CH. II.] EXCESSES AND BARBARITIES OF THE BRITISH. could not read them, and would not understand them; and the British soldiers thought they had as good a right to a share of the booty as the Hessians. The loyalists were plundered even at New York. General De Heister was considered the arch-plunderer. He of fered the house he lived in at New York to public sale; though the property of a very loyal subject, who had voluntarily and hospitably accommodated him with it. The goods of others, suffering restraint or imprisonment among the Americans, were sold by auction. The carriages of gentlemen of the first rank were seized, their arms defaced, and the plunderer's arms blazoned in their place; and this, too, by British officers. Discontents and murmurs increased every hour at the licentious. ravages of the soldiery, both British and foreigners, who were shamefully permitted, with unrelenting hand, to pillage friend and foe in the Jerseys. Neither age nor sex was spared. Indiscriminate ruin attended every person they met with. Infants, children, old men and women, were left in their shirts, without a blanket to cover them, under the inclemency of winter. Every kind of furniture was destroyed and burnt; windows and doors were broken to pieces: in short, the houses were left uninhabitable, and the people without provisions; for every horse, cow, ox, and fowl, was carried off. Horrid depredations and abuses were committed by that part of the army, which was stationed at or near Pennytown. Sixteen young women fled to the woods, to avoid the brutality of the soldiers; and were there seized and carried off. VOL. I.-61 465 Bitter complaints arose from all parts of America; and they were echoed throughout Europe, to the heavy reproach of England. Among those who exclaimed the loudest, were the French, who were naturally humane, and also enemies to the English, and partisans of the Americans. The cry was raised everywhere, that the English government had revived in the new world the fury of the Goths, and the barbarity of the northern hordes. But so much savage fury returned upon its source, and became more fatal to its authors than to their victims. The few remaining friends that England had, became enemies, and her enemies were filled with new hatred, and a more vehement desire of vengeance. Citizens of all classes flew to arms, with a sort of rage, to expel from their territory, as they said, these infamous robbers. Thus, the excesses of the royal army were probably more injurious to the cause of the British, than even the efforts of Washington, and the resolves of Congress. Had General Howe, and those under his command, pursued the course which Carleton adopted in Canada, a course of kindness and gentleness towards the prisoners and the people, in general, there is every reason to believe that a large portion of those who were driven, in self-defence, to join the army of Washington, would have remained neutral, at least, and perhaps would have been persuaded to take up arms for the side of the king and the invading force. Justice, however, requires that it be stated here, that excess and outrage were not confined altogether to the British troops. Love of pillage contaminated the Americans, too, to some extent. The houses and property of the unfortunate inhabitants of New Jersey were sacked, under pretext that they belonged to loyalists: even the officers themselves gave their soldiers the example of depredation. Thus they were pillaged by the Hessians and English as rebels to the king, and by the Americans, as being his partisans. These excesses became so revolting, that Washington, to whom they caused infinite pain, was constrained, in order to put a stop to them, to issue a proclamation, denouncing the most rigorous penalties against the perpetrators of such enormities.* As illustrating still further the terrible state of suffering and misery to which prisoners were subjected at this period of the war, we give an extract from Gordon's History, a work of decided value, and quite reliable. In the month of January, says Gor1777. don,+ General Howe discharged all the privates, who were prisoners in New York. Great complaints were made of the horrid usage the Amer * In the General Orders issued at the time, it was declared: "The general prohibits, both in the militia and continental troops, in the most positive terms, the infamous practice of plundering the inhabitants, under the specious pretence of their being tories. It is our business to give protection and support to the poor distressed inhabitants, not to multiply and in crease their calamities. After this order, any officer found plundering the inhabitants, under the pretence of their being tories, may expect to be punished in the severest manner. The adjutant-general to furnish the commanding officer of each division, with a copy of these orders, who is to circulate copies among his troops immediately." † “History of the American Revolution," vol. ii., p. 173-5. icans met with after they were captured. The garrison of Fort Washington surrendered by capitulation to General Howe, the 16th of November. The terms were, that the fort should be surrendered, the troops be considered prisoners of war, and that the American