Among the captured was Major Williams, whose “Commission was stain’d . . . by the blood . . . from a wound . . . received in the action.” One report from the battle stated, “Of the Maryland troops, Colonel Rowlings, Colonel Williams, and about two hundred of that battalion are prisoners. With their men they defended a pass against the Hessians for two hours, and killed two hundred of them.”
Miraculously, a few men avoided both death and confinement, including Marylander Lawrence Everhart. He and a few more “escaped in a boat to Fort Lee, thence to Hackensack.” In New Jersey, Everhart met Washington, who witnessed the capture of the fort from a distance. “Here [I] saw Gen George Washington in tears walking the porch.”
Enraged after losing so many of their men in the battle, the Hessians stormed into Fort Washington and began slaughtering the Americans inside—despite their surrender. The British officers eventually put an end to the carnage, but the mercenaries’ anger wasn’t spent yet. As the prisoners exited the fort, a long line of Hessians and some of the Redcoats formed up on either side, forcing the Patriots to endure a gauntlet of abuse and humiliation. They hurled taunts, insults, and an occasional kick at the defeated men and robbed them of their few possessions. Many of the Americans didn’t have shoes and were filthy after being confined to the fort, so they were prime targets for their jeering enemies. One of the British officers noted, “Their odd figures frequently excited the laughter of our soldiers.”
A British officer ordered an American named Richard Thomas Atkinson to carry the American colors, a Gadsden flag bearing the words “Don’t Tread on Me,” out of Fort Washington. As he exited the structure and before entering the gauntlet, Atkinson furtively “lowered the colours” and gave them to another soldier. Rather than hand the colors over to the enemy, the soldier “put them within his breeches” and kept them until he was able to deliver them to Washington.
The taunting didn’t stop as the Americans, including many Marylanders, headed for captivity. A first stop for many was the shops and churches of New York City which had been converted into temporary holding cells. There, Marylanders captured at Fort Washington rejoined their brother soldiers taken prisoner at the Battle of Brooklyn. For many Patriots captured during the war, imprisonment was little more than an extended death sentence. According to some historians, the British captured as many as thirty thousand Americans during the Revolution. Of those, some eighteen thousand, or 60 percent, died while being held prisoner. That’s more than twice as many as those who died in battle. Those captured in the battles in and around New York faced some of the harshest conditions of all. While officers were sometimes allowed to stay in private homes, many of the rank-and-file prisoners were loaded onto prison ships in New York harbor. Ridiculously overcrowded, these filthy vessels bred disease, and in many cases the underfed prisoners on board didn’t have the strength to overcome their illnesses. By most estimates, well over ten thousand Americans died on these ships alone. Many Marylanders endured the hellish conditions aboard the floating death traps and died forgotten. The majority of their emaciated bodies were unceremoniously tossed overboard like bags of garbage.
According to accounts from prisoners and guards, it was common for the enemy officers to mock the Patriots by asking them what their trade had been before the war. These professional soldiers, many born into families that had served in the military for generations, found it funny that Americans chose shopkeepers and farmers to lead their military. One Hessian officer recalled, “Among the prisoners were many colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, and other officers who were nothing but mechanics, tailors, shoemakers, wigmakers, barbers, etc. Some of them were soundly beaten by our people, who would by no means let such persons pass for officers.”
One of the British officers tried this tactic with Otho Holland Williams, who had commanded a regiment of Marylanders and Virginians at Fort Washington. When the Redcoat accosted him, Williams refused to be the butt of the joke. Instead, “he replied, that he had been bred in that situation which had taught him to rebuke and punish insolence, and that the questioner would have ample proof of his apprenticeship on a repetition of his offence.”
