USA > New York > Kings County > Williamsburgh > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 35
USA > New York > Kings County > Bushwick > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 35
USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > A history of the city of Brooklyn : including the old town and village of Brooklyn, the town of Bushwick, and the village and city of Williamsburgh > Part 35
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The first care of a prisoner, after arriving upon the Jersey, says Dring, " was to form, or be admitted into, some regular mess .? On the day of a prisoner's arrival, it was impossible for him to procure any food; and, even on the second day, he could not procure any in time to have it cooked. No matter how long he had fasted, nor how acute might be his sufferings from hunger and privations, his petty tyrants would on no occasion deviate from their rule of deliv- ering the prisoner's morsel at a particular hour, and at no other : and the poor, half-famished wretch must absolutely wait until the coming day, before his pittance of food could be boiled with that of his fellow-captives." The vacancies in the different messes daily provided by death, rendered it comparatively easy for the new-comers
1 This seems to have been the reverse of the rule observed in England, where "the American prisoners were treated with less humanity than the French and Spanish, and were allowed only half the quantity of bread per day. Their petitions for relief, offered by Mr. Fox, in the House of Commons, and by the Duke of Richmond, in the House of Lords, were treated with contempt; while the French and Spanish had few or no complaints to make."-British Annual Register, 1781, p. 152.
2 Sherburne's Mem., 108 ; Fox's Adv. in Rev., 100.
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to associate themselves with some of the older captives, of whose ex- perience they could, in various ways, avail themselves. These messes, consisting generally of six men each, were all numbered ; and every morning, when the steward's bell rang, at nine o'clock, an individual belonging to each mess stood ready to answer to its number. As soon as it was called, the person representing it hurried forward to the window in the bulkhead of the steward's room, from which was handed the allowance for the day. This was, for each six men, what was equivalent to the full rations of four men.1 No vegetables of any description,2 or butter, was allowed; but, in place of the latter, a scanty portion of so-called sweet-oil, so rancid and often putrid, that the Americans could not eat it, and always gave it to the foreign prisoners in the lower hold, " who took it gratefully, and swallowed it with a little salt and their wormy bread."3 These rations, insufficient and miserable as they
1 That is, each prisoner was furnished in quantity with two-thirds of the allowance of a seaman in the British navy at that time; viz., on Sundays and Thursdays, a pound of biscuit, one pound of pork, and half a pint of peas ; on Mondays and Fridays, a pound of biscuit, a pint of oatmeal, and two ounces of butter ; on Tuesdays and Satur- days, one pound of biscuit and two pounds of beef; and on Wednesday, one and a half pounds of flour and two pounds of suet.
2 Andros (p. 9) says : "Once or twice, by the order of a stranger on the quarter-deck, a bag of apples were hurled promiscuously into the midst of hundreds of prisoners, crowded together as thick as they could stand, and life and limb were endangered by the scramble. This, instead of compassion, was a cruel sport. When I saw it about to commence, I fled to the most distant part of the ship."
3 Sherburne (111) says: "It was supposed that this bread and beef had been con- demned in the British navy. The bread had been so eaten by weevils, that one might easily crush it in the hand and blow it away. The beef was exceedingly salt, and scarcely a particle of fat could be seen upon it. * * Once a week, we had a mess of what is called burgoo, or mush (the Yankees would call it hasty pudding), made of oatmeal and water. This oatmeal was scarcely ever sweet ; it was generally so musty and bitter, that none but people suffering as we did could eat it." He says, though, that large quantities of provisions were daily brought alongside of the ship, and as long as a prisoner's money lasted, he could get better than the ordinary fare. Andros (p. 17) says of the bread : " I do not recollect seeing any which was not full of living vermin ; but eat it, worms and all, we must, or starve."
