Every surviving account from prisoners on the Jersey describes the food in similar terms, saying it was “condemned,” “rancid,” “filthy,” and the like. Moreover, the foul smell and appearance of the food made the men nauseous even before they ate it. Captain Alexander Coffin Jr., a naval officer imprisoned on the Jersey in 1782, summed it up: “There never were provisions served out to the prisoners that would have been eatable by men that were not literally in a starving situation.”
Food was prepared in the forecastle or “galley.” When there was meat or food to be cooked, it was boiled in two enormous copper kettles, one of them known as “the great copper” was used by the cook, the other one was available for the prisoners to use. These pots were several feet in diameter, enclosed in bricks, and located on the upper deck. A divider ran through the middle of them. On one side of the partition, peas and oatmeal were boiled in fresh water. The other side was for meat, which was fastened to strings and hooks and then boiled in salt water.
The salt water created problems. Not only did it corrode the great copper, but the source for the water was the very bay in which the ship was moored. They were thus using water that was polluted from the feces and debris from the old, rotting hulk and the bodies of her dead prisoners. This fact was not lost on young Hawkins, who observed that the careless guards collected the water for cooking from the same location “where all the filth and refuse [from the ship] were thrown.” Plus, the derelict ship leaked so badly that, without constant efforts to pump the water from the bilge, it would sink. However, the bilge water was contaminated with the blood, vomit, and disease from the ship. Dring noted that the Jersey’s cook prepared his own food and the crew’s with water from a different source. And he never used salt water for his own food. Accordingly, Dring refused to eat anything prepared in the great copper. He believed that act helped him survive.
The meat was often barely cooked. Therefore, some prisoners sought to boil their food beyond what the cook had done. They did this by fastening their own small pots and strings on hooks hanging from the kettle. Of course, not all the men had their own ladles or pots. They had to make do with what they had or hope someone in their mess was generous. There was also limited space around the kettle. Access was on a first-come, first-served basis, and prisoners were given little time for preparing and eating their food. As a result, there were frequent arguments around the kettle. At a certain point the cook simply rang the bell, thus ending mealtime. Men were then turned away from the kettle at bayonet point, whether or not they had cooked or eaten their food.
There was also a limited amount of fresh water to use for cooking. The officers in Dring’s mess designed a system whereby the six of them took turns saving a bit of water from their daily ration. This was used for the entire mess to boil their food. In the face of extreme thirst and heat, Dring remembered that it required great discipline. But the mess worked together to enforce their system. It likely saved their lives.
Nor was there enough wood for cooking. The cook and guards were known to steal the supply of wood sent to the ship and then sell it to residents who lived by the bay or to those prisoners who boarded the Jersey with money. Those unable to procure wood either scavenged for splinters and chips of wood or dug at the rotting hull of the ship itself. Once when Dring went ashore on a burial detail, he found a small stump floating in the water and snuck it back aboard the ship. On another occasion, Dring had been assigned to load wood from a supply ship that had tied up next to the Jersey. Even though the guards watched the prisoners very carefully, with the help of his crewmates he managed to steal some of it. His mess hid the wood in the gunroom where they bunked, and they took turns guarding it day and night with “the most scrupulous and anxious care.” These precious pieces of wood were cut with a knife into four-inch-long slices and carefully rationed to last many days. Dring enjoyed searching for, cutting, and rationing wood because it provided a welcome distraction from his day-to-day ordeal.
The cook was another problem. He considered the galley to be “his palace” and was notoriously “surly” and short-tempered. Ironically, the cook was himself a prisoner who had requested to be the cook when he realized there was no chance of escaping or being freed. All prisoners quickly came to despise the “inhuman monster” they sarcastically nicknamed “His Majesty the Cook.” He rarely fulfilled anyone’s requests and prisoners had to approach him very gingerly. Dring recalled that the officers in his mess took turns talking to His Majesty to prevent one of them from always incurring his wrath and receiving reduced rations for the entire mess. Once, for instance, when angered, the “plump” cook splashed scalding hot water at the men in the queue, burning a few of them badly.
Dring was frequently on the receiving end of the cook’s anger. He had once approached the window in the galley to light his pipe, but His Majesty threw a shovelful of burning cinders in Dring’s face. It nearly blinded him, and it was several days before the pain dissipated and Dring could see again. The men were forced to simply put up with the “petty, unceasing insults” and “disgusting tyranny” of the cook. There was nothing they could do. They were also frustrated with him because His Majesty the Cook had plenty of flesh on his bones. It was obvious that he took more than a fair share of the rations while the prisoners wasted away from a lack of food.
Not only were the prisoners in a constant state of starvation, but they were always thirsty. Fresh water was a precious and limited resource on the Jersey—so much so that a few elderly marines were assigned to guard the water supply. One of them was always on duty, standing next to the barrels of water with “a drawn cutlass.”
Fresh water was brought aboard the Jersey from a spring on General Johnson’s family farm next to Wallabout Bay. Under guard, four prisoners were tasked with rowing to shore in a small launch and collecting the water in containers. It was then poured from the accommodation platform through a leather hose into the large barrels. The ship housed so many prisoners that crews were required to go ashore on a regular basis. Dring estimated that the daily consumption of water on the old hulk was seven hundred gallons, which was still well under a gallon per person per day for the tasks of drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning.
