HOWE'S LAST AMERICAN ACHIEVEMENT. 383 try had wronged him, and that his own virtue pointed him out for advancement.' ' 1 This brilliant farce well terminated the tragedy which Lord Howe had been playing in the slaughter and attempted ruin of a whole people. It was all proper enough as an interlude between the two chief parts of the bloody drama. The uncle was to disappear, but his nephew, the King, was to keep the stage four years longer. Howe's last American Achievement.-Lord Howe was unlucky in the American fêtes in honor of his military achievements. Hardly had the music of his last night's revels died away, before he received news that a detachment of two thousand five hundred men, with field-batteries of eight cannon, had crossed the Schuylkill under Lafayette, and taken a strong position twelve miles from Valley Forge. Greeting the chance which fortune seemed to hold out to him for gracing his departure from the continent with a brilliant feat of arms, his now disrobed knights, who were resting from the fatigues of the tournament, and sleeping off the fumes of protracted revels, were summoned by a sudden call to the saddle. With five thousand picked men, and expert guides, Grant was dispatched by a circuitous route to strike the rear of 'the beardless Frenchman,' and by daylight the next morning Lord Howe was on the march at the head of a corps of six thousand of the best troops in his army, in two divisions under Clinton and Knyphausen, his two most accomplished commanders. But Lafayette was not to be taken as a trophy in the same ship which was waiting to carry Lord Howe to England. Lafayette's direct communication with Washington's camp had indeed been cut off, but his vigilance and adroitness had fully made up for the strategy on which the British commander depended. The appearance of a few small parties in the woods, intended to indicate the heads of the main columns, was a successful ruse, for it arrested Howe's force long enough in forming for battle, for Lafayette to escape with his main body over another ford which had been left entirely unprotected. The crestfallen British leader, out-generalled by a boy, marched with his wayworn army back to the scene of his late brilliant tournament, and four days later he passed his command over to Sir Henry Clinton, a better soldier, but not a braver man, and sailed home to his 'Merrie England.' Why Burgoyne's Army was not allowed to sail for England.-Magnanimous as were the terms of surrender which Gates had granted at Saratoga to the army of Burgoyne, those terms had been violated at the time, by the concealment of the public chest, and other public properties of which the United States were thus defrauded.' This violation of the convention had also been followed by Burgoyne's unfounded, and insulting accusation against the good faith of the country, which intimated that neither he, his army, nor his nation were bound by any of the conditions of the convention. The embarkation 1 Bancroft, vol. x., pp. 118-19. An elaborate and exquisitely artistic account of this fête, written by the graceful pen of Major André, was published in The Annual Register, a London Magazine for the year 1778. For this or almost any other rare work, const the Astor Library. 384 HOW OUR PRISONERS OF WAR WERE TREATED. of the prisoners was therefore suspended by an Act of Congress, until the British government should redeem the pledges of its captive general. The so-called 'commissioners for peace' desired to negotiate for the release of Burgoyne's army. But as they were clothed with no such authority, and by their shameless and perfidious attempts at bribing our citizens had forfeited all claims to confidence or even hospitality, the prisoners were justly detained. How our Prisoners of War were treated.-This dark page must be opened for the present and future times to read, that men may learn into what brutal inhumanity tyranny betrays the instruments of its injustice. But the loathsome record shall be brief. Neither the accuracy nor justice of Lafayette will be called in question. He knew whereof he spoke : "An exchange of prisoners had long been talked of, and the cruelty of the English rendered this measure the more necessary. Cooped up in a vessel at New York, and breathing a most noxious atmosphere, the American prisoners suffered all that gross insolence could add to famine, dirt, disease, and complete neglect. Their food was, to say the least, unwholesome. The officers, often confounded with their soldiers, appealed to former capitulations and to the rights of nations, but they were only answered by fresh outrages. When one victim sunk beneath such treatment, "'Tis well,' was said to the survivors; 'there is one rebel less.' Acts of retaliation had been but rarely practised by the Americans; and the English, like other tyrants, mistook their mildness and generosity for timidity. Five hundred Americans, in a half-dying state, had been carried to the sea-shore, where the greatest number of them soon expired, and the general very properly refused to reckon them in exchange for his own prisoners of war."' British Prisons and Prison Ships.—Although the horrible tale of the barbarities inflicted upon American prisoners has been told a thousand times, yet it should always be repeated in any record of the Revolution, for nothing else can ever illustrate so well, the spirit of inhumanity with which England carried on the war. Its baseness and brutality found no justification in the acts of our government, nor in the conduct of our people. I quote,' in an extended note, DR. LOSSING'S account of the BRITISH PRISONS AND PRISON SHIPS. 