officers should keep their These articles baggage and side arms. were signed and afterward published in the New York papers. Major Otho Holland Williams, of Rawlings's rifle regiment, in doing his duty that day, unfortunately fell into the hands of the enemy. The haughty, imperious deportment of the officers, and the insolent scurrility of the soldiers of the British army, soon dispelled his hopes of being treated with lenity. Many of the American officers were plundered of their baggage, and robbed of their side arms, hats, cockades, etc., and otherwise grossly ill-treated. He and three companions were, on the third day, put on board the Baltic-Merchant, an hospital ship, then lying in the Sound. The wretchedness of his situation was in some degree alleviated, by a small pittance of pork and parsnip, which a good-natured sailor spared him from his own mess. The fourth day of their captivity, Rawlings, Hanson, M'Intire and himself, all wounded officers, were put into one common dirtcart, and dragged through the city of New York, as objects of derision, reviled as rebels, and treated with the utmost contempt. From the cart they were set down at the door of an old waste house, the remains of Hampden Hall, near Bridewell, which, because of the openness and filthiness of the place, CH. II.] HORRIBLE SUFFERINGS OF PRISONERS. he had, a few months before, refused as barracks for his privates; but now was willing to accept for himself and friends, in hopes of finding an intermission of the fatigue and persecution they had perpetually suffered. Some provisions were issued to the prisoners in the afternoon of that day, what quantity he could not declare, but it was of the worst quality he ever, till then, saw made use of. He was informed the allowance consisted of six ounces of pork, one pound of biscuit, and some peas, per day for each man, and two bushels and a half of sea coal per week for the officers to each fire-place. These were admitted on parole, and lived generally in waste houses. The privates, in the coldest season of the year, were close confined in churches, sugar-houses, and other open buildings (which admitted all kinds of weather) and consequently were subjected to the severest kind of persecution that ever unfortunate captives suffered. Officers were insulted, and often struck for attempting to afford some of the miserable privates a small relief. In about three weeks he was able to walk, and was himself a witness to the extreme wretchedness his countrymen suffered. He could not describe their misery. Their constitutions were not equal to the rigor of the treatment they received, and the consequence was the death of many hundreds. The officers were not allowed to take muster-rolls, nor even to visit their men, so that it was impossible to ascertain the numbers that perished; but from frequent reports, and his own observations, he verily believed, as well as had heard many officers give it as 467 their opinion, that not less than fifteen hundred prisoners perished in the course of a few weeks in the city of New York, and that this dreadful mortality was principally owing to the want of provisions, and extreme cold. If they computed too largely, it must be ascribed to the shocking, brutal manner of treating the dead bodies, and not any desire of exaggerating the account of their sufferings. When the king's commissary of prisoners intimated to some of the American officers, General Howe's intention of sending privates home on parole, they all earnestly desired it; a paper was signed expressing that desire; the reason for signing was, they well knew, the effects of a longer confinement, and the great numbers that died when on parole justified their pretentions to that knowledge. In January, almost all the officers were sent to Long Island on parole, and there billetted on the inhabitants, at two dollars per week. The filth in the churches (in consequence of fluxes) was beyond description. Seven dead were found in one of them, at the same time, lying among the excrements of their bodies. The British soldiers were full of their low and insulting jokes on those occasions, but less malignant than the tories. The provisions dealt out to the prisoners were not sufficient for the support of life; and were deficient in The quantity, more so in quality. bread was loathsome and not fit to be eaten, and was thought to have been condemned. The allowance of meat was trifling, and of the baser sort. The consequence was, a suspicion of pre meditated and systematic plan to destroy the youths of the land, and thereby ruin the country. The integrity of these suffering prisoners was hardly credible. Hundreds submitted submitted to death, rather than enlist in the British service, which they were most generally pressed to do. It was the opinion of the American officers that General Howe perfectly understood the condition of the private soldiers; and they from thence argued, that it was exactly such as he and his council had devised. After General Washington's success in the Jerseys, the obduracy and malevolence of the royalists subsided in some measure. The surviving prisoners were ordered to be sent out for an exchange; but several of them fell down dead in the streets, while