Williams’s response did little to endear him to his captors. Soon after this conversation, the British accused him of secretly corresponding with Washington and sent him to harsher accommodations as a result. He shared a room “about sixteen feet square that was seldom visited by the breath of heaven, and always remaining in a state of loathsome filth,” with another American hero of the Revolution—Ethan Allen, who had been captured leading an attack on Montreal. “Their health was much impaired, for their food was of the vilest sort, and scarce enough to keep soul and body together, and to add to these discomforts, the anxiety that preyed upon their minds, was terrible in the extreme. The naturally fine constitution of Williams was much impaired, and he never recovered entirely from the effects of his imprisonment.”
A Connecticut native named William Slade who was captured at Fort Washington kept a journal that chronicled the harsh treatment meted out by the British on a daily basis:
Sunday 17th. Such a Sabbath I never saw. We spent it in sorrow and hunger, having no mercy showed. . . .
Tuesday 19th. Still confined without provisions till almost night, when we got a little mouldy bisd [biscuit], about four per man. These four days we spent in hunger and sorrow being drided by everry one and calld Rebs.
Wednesday, 20th. We was reinforsd by 300 more. We had 500 before. This caused a continual noise and verry big huddle. Jest at night drawed 6 ox of pork per man. This we eat alone and raw.
Thursday, 21st. We passed the day in sorrow haveing nothing to eat or drink but pump water. . . .
Sunday, 22nd. Last night nothing but grones all night of sick and dying. Men amazeing to behold. Such hardness, sickness prevails fast. Deaths multiply. . . .
A few lucky Marylanders managed to escape from these death traps. Baltimore native William Sterrett, who fought in Smallwood’s Battalion and later became Mordecai Gist’s brother-in-law, spent several months on the British prison ships in Wallabout Bay in Brooklyn. In April 1777 the commissary of prisoners, Joshua Loring, whose wife was Howe’s mistress, visited Sterrett and tried to persuade him to swear allegiance to the British government, offering better treatment if he complied. He refused. The official “said I should continue in confinement and be subject to the distresses which were about to threaten us,” Sterrett later wrote.
Duplicitously, the guards didn’t enter Sterrett’s name in their rolls, making it look as though Sterrett had taken the oath. In December the Americans tried to trade for Sterrett in a prisoner exchange, but because he wasn’t officially listed as a prisoner, the British would not let him go. Through guile, the Marylander likely took the British oath of allegiance, made his way back to the American lines, and resumed serving in the Continental Army.
A few others also were able to flee and evade the enemy. Christopher Hawkins, a thirteen-year-old, ran away when he was sent to fetch laundry from town. He hitched rides, walked, and finally boarded a ship that took him back to his home in Providence, “much to the joy of my parents and not a little to myself.” Ensign James Fernandis wasn’t so lucky, languishing aboard a prison ship until a prisoner exchange released him in 1777.
Also among the prisoners captured in Long Island who escaped were the McMillan brothers from Smallwood’s Battalion. William McMillan recalled that their harsh treatment began with their capture by the Hessians. “The Hessians broke the butts of our guns over their cannons and robbed us of everything we had,” he recalled. “[They] lit their pipes with our money, caned us and gave us nothing to eat for five days, and then [they served us] biscuits from aboard ships, blue, moldy, full [of] bugs and rotten.” Like some of the other prisoners, the McMillans were forced to serve as slave laborers and haul cannons for the enemy.
However, after holding them for a few days in the harbor, the British s
ent the McMillans and some other prisoners by boat to Halifax, Nova Scotia. After a miserable winter and a portion of the spring, the brothers broke out of their prison in April. “Ten of us run away from Halifax and had likely been taken two or three times by the British,” stated William. The British weren’t the only enemy, however. McMillan added, “Seven times we had likely been killed by the Indians if we had not had a man that could speak the Canadian language [French].” They trekked for miles though harsh wilderness, eating “grass on the rocks in the bays, shellfish, and snails,” before they made it to Boston. “We suffered everything but death,” said McMillan. Despite their ordeal, Samuel McMillan immediately rejoined the Continental Army, this time in a Massachusetts regiment, and William rejoined his Maryland brothers after recuperating for a time.