1 Lafayette's Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 48-49. Associations of intense horror are linked with the memory and the records of the cruelties practised, and sufferings endured in the prisons and prison-ships at New York, in which thousands of captive patriots were from time to time incarcerated during the war for Independence. Those who were made prisoners on land were confined in the foul jails of the city, while captive seamen, and sometimes soldiers too, were kept for months in floating dungeons, ་ doomed to famine, shackles, and despair, We before observed that the prisoners taken in the battle near Brooklyn in August, and near Fort Washington in November, 1776, almost four thousand in all, were confined in prisons in the City of New York. Pro bably more than a thousand private citizens, arrested by the British on suspicion or positive proof of their being active Whigs, were also made prisoners, and at the close of the year, at least five thousand American captives were in the power of the invaders. The only prisons proper in the city were the New Jail and the 'New Bridewell.' The former, entirely altered in appearance, is the present Hall of Records in the Park, east of the City Hall, the latter stood between the present City Hall and Broadway. These were quite insufficient, and the three spacious sugar-houses then in the city, some of the Dissenting churches, Columbia College, and the Hospital, were all used as prisons. The disastrous effects of the great fire in September, the demands of the British army for supplies, the indolent indifference of Sir William Howe, and the cruel conduct of Cunningham, the provost marshal, combined to produce intense suffering among the prisoners. Van Courtland's sugar-house, which stood at the northwest corner of Trinity church-yard, corner of Thames and Lumber streets; Rheinlander's, on the LAFAYETTE VISITS HIS HOME. 385 Lafayette makes a Visit to his Home. He thus speaks of it in his Memoirs: 'After having spent some days together, and spoken of their past labor, present situations, and future projects, General Washington and he took a tender and painful leave of each other. At the same time that the enemies of this great man have accused him of insensibility, they have acknowledged his tenderness for M. de Lafayette; and how is it possible that he should not have been warmly cherished by his disciple, he who uniting all that is good to all corner of William and Duane; and the more eminently historical one on Liberty street (Nos. 34 and 36), a few feet eastward of the Middle Dutch Church, now the Post-Office, were the most spacious buildings in the city, and answered the purposes of prisons very well. The North Dutch Church, yet standing on William street, between Fulton and Ann, was made to contain eight hundred prisoners, after taking out the pews and using them for fuel, and placing a floor across from gallery to gallery. For about two months several hundred prisoners were huddled together in the Middle Dutch Church, when they were removed, and it was converted into a riding-school after taking out the pews. The Brick Church' in the triangle between Park Row and Beekman and Nassau streets, was used for a prison a short time, when it, and the Presbyterian church in Wall street, the Scotch Church in Cedar street, and the Friends' Meeting-house in Liberty street were converted into hospitals. The French Church in Pine street and a portion of Van Courtland's sugar-house, were used as magazines for ordnance and stores, and the old City Hall was converted into a guard-house for the main guard of the city. The latter had dungeons beneath it, wherein civil officers, and afterward whaleboatmen and land marauders were confined. The New Jail' was made a provost prison, where American officers and the most eminent Whigs who fell into the hands of the British were confined. Here was the theatre of Cunningham's brutal conduct towards the victims of his spite. The prisoners were for mally introduced to him, and their name, age, size, and rank were recorded. They were then confined in the gloomy cells, or to the equally loathsome upper chamber, where the highest officials in captivity were so closely crowded together, that when, at night, they laid down to sleep upon the hard plank floor, they could change position only by all turning over at once, at the words right-left. Their food was scanty and of the poorest kind, often that which Cunningham had exchanged at a profit for better food received from their friends, or from the commissariat. Little delicacies, brought by friends of the captives, seldom reached them, and the brutal Cunningham would sometimes devour or destroy such offerings of affection, in the presence of his victims, to gratify his cruel propensities. Thus, for many months, gentlemen of fortune and education, who had lived in the enjoyment of the luxuries and refined pleasures of elegant social life, were doomed to a miserable existence, embittered by the coarse insults of an ignorant, drunken Irish master, or to a speedy death caused by such treatment, the want of good food, and fresh air, and innumerable other sufferings, the result, in a great