" In the month of March, 1779, flour and breadstuffs were very nearly exhausted in the British storehouses at New York. There was no good flour ; and the Hessians, who were in Brooklyn, drew damaged oatmeal instead of bread. This meal, which was baked in cakes, was unfit for use, and the writer has seen them cast to the swine, which would not eat them. The soldiers were mutinous. All the grain possessed by the farmers was estimated and placed under requisition. The timely arrival of a few victualling ships relieved the scarcity, and saved the British from a surrender to the
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were, were frequently not given to the prisoners in time to be boiled on the same day, thus obliging them often to fast for another twenty- four hours, or to consume it raw, as they sometimes did. The cook- ing was done "under the forecastle, or, as it was usually called, the Galley, in a boiler or 'great copper,' which was enclosed in brick- work, about eight feet square. This copper was large enough to contain two or three hogsheads of water. It was made in a square form, and divided into two separate compartments by a partition. In one side of the copper, the peas and oatmeal for the prisoners were boiled, which was done in fresh water ; in the other side, the meat was boiled. This side of the boiler was filled with the salt water from alongside of the ship, by which means the copper be- came soon corroded, and consequently poisonous, the fatal conse- quences of which are obvious.1 After the daily rations had been furnished to the different messes, the portion of each mess was designated by a tally, fastened to it by a string. Being thus pre- pared, every ear was anxiously waiting for the summons of the cook's bell. As soon as this was heard to sound, the persons having charge of the different portions of food thronged to the galley ; and in a few minutes after, hundreds of talleys were seen hanging over the sides of the brick-work by their respective strings, each eagerly watched by some individual of the mess, who always waited to re- ceive it." Whether cooked or not, the food must be immediately taken from the boiler when the cook's bell again rang out the warn- ing note, and each mess then received its measured portions of peas and oatmeal.2 Some, more careful than others, and fearful of
Americans, to escape starvation. If the Hessians at this time received bread which the hogs refused, what may be supposed to have been the quality of that given to the prisoners ?"-Gen. Jeremiah Johnson, in Star, Dec. 12, 1836.
1 This is corroborated by Fox, who says : "The inside of the copper had become cor- roded to such a degree that it was lined with a coat of verdigris," and that the effects of this was evident "in the cadaverous countenances of those emaciated beings who had remained on board for any length of time." He also says : "The Jersey, from her size, and lying near the shore, was embedded in the mud ; and I do not recollect see- ing her afloat during the whole time I was a prisoner. All the filth which accumu- lated among upwards of a thousand men, were daily thrown overboard, and would remain there until carried away by the tide. The impurity of the water may be easily conceived, and in this water our meat was boiled."
2 Sherburne (111) says : "The beef was all put into a large copper, perhaps five feet square and four feet deep. The beef would fill the copper within a few inches of the
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the poisonous effects of meat boiled in the " great copper," prepared their own food, by permission, separate from the general mess in that receptacle. For this purpose, a great number of spikes and hooks had been driven into the brick-work by which the boiler was enclosed, on which to suspend their tin kettles. As soon as we were permitted to go on deck in the morning, some one took the tin-kettle belonging to the mess, with as much water and such splin- ters of wood as we had been able to procure during the previous day,1 and carried them to the galley; and there, having suspended
top ; the copper was then filled up with water, and the cover put on. Our fuel was green chestnut. The cook would commence his fire by seven or eight in the morning, and frequently he would not get his copper to boil until twelve o'clock ; and sometimes, when it was stormy weather, it would be two or three o'clock. I have known it to be the case that he could not get it to boil in the course of the day. Those circumstances might sometimes be owing to a want of judgment in the cooks, who were frequently exchanged. These misfortunes in the cooks, would occasion many bitter complaints and heavy curses from the half-starved, emaciated, and imperious prisoners. Each mess would take its meat, thus half-cooked and divide it among themselves as it was. A murmur is heard, probably in every mess, and from almost every tongue. The cook is denounced, or perhaps declines any further service; another volunteers his services, and, probably, in a few days, shares the fate of his predecessors." John Van Dyck, a prisoner on board the Jersey in May, 1780, says he went one day to draw the pork for his mess, " and each one of us eat our day's allowance in one mouthful of this salt pork, and nothing else." One day, called "pea-day," he went to the galley, with the drawer of a sea-chest for a soup-dish, and "received the allowance of my mess ; and, behold ! brown water and fifteen floating peas-no peas on the bottom of my drawer- and this for six men's allowance for twenty-four hours. The peas were all on the bot- tom of the kettle ; those left would be taken to New York, and, I suppose, sold. One day in the week, called 'pudding-day,' three pounds of damaged flour ; in it would be green lumps, such as the men could not eat ; and one pound of very bad raisins, one- third sticks. We would pick out the sticks, mash the lumps of flour, put all, with some water, in our drawer, mix our pudding and put it into a bag, with a tally tied to it, with the number of our mess. This was a day's allowance." He also relates an instance of cruelty on the part of Captain Laird, commander of the Jersey, who one day ordered two half-hogshead tubs, in which the daily allowance of rum for the pris- oners had been mixed into grog, to be upset on the main decks, in full view of the famished wretches, whose feelings of disappointment, as they saw it run through the ship's scuppers into the water, may be better imagined than described." Coffin also says that, "on the upper deck of the Jersey, hogs were kept in pens, by those officers who had charge of her, for their own use. They were sometimes fed with bran. The prisoners, whenever they could get an opportunity, undiscovered by the sentries, would, with their tin pots, scoop the bran from the troughs, and eat it (after boiling, when there was fire in the galley, which was not always the case) with seemingly as good an appetite as the hogs themselves."