Some New York prisoners were returned from the ships to buildings in the city after the Continental Army fled. Many remained in converted churches, while some were held in a “sugar-house” on Liberty Street. An eyewitness who lived across the street from the sugar-house at the time recalled that it was a large building “with little port-hole windows tier above tier.” In the unbearable summer heat, “every narrow aperture of those stone walls filled with human heads, face above face, seeking a portion of the external air.” They fared little better in the winter. One, who was housed with a group of five hundred men, noted that approximately four hundred perished “from Exposure, bad treatment, Cold & Hunger.”
Prisoners who requested medical help were often sent to their deaths. The British had a former French prisoner serving as a surgeon, despite the fact that he had absolutely no training and had been convicted of multiple crimes. A nurse in the prison revealed “that she had several times heard this Frenchman say that he would have Ten Rebels dead in such a room and five dead in such a Room, the next morning, and it always happened.” When two Americans later took the “medicine” this Frenchman had been administering, it was found to be poison. After the war, the surgeon confessed that he had “murdered a great number of Rebels in the Hospital at New York, by poyson” and that when General Howe learned what he had done, the Frenchman got a pay raise. He also admitted to poisoning “the wells used by the American Flying Camp, which caused such an uncommon Mortality among them in the year 1776.”
Chapter 14
The Crisis
In November 1776 “a thick cloud of darkness and gloom covered the land, and despair was seen on almost every countenance,” remembered Ensign Peter Jaquett of Haslet’s Delaware Regiment, which marched through rain and mud alongside Smallwood’s Marylanders on their trek through New Jersey. The veteran captured the mood of the country, which had been reeling from defeats in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Fort Washington, and recently the capture of Fort Lee, which lay just across the Hudson River from Fort Washington.
Quickly following up on the decisive British victory at Fort Washington, General William Howe had sent Cornwallis and four thousand men across the Hudson. As the men climbed up an unguarded, steep cliff on the Jersey Palisades, Cornwallis quickly occupied Fort Lee, which George Washington had swiftly ordered evacuated after receiving word of the earl’s approaching force. British troops seized the bulk of the Continental Army’s equipment, including its shovels, picks, tents, cannon, and ordnance. Maryland Captain William Beatty noted, “Our army began to prepare for a retreat But before this Could be accomplished the Enemy landed above us Which Obliged Our army to make a quick retreat leaving all our Heavy Cannon & Stores & Baggage of all kinds behind, the Whole of Which fell into the Hands of the Enemy.” The seizure of Fort Lee precipitated Washington’s retreat across New Jersey toward the perceived safety of the wide Delaware River. It was also another blow to Nathanael Greene, who, as at Fort Washington, advocated holding the fortification.
The evening of November 20 was “dark, cold, and rainy,” in Hackensack, New Jersey, but as the remnants of Washington’s army and the Marylanders trudged through town, it was light enough for the local residents to recognize their sorry state. One inhabitant noted, “They marched two abreast, looked ragged, some without shoes on their feet, and most of them wrapped in their blankets.” Washington’s battered army had shrunk in size from an apogee of nearly twenty thousand men to only several thousand effectives. Even worse, it was now more poorly equipped than ever. The Americans had lost their tents and other equipment at Fort Lee and now had little in the way of shelter, cooking utensils, and other gear. Many of the soldiers, expecting a quick end to the war, had only summer clothing with them, and it hadn’t stood up to the harsh conditions of camp life. Now winter was coming, and few of the American men were prepared for the coming hardship. One British officer sneered, “No nation ever saw such a set of tatterdemalions.”
Pursuing the ragged Continental Army, Cornwallis halted his men on the far side of the Hackensack River. With his ranks swelled by reinforcements from Howe, his well-equipped force made a stark contrast to the weary Americans. But rather than attack, they simply moved into Hackensack after Washington left and then spent several days there resting and foraging.