measure, of the criminal indifference (it may be commands) of Loring, Sprout, and Lennox, commissaries of prisoners at various times. Still greater cruelties were practised upon the less conspicuous prisoners, and many were hanged in the gloom of night, without trial or known cause for the foul murder. The heart sickens at the recital of the sufferings of these patriots, and we turn in disgust from the view which the pen of faithful history reveals. Let us draw before it the veil of forgetfulness, and, while contemplating the cruelties and woes of that hour of the past, listen to the suggestions of Christian charity, which observes that much of the general suffering was the result of stern necessity, and that the cry of individual wrongs inflicted by Cunningham and his hirelings, did not often reach the ears of the more humane officers of the British army. Next to the provost prison the sugar-house in Liberty street was most noted for the sufferings of captive patriots. It was a dark stone building, five stories in height, with small, deep windows like port-holes, giving it the appearance of a prison. Each story was divided into two apartments. A large, barred door opened upon Liberty street, and from another on the southeast side a stairway led to the gloomy cellars which were used as dungeons. Around the whole building was a passage a few feet wide, and there, day and night, British and Hessian sentinels patrolled. The whole was enclosed by a wooden fence nine feet in height. Within this gloomy jail the healthy and the sick, white and black, were indiscriminately thrust; and there, during the summer of 1777. many died from want of exercise, cleanliness, and fresh air. 'In the suffocating heat of summer,' says Dunlap, 'I saw every aperture of these strong walls filled with human heads, face above face, seeking a portion of the external air.' At length in July, 1777, a jail fever was created, and great numbers died. During its prevalence the prisoners were marched out in companies of twenty to breathe the fresh air for half an hour, while those within divided themselves into parties of six each, and then alternately enjoyed the privilege of standing ten minutes at the windows. They had no seats, and their beds of straw were filled with vermin. They might have exchanged this horrid tenement for the comfortable quarters of a British soldier by enlisting in the King's service, but very few would thus yield their principles. They each preferred to be among the dozen bodies which were daily carried out in carts and cast into the ditches and morasses beyond the city limits. Sheds, stables, and other outhouses received hundreds of prisoners, who suffered terribly from cold and hunger during the winter succeeding their capture at Fort Washington. Few now live to recite their experience of this horrid sacrifice to the demon of discord, and humanity would gladly drop a tear upon this chapter of the dark record of man's wrongs, and blot it out forever. Escapes, death, exchange of prisoners, and a more humane policy, gradually thinned the ranks of the sufferers in the city prisons, and when peace came few were left therein to come out and join in the general jubilee. Hundreds had left their brief records upon the walls and beams (the initials of their names), which remained until these prisons were demolished. PRISON-SHIPS. The sufferings of American captives in British hulks were greater even than those in prisons on land. The prison-ships were intended for seamen taken on the ocean, yet some soldiers were confined in them. The first vessels used for the purpose were the transports in which the cattle and other stores were brought by the British in 1776. These lay in Gravesend Bay. and there many of the prisoners taken in the battle near Brooklyn were confined until the British took possession of New York, when they were removed to prisons in the city, and the transports were anchored in the Hudson and East rivers. In 1778 the hulks of decaying ships were moored in the Wallabout, or Wallebocht, a sheltered bay on the Long Island shore, where the present Navy Yard is. There, in succession, the Whitby. Good Hope, Scorpion, Prince of Wales, Falmouth, Hunter, Stromboli, and half a dozen of less note were moored, and contained hundreds of Americaa seamen captured on the high seas. The sufferings of these captives were intense, and at the close of 1779 they set fire to two of them, hoping to secure their liberty or death. In 1780, the Jersey, originally a sixty-four gun ship, (but, because unfit for service, was dismantled in 1776), was placed in the Wallabout, and used as a prison-ship till the close of the war, when she was left to decay on the spot where her victims had suffered. Her companions were the Stromboli, Hunter and Scorpion 386 LAFAYETTE'S ESTIMATE OF WASHINGTON. that is great, is even more sublime from his virtues than from his talents? Had he been a common soldier, had he been an obscure citizen, all his neighbors would have respected him. With a heart and mind equally well formed, he judged both of himself and circumstances with strict impartial ity. Nature, whilst creating him expressly for that Revolution, conferred an honor upon herself; and, to show her work to the greatest possible advantage, she constituted it in such a peculiar manner that each distinct quality would have failed in producing the end required, had it not been sustained by