attempting to walk to the vessels. General Washington wrote to General Howe in the beginning of April,"It is a fact not to be questioned, that the usage of our prisoners while in your possession, the privates at least, was such as could not be justified. This was proclaimed by the concurrent testimony of all who came out. Their appearance sanctified the assertion, and melancholy experience in the speedy death of a large part of them, stamped it with infallible certainty." We turn from these painful details of the miseries of war to the consideration of other matters in this year of trial and suffering. Washington, at the beginning of 1777, determined to have the army inoculated for the small-pox, which had made fearful ravages in the ranks. It was carried forward as secretly and carefully as possible, and the hospital physicians in Philadelphia were ordered at the same time to inoculate all the soldiers who passed through that city on their way to join the army. The same precautions were taken in the other military stations, and thus the army was relieved from an evil, which would have materially interfered with the success of the ensuing campaign. The example of the soldiery proved a signal benefit to the entire population: the practice of inoculation became general; and, by little and little, this fatal malady disappeared almost entirely. In the hope that something might be effected at New York, Washington ordered General Heath, who was in command in the Highlands, to move down towards the city with a considerable force. Heath did so, and in a rather grandiloquent summons called upon Fort Independence to surrender. The enemy, however, stood their ground, and Heath, after a few days, retreated, having done nothing, and exposed himself to ridicule for not having followed up his words with suitable deeds." Washington, in view of the probable plans of Howe for the next campaign, was full of anxious thought as to how he should be prepared to meet him with any hope of success. His force was reduced to the lowest point; the pernicious system of short enlistments was producing disastrous effects; and the attempts to raise the army contemplated by the late resolves of Congress * See Irving's "Life of Washington," vol. ii., p. 514. CH. II.] SUCCESSFUL ATTACK ON SAG HARBOR. were, as yet, of no avail. The vexatious questions of rank and the choice of officers, as well as the immense hardships and trials of the service, exposed as the troops were to hunger and cold and nakedness, rendered it exceedingly difficult to fill up the ranks. The commander-in-chief was unceasing in his urgency upon the different states to forward the enlistment as rapidly as possible, in order that he might make preparations for the opening of the spring.* 1797. Howe, while waiting reinforcements from England, set on foot an expedition against the depot of American stores, at Peekskill, which, we are sorry to say, owing to the smallness of the force at that point, and the suddenness of the attack, was in great measure successful. Not long afterwards, in the latter part of April, a similar expedition was made upon the borders of Connecticut. Two thousand men, under Governor Tryon, marched against Danbury, for the purpose of destroying the stores there collected for the use of the army. The Connecticut militia bravely met the enemy, but were unable to prevent the loss of the stores, among which were more than a thousand tents, at that time of special value to the Americans. The brave General Wooster, although now at the advanced age of seventy, engaged with ardor in the conflict, and fell mortally wounded. Arnold, who was recruiting in the vicinity, took post at Ridgefield, 469 to dispute the passage of the British, but gave way after a sharp conflict, in which he was wounded. The British reached New York, after having burned and destroyed, with a species of savage ferocity, every thing they could lay their hands upon. As an offset to these expeditions against the Americans, a bold plan was formed in Connecticut to retaliate upon the enemy on Long Island. They were informed that the British had collected immense stores of forage, grain, and other necessaries for the troops, at Sagg Harbor, and that it was defended by only a detachment of infantry, and a sloop of twelve guns. The English, however, believed themselves sufficiently protected by their armed vessels which cruised in the Sound: they deemed it hardly possible that the Americans would dare to pass it, and attempt any thing upon Long Island. But the latter were nowise intimidated by the obstacles, and resolved to surprise Sagg Harbor, by a sudden incursion. Accordingly, Colonel Meigs, one of the intrepid companions of Arnold in the expedition of Canada, crossed the Sound with as much rapidity as ability, and arrived before day at the place where the magazines were situated. Notwithstanding the resistance of the garrison and the crews of the vessels, he burned a dozen brigs and sloops which lay at the wharf, and entirely destroyed every thing on shore. Having accomplished the object of the expedi tion, he returned without loss to Guilford, in Connecticut, bringing with him many prisoners. The Americans manifested, in this enterprise, the greatest |