While the British regrouped and raided local farms, Washington continued on to Newark. From there, he sent the sick and injured to Morristown, while the able-bodied continued on to New Brunswick. One of the Marylanders sent to Morristown was the tall Sergeant Gassaway Watkins. He later recalled, “Was taken sick in November, and sent to and left at Morristown, New Jersey. I put my clothing in the regimental wagon, and the driver carried all to the enemy. I travelled from Morristown to Annapolis without money or clothing and got to Annapolis in January, ’77, and lay confined to my room until the last of April.” He wouldn’t rejoin the regiment until September 1777.
General Washington hoped to augment his dwindling force with additional recruits from New Jersey, but instead the army continued to shrink. One American officer stood by the side of the road and counted the passing men; he was horrified to discover they were down to three thousand. Many of those would leave when their enlistments expired on December 1, and still more would be heading home at the end of the month. Captain Samuel Smith recalled the dismal journey: “The rain fell in torrents, and the march was dreadful. Many of the men were exhausted and remained behind. The night was very dark; the road was made deep by the artillery and wagons which had passed. Every step was above the ankles [in mud]; and many to the knee.” Beatty added, “This march being in the night the darkness of which together with the intolerable bad roads made this tour of duty very hard.”
The remaining Marylanders and members of the Delaware Regiment circled around to hear the news. For days they had been fleeing Cornwallis. Now, they were halted, guarding a bridge, but the depleted units were showing the strain of so many recent lost battles. Major Mordecai Gist and Captain Smith had met with General Washington and “informed him that the [Maryland] Regiment and Delaware Regiment were reduced to 250 men, who were worn down with fatigue and guard duty.” They requested that they be relieved by another unit.
Washington’s reply would inspire the Marylanders through many hardships to come. “I can assign no other regiment in which I can place the same confidence; and I request you will say so to your gallant regiment.” On hearing these words, the men “gave three cheers and declared their readiness to submit to every fatigue and damper.”
The Marylanders had distinguished themselves as an elite unit and facilitated the retreat of the army on several crucial occasions. A core group of battle-hardened men, many of them close friends and original members of the Baltimore Cadets, were now helping hold the entire American army together. Some later moved to other units, providing strength and leadership skills gained through experience. General Alexander McDougall later summed up the situation, saying, “Even the bones of a regiment are of great moment in the forming of one.”
Along with the rest of the army, the Marylanders suffered their share of hardships. Gist tallied up the Marylanders still fighting and reported, “[We] are ba
dly off for Cloathes, having lost the principal part of their baggage.” One officer traveled to Philadelphia in an attempt to purchase clothing for the men. After searching for four days, he wrote to the Maryland Council of Safety, “[I] am much afraid [I] shall not be able to procure [clothing] at present, particularly shoes and stockings, of which we are in great want, and unless they can be got will render many soldiers unfit for duty. I suppose between this and Christmas they may be procured, but at a most extravagant rate.” Food was also in short supply. “A sufficiency of provisions we do not complain of,” he wrote, “if a constant succession of beef and flour from day to day will do, and that sometimes without salt; and one day in the week we get salt pork. No kind of vegetables does the Commissary furnish us with, and such our situation we can get none.” The shortages no doubt contributed to the growing assumption among the Maryland officers that few of the men would reenlist when their term of service ended in December.
Cornwallis followed the Americans—but in a measured way. While never far behind, the British general always seemed to be a day late. Cornwallis had orders to push the American army out of New Jersey but not to engage it in a major battle that might result in the loss of British troops. Hessian officer Johann Ewald, who commanded the unit of Jaegers (in English, “hunters”), asked to pursue the retreating Americans, but Cornwallis ordered him back, telling him, “Let them go, my dear Ewald, and stay here. . . . We do not want to lose any men. One Jaeger is worth more than ten rebels.” From Cornwallis’s statement and actions, Ewald concluded the British were interested in “ending the war amicably without shedding the blood of the King’s subjects in a needless way.”
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