all the others.' then used as hospitals. The latter was moored in the Hudson, towards Paulus's Hook. The large number confined in the Jersey-sometimes more than a thousand at a time-and the terrible suffering which occurred there, have made her name prominent, and her history a synonyme for prison-ships during the war. Her crew consisted of a captain, two mates, cook, steward, and a dozen sailors. She had also a guard of twelve old invalid marines, and about thirty soldiers, drafted from British and Hessian corps lying on Long Island. These were the jailors of the American captives, and were the instruments of great cruelty. Unwholesome food, foul air, filth and despondency soon produced diseases of the most malignant nature. Dysentery, small-pox, and prison fever were the most prevalent, and, for want of good nurses and medical attendants, they died by scores on the Jersey and the hospital ships. The voice of human sympathy seldom reached the ears of the captives, and despair was the handmaid of contagion. No systematic efforts for their relief were made, and, because of the contagious character of the diseases, no person ever visited the hulks to bestow a cheering smile or a word of consolation. All was funereal gloom, and hope never whispered its cheering promises there. When the crews of privateers were no longer considered prisoners of war by the British (see page 850), the number of captives in confinement fearfully increased, and Congress had no adequate equivalents to exchange. Policy, always heartless, forbade the exchange of healthy British prisoners for emaciated Americans, and month after month the hapless captives suffered, and then died. The name and character of each prisoner were registered when he first came on board. He was then placed in the hold, frequently with a thousand others, a large portion of them covered with filthy rags, often swarming with vermin. In messes of six they received their daily food every morning, which generally consisted of mouldy biscuits filled with worms, damaged peas, condenined beef and pork, sour flour and meal, rancid butter, sometimes a little filthy suet, but never any vegetables. Their meat was boiled in a large copper kettle. Those who had a little money, and managed to avoid robbery by the British underlings, sometimes purchased bread, sugar, and other niceties, which an old woman used to bring alongside the hulk in a little boat. Every morning the prisoners brought up their bedding to be aired, and, after washing the decks, they were allowed to remain about till sunset, when they were ordered below with imprecations, and the savage cry, 'Down rebels, down!' The hatches were then closed, and in serried ranks they lay down to sleep, if possible, in the putrid air and stifling heat, amid the sighs of the acutely distressed and the groans of the dying. Each morning the harsh order came below, Rebels, turn out your dead!' The dead were selected from the living, each sewed in his blanket, if he had one, and thus conveyed in a boat to the shore by his companions under a guard and hastily buried. By feeble hands their shallow graves were made; So shallow were the graves of the dead on the shores of the Wallabout, that while the ships were yet sending forth their victims, the action of the waves and the drifting of the loose sand often exposed the bones of those previously buried.-Lossing's Field-book of the Revolution, vol ii., pp. 658-661. 1 Lafayette's Memoirs, vol. i., pp. 64-65. After Lafayette's return to France Dr. Franklin pre sented to him the sword Congress had instructed him to have made in Paris. Franklin wrote: PASSY, 24th August, 1779. Sir: The Congress, sensible of your merit towards the United States, but unable adequately to reward it, determined to present you with a sword, as a small mark of their grateful acknowledgment: they directed it to be ornamented with suitable devices. Some of the principal actions of the war, in which you distinguished yourself by your bravery and conduct, are therefore represented upon it. These, with a few emblematic figures, all admirably well executed, make its principal value. By the help of the exquisite artists of France, I find it easy to express everything but the sense we have of your worth, and our obligations to you: for this, figures and even words are found insufficient. I therefore, only add that, with the most profound esteem, I have the honor to be B. FRANKLIN. P. S.-My grandson goes to Havre with the sword, and will have the honor of presenting it to you. HAVRE, 29th August, 1779. SIR,-Whatever expectations might have been raised United States to me has ever been such, that on every from the sense of past favors, the goodness of the occasion it far surpasses any idea I could have conceived. A new proof of that flattering truth I find in the noble present which Congress has pleased to honor me with, and which is offered in such a manner by your excellency as will exceed everything but the feel ings of an unbounded gratitude. In some of the devices I cannot help finding too honorable a reward for those slight services which, in concert with my fellow-soldiers, and under the god-like American hero's orders, I had the good fortune to render. The sight of those actions, when I was a witness of American bravery and patriotic spirit, I shall ever enjoy with that pleasure which becomes a heart glowing with love for the nation, and the