to information, was near or quite one thousand; part of which were Green Mountain Boys, about seven hundred out of the whole he brought into action. The enemy advanced boldly, and the two bodies formed within about sixty yards of each other. Col. Warner having formed his own regiment, and that of Col. Francis's did not wait for the enemy, but gave them a heavy fire from his whole line, and they returned it with great bravery. It was by this time dangerous for those of both parties, who were not prepared for the world to come; but Colonel Hale being apprised of the danger, never brought his regiment to the charge, but left Warner and Francis to stand the blowing of it, and fled, but luckily fell in with an inconsiderable number of the enemy, and to his eternal shame, surrendered himself a prisoner.