1 Dring (p. 98) mentions that this was an article which could not be purchased from the sutler, and the procuring of a sufficient quantity was "a continual source of trouble and anxiety." Sometimes the cooks would steal small quantities, which they sold to
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his kettle on one of the hooks or spikes in the brick-work, he stood ready to kindle his little fire as soon as the cook or his mates would permit it to be done. It required but little fuel to boil our food in these kettles; for their bottoms were made in a concave form, and the fire was applied directly in the centre. And let the remaining brands be ever so small, they were all carefully quenched " and kept for future use." "Memory," says a survivor, "still brings before me those emaciated beings, moving from the galley with their wretched pittance of meat; each creeping to the spot where his mess were assembled, to divide it with a group of haggard and sickly creatures, their garments hanging in tatters around their meagre limbs, and the hue of death upon their careworn faces. By these it was consumed with their scanty remnants of bread, which was often mouldy and filled with worms. And, even from this vile fare they would rise up in torments from the cravings of unsatisfied hunger and thirst." The cook was the only one on board who had much flesh upon his bones. He was also a prisoner, who, despair- ing of ever regaining his liberty, had accepted his situation as one which, at least, would keep him from starvation; and, considering the circumstances by which he was surrounded, displayed a com- mendable degree of good humor and forbearance ; although when, as sometimes happened, his patience became exhausted by the im- portunities and trickeries of the starving crowd around him, he would " make the hot water fly" among them.
The necessary routine of daily service on board the ship-such as
the prisoners ; and Dring mentions that once, while assisting at the burial of one of his comrades, he found a hogshead stave floating in the water, which furnished his mess with fuel for a considerable time. At another time he managed to steal a stick of wood from a quantity which was being taken on board for the ship's use, by which his mess "were supplied with a sufficient quantity for a long time, and its members were considered by far the most wealthy persons in all this republic of misery." The mode of preparing the wood for use, was to cut it with a penknife into pieces about four inches long. This labor occupied much of their time, and was performed by the differ- ent members of the mess, in rotation ; being an employment to them of no little pleasure. The quantity thus prepared for the next day's use was deposited in the chest, while the main stock was jealously guarded, day and night, by its fortunate owners, who even went into mathematical calculations, to ascertain how long it would probably last, if used in certain daily quantities. In a similar manner, by obliging each member of the mess to save a little each day for the common stock, a small sup- ply of fresh water was secured and carefully hoarded in the chest.
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washing the upper decks and gangways, spreading the awning, hoist- ing the wood, water, and other supplies which were brought along- side, etc .- was performed by a "working-party" of about twenty of the prisoners, who received, as a compensation, a full allowance of provisions, a half-pint of rum, and, what was more desirable than all else, the privilege of going on deck early in the morning, to breathe the pure air. When the prisoners ascended to the upper deck in the morning, if the day was fair, each carried up his own hammock and bedding, which were placed upon the spar-deck, or booms. The sick and disabled were then brought up by the working party, and placed in bunks prepared upon the centre deck; the corpses of those who had died the night before were next brought up from below and placed upon the booms, and then the decks were washed down. The beds and clothing were kept on deck until about two hours before sunset, when the prisoners were ordered to carry them below. "After this had been done," says Dring, "we were allowed either to retire between decks, or to remain above, until sunset, according to our own pleasure. Every thing which we could do conducive to cleanliness having then been performed, if we ever felt any thing like enjoyment in this wretched abode, it was during this brief interval, when we breathed the cool air of the approaching night, and felt the luxury of our evening pipe. But short, indeed, was this period of repose. The working-party were soon ordered to carry the tubs below, and we prepared to descend to our gloomy and crowded dungeons. This was no sooner done, than the gratings were closed over the hatchways, the sentinels stationed, and we left to sicken and pine beneath our accumulated torments, with our guards above crying aloud, through the long night, "All's well !"