most ardent zeal for which I beg leave to present to your excellency, are its glory and happiness. Assurances of gratitude, much too inadequate to my feelings, and nothing but such sentiments can properly acknowledge your kindness towards me. The polite manner in which Mr. Franklin was pleased to deliver that inestimable sword lays ine under great obligations to him, and demands my particular thanks. With the most perfect respect, I have the honor to be, etc. WEST POINT, 30th Sept., 1779. Your forward zeal in the cause of liberty: your singular attachment to this infant world; your ardent and persevering efforts, not only in America, but since your return to France, to serve the United States: your polite attention to Americans, and your strict and uniform friendship for me, have ripened the first impressions of esteem and attachment which I imbibed for you in such perfect love and gratitude, as neither time nor absence can impair. This will warrant my assuring you that, whether in the character of an officer at the head of a corps of gallant Frenchmen, if circumstances should require this; whether as a major THE HARD-WON FIELD OF MONMOUTH. 387 The Battle of Monmouth.-Lord Howe's tournament was over; his last effort at generalship had failed, and his army had evacuated Philadelphia'-June 18, 1778—and had commenced their retreat to New York. But their march was to be no holiday promenade; in fact, they had enjoyed thus far, very few such marches, and they were destined to see fewer still. The moment their first column began to move over the Delaware, Washington broke up his camp, and turning their backs upon the gloomy scenes of Valley Forge, the American patriots pressed on after the enemy. Watching his opportunity, as he hung along the rear of the British army, Washington succeeded, on the 28th of June, in bringing the British commander to an engagement at Monmouth, where he fought one of the bravest battles, and under circumstances of unforeseen difficulties gained, one of the finest and most inspiriting victories of the war. It was Sunday, the 28th of June, and the hottest day of the year. All through the day men were dropping dead with the heat, by the side of comrades, who were falling by musket-ball, bayonet thrust, or cannon shot. Both armies were so nearly equal in numbers, and so well prepared for a great battle, that the fortunes of the day were evidently to be determined only by superiority of generalship. Washington's plan had been so well conceived, and he was so assured of the valor of his troops, who were eager for the contest, that nothing was likely to interfere with his operations except the disloyalty, not to say open treason, of Charles Lee on the field; even for this he was prepared. He knew that Lee, who was second in command, was seeking for an opportunity now on a battle-field to supersede the commanderin-chief, and thus effect the main object of his ambition, which he had been unable to accomplish by dark and sullen intrigues. In a council of war some days before, he had argued strenuously against a general engagement, and had carried most of the brigadiers with him. Seeing that he had no heart for the business, Washington offered the command of his division to Lafayette. Mortified at this disgrace, he afterwards desired the command which Washington was reluctant to give; but Lee appealed to Lafayette. It is my fortune and honor that I place in your hands; you are too generous to cause the loss of both.' Lafayette could not resist the appeal, and he promised the first moment he could see Washington, to make the request. It was granted to Lafayette's magnanimity, but was very nearly attended with fatal results. At five o'clock in the morning, when Lee should have moved his division to general, commanding a division of the American army; or whether, after our swords and spears have given place to the ploughshare and pruning-hook, I see you as a private gentleman, a friend and companion, I shall welcome you with all the warmth of friendship to Columbia's shores; and, in the latter case, to my rural cottage, where homely fare and a cordial reception shall be substituted for delicacies and costly living. This, from past experience, I know you can submit to; and if the lovely partner of your happiness will consent to participate with us in such rural entertainment and amusements, I can undertake, in behalf of Mrs. Washington, that she will do everything in her power to make Virginia agreeable to the Marchioness. My inclination and endeavors to do this cannot be doubted, when I assure you that I love everybody that is dear to you, and, consequently, participate in the pleasure you feel in the prospect of again becoming a parent: and do most sincerely congratulate you and your lady on this fresh pledge she is about to give you of her love. GEORGE WASHINGTON. To the loyalists the retreat appeared as a violation of the plighted faith of the British King. The winter's revelry was over, honors and offices turned suddenly to bitterness and ashes; papers of protection were be come only an opprobrium and a peril. Crowds of wretched refugees, with all of their possessions which they could transport, fled with the army. The sky sparkled with stars; the air of the summer night was soft and tranquil, as the exiles, broken in fortune and without a career, went in despair from the only city they could love.-Bancroft, vol. 7, p. 127. |