What these "accumulated torments" of the night were, may be best understood from Dring's words : "Silence was a stranger to our dark abode. There were continual noises during the night. The groans of the sick and the dying ; the curses poured out by the weary and exhausted upon our inhuman keepers; the restlessness caused by the suffocating heat and the confined and poisonous air, mingled with the wild and incoherent ravings of delirium, were the sounds which, every night, were raised around us in all directions."
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HISTORY OF BROOKLYN.
Frequently the dying, in the last mortal throes of dissolution, would throw themselves across their sick comrades, who, unable to remove the lifeless bodies, were compelled to wait until morning before they could be freed from the horrid burden. Dysentery, small-pox, yellow fever, and the recklessness of despair, soon filled the hulk with filth of the most disgusting character. "The lower hold," says Andros, " and the orlop deck, were such a terror, that no man would venture down into them. Humanity would have dictated a more merciful treatment to a band of pirates, who had been con- demned and were only awaiting the gibbet, than to have sent them here."1 And, again : " Utter derangement was a common symptom of yellow-fever, and to increase the horror of the darkness that shrouded us (for we were allowed no light betwixt decks), the voice of warning would be heard, 'Take heed to yourselves; there is a madman stalking through the ship, with a knife in his hand.' I sometimes found the man a corpse in the morning, by whose side I laid myself down at night. At another time he would become de- ranged and attempt, in darkness, to rise, and stumble over the bodies that everywhere covered the deck. In this case, I had to hold him in his place by main strength. In spite of my efforts, he would sometimes rise, and then I had to close in with him, trip up his heels, and lay him again upon the deck. While so many were sick with raging fever, there was a loud cry for water ; but none could be had, except on the upper deck, and but one allowed to ascend at a time. The suffering then from the rage of thirst during the night, was very great. Nor was it at all times safe to attempt to go up. Provoked by the continual cry for leave to ascend, when there was already one on deck, the sentry would push them back with his bayonet."? This guard, which usually numbered about thirty, was
1 Old Jersey Captive, p. 16.
2 William Burke, a prisoner on board the Jersey for about fourteen months dur- ing the Revolution, says: "During that time, among other cruelties which were committed, I have known many of the American prisoners put to death by the bayonet : in particular, I well recollect, that it was the custom on board the ship for but one prisoner at a time to be admitted on deck at night, besides the guards or sentinels. One night, while the prisoners were many of them assembled at the grate at the hatchway, for the purpose of obtaining fresh air, and waiting their turn to go on deck, one of the sentinels thrust his bayonet down among them, and in the morn- ing twenty-five of them were found wounded, and stuck in the head, and dead of the
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relieved each week by a fresh party ; sometimes English-at others, Hessians or refugees. The latter were, as might have naturally been expected, most obnoxious to the prisoners, who could not bear the presence of those whom they considered as traitors. The English soldiers they viewed as simply performing their legitimate duty ; and the Hessians they preferred, because they received from them better treatment than from the others.
A very serious conflict with the guard occurred on the 4th of July, 1782, in consequence of the prisoners attempting to celebrate the day with such observances and amusements as their condition permitted. Upon going on deck in the morning, they displayed thirteen little na- tional flags in a row upon the booms, which were immediately torn down and trampled under the feet of the guard, which on that day hap- pened to consist of Scotchmen. Deigning no notice of this, the pris- oners proceeded to amuse themselves with patriotic songs, speeches, and cheers, all the while avoiding whatever could be construed into an intentional insult to the guard ; which, however, at an unusually early hour in the afternoon, drove them below at the point of the bayonet, and closed the hatches. Between decks, the prisoners now continued their singing, etc., until about nine o'clock in the evening. An order to desist not having been promptly complied with, the hatches were suddenly removed, and the guards descended among them, with lanterns and cutlasses in their hands. Then ensued a scene of terror. The helpless prisoners, retreating from the hatch- ways as far as their crowded condition would permit, were followed by the guards, who mercilessly hacked, cut, and wounded every one within their reach; and then ascending again to the upper deck, fastened down the hatches upon the poor victims of their cruel rage, leaving them to languish through the long, sultry, summer night, without water to cool their parched throats, and without lights by which they might have dressed their wounds. And, to add to their torment, it was not until the middle of the next forenoon that the prisoners were allowed to go on deck and slake their thirst, or to
wounds they had thus received. I further recollect that this was the case several mornings, when sometimes five, sometimes six, and sometimes eight or ten, were found dead by the same means."-Hist. Martyrs, 96.
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receive their rations of food, which, that day, they were obliged t eat uncooked. Ten corpses were found below on the morning whic succeeded that memorable 4th of July, and many others were badl wounded.
Equal to this, in fiendish barbarity, is the incident related by Silas Talbot, as occurring on the Stromboli, while he was a prisoner upon that ship. The prisoners, irritated by their ill treatment, rose one night on the guard, "the commander being on shore, and sev- eral, in attempting to escape, were either killed or wounded. The captain got on board just as the fray was quelled, when a poor fel- low lying on deck, bleeding, and almost exhausted by a mortal wound, called him by name, and begged him, 'for God's sake, a little water, for he was dying!' The captain applied a light to his face, and directly exclaimed : 'What ! is it you, d-n you ? I'm glad you're shot. If I knew the man that shot you, I'd give him a guinea ! Take that, you d-d rebel rascal !' and instantly dashed his foot in the face of the dying man !! "1 The conduct of the guards, indeed, accord- ing to all accounts, seems to have been as brutal as it was possi- ble to be, and was rivalled only by that of the nurses. These nurses, numbering about six or eight, were prisoners, and, according to universal testimony, were all thieves, who, callous to every senti- ment of duty or humanity, indulged in card-playing and drink- ing, while their fellows were entreating for water, and dying in their sight for want of those attentions which they refused to give them.
Not less revolting than these scenes of cruelty and distress, was the manner in which the inanimate bodies of these martyred prison- ers were hastily and indecorously consigned to the earth-in some
1 " Two young men, brothers, belonging to a rifle-corps, were made prisoners, and sent on board the Jersey. The elder took the fever, and, in a few days, became delirious. One night (his end was fast approaching), he became calm and sensible, and lamenting his hard fate, and the absence of his mother, begged for a little water. His brother, with tears, entreated the guard to give him some, but in vain. The sick youth was soon in his last struggles, when his brother offered the guard a guinea for an inch of candle, only that he might see him die. Even this was denied. 'Now,' said he, dry ing up his tears, 'if it please God that I ever regain my liberty, I'll be a most bitter enemy !' He regained his liberty, rejoined the army, and, when the war ended, he had eight large, and one hundred and twenty-seven small notches on his rifle-stock !"-Med. Repos. Hex., ii., vol. iii., p. 72.
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cases, almost before they had become cold.1 Brought up each morning by the working-party and placed upon the gratings of the upper deck ; their glazed eyeballs staring upwards towards the heavens; their ghastly and pinched features contorted with the suffering through which they had passed ; their bodies stiff, stark, and naked (for their clothes, if they had any, were the perquisites of the so-called nurses), these corpses of the night awaited the only remaining insult which their captors could inflict upon them-the indignity of an unhonored and unknown grave. Soon the dead-boat was seen approaching from the Hunter, receiving her ghastly freight from the other vessels, on her way to the Jersey. Upon her arrival alongside, each corpse was laid upon a board, to which it was bound with ropes, a tackle at- tached to the board, and the whole lowered over the ship's side into the boat, without further ceremony. "The prisoners were always very anxious to be engaged in the duty of interment ; not so much from a feeling of humanity, or from a wish of paying respect to the remains of the dead (for to these feelings they had almost be- come strangers), as from the desire of once more placing their feet upon the land, if but for a few minutes. A sufficient number of the prisoners having received permission to assist in this duty, they en- tered the boat, accompanied by a guard of soldiers, and put off from the ship." Captain Dring, who assisted on one occasion of this sort, thus describes the burial, which will afford a correct idea of the gen- eral method of interment : " After landing at a low wharf, which had been built from the shore, we first went to a small hut, which stood
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