Whenever the work detail returned with water, the parched prisoners clamored to get a drink. But they had to assemble at designated times at the large cask. Three copper ladles were chained to the container and used by the prisoners to collect their water ration, which was limited to just one pint of water at a time. At night, according to Sherburne, each prisoner was only permitted one small tin cup of water. They had to make sure they were in line before the hatches were shut and then not spill it while climbing down the ladder. Not surprisingly, men constantly begged for additional water, especially at night. But their requests fell on deaf ears. Once, for instance, when he became too sick to get in line for his ration of water, Sherburne made a deal with another prisoner: if the man filled his cup of water, he could have Sherburne’s ration of bread. The situation was so dire that it had come to such sad arrangements.
Even though the water was from a nearby spring, it was anything but safe. Swamps and estuaries ringed Wallabout Bay. Of the “fresh” water, one prisoner said simply that it was “disgusting and poisonous.” Dring described it as “very brackish” and guessed that another problem was the hose and water casks, which “had never been cleaned since they were placed” on the ship. He suspected that the drinking water “caused the death of hundreds of the prisoners, when, to allay their tormenting thirst, they were driven by desperation to drink this liquid poison, and to abide the consequences.”
Going ashore to pick up water was not the only work the prisoners were required to perform. Prisoners carried out a variety of other chores, including setting up the guards’ awning on sunny and rainy days, hoisting wood and supplies on board the ship, and helping to serve meals. One of the regular jobs was manning the pumps to keep the rickety old ship afloat. The Jersey was constantly taking on water,
and the prisoners complained about the exhausting task of having to pump out the bilge in the lower deck.
Prisoners were organized daily into a “working party” consisting of “able-bodied men.” These working parties functioned in “daily rotation” and were overseen by the guards. According to Andros, the armed guards made the work a hellish experience for the prisoners by shoving and beating them. “Little else could be heard,” he remembered, “but a roar of mutual execrations, reproaches and insults” from the cruel guards. Within each party, one of the prisoners who had been an officer was put in charge of the detail and given the naval title “boatswain.” The men received no monetary compensation for working, but they sometimes received a half pint of rum as the only payment for their hard labor.
One of the most difficult jobs was cleaning the lower decks and gangways. To accomplish this, working parties were given old brushes and buckets and sent below to scrub the urine, blood, and vomit as well as the general dirt and grime that accumulated in the very old, very crowded prison ship. Andros remembered that the old buckets and brushes were so broken that they could hardly be used. Even with proper equipment, it would have been a difficult job because, he recalled, “the whole ship, from her keel to the tafferel,” was a mess.*
Many of the prisoners did not mind washing the upper deck, however. It afforded them a chance to be outside in the morning and escape the disease, heat, and foul air of the holds. Moreover, if the conditions were right, the men could peer across the river and see the tops of buildings and masts of ships. If the wind was blowing in their direction, it was even possible for the ear to catch an occasional sound from the city. Dring said, “This privilege alone was a sufficient compensation for all the duty which was required of them.”
Occasionally prisoners were temporarily transferred off the Jersey so that the whole ship could be cleaned. Dring recalled one such moment, saying that “for a few hours, our existence was in some degree tolerable” because the ship was empty and quiet. But the task of getting so many weak and sick prisoners off the Jersey was not easy. Once, when the men were transferred to a transport ship it was discovered that the new ship was far too small. “The condition,” recalled Andrew Sherburne, “was absolutely distressing.” The men could not move and were forced to urinate in their clothing. To make matters worse, soon after the transfer a violent storm struck. The prisoners were stuck on the transport and those on the upper deck were pummeled by driving rain and high winds. Soaking wet and chilled, many of them caught pneumonia. Ironically, the cleaning made things worse because many of the prisoners returned to the Jersey with colds. If the old hulk was not already functioning as a hospital ship, it now was.
The worst job was cleaning the large tubs used as latrines. The tubs frequently filled up and overflowed, and the task of emptying them was a precarious one because it was difficult to keep the waste from spilling over the sides and onto the men in the work detail. Dring was selected for this “highly offensive” job. As bad as it was, after they had emptied the tubs the men in the work detail had a few quiet moments on the upper deck. “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 then the work party was ordered to carry the waste tubs back belowdecks and “descend to our gloomy and crowded dungeons.” As was the routine every night, the hatches were hammered shut above them.
Another job for the working parties was helping the sick and dying who were unable to get in or out of their hammocks. The workers prepared the hammocks and bunks each evening and stored them before breakfast. Tragically, sunrise was usually met by the grim reality that some of their peers had perished during the night. After guards shouted down to the prisoners, “Rebels! Turn out your dead!” it was the work parties who had to gather the corpses and carry them to the upper deck. There the dead were stripped of their clothing, “sewed up in a blanket,” and lowered by rope into the “dead boat.” Typically, the dead boat would fetch the deceased from the handful of other ships nearby before pulling alongside the Jersey each morning for its final human cargo.
The first night belowdecks for Thomas Andros was filled with terror. But in the morning he was able to climb the ladder to the upper deck to breathe the fresh air and feel the rising sun upon his face. Yet he recalled the shock of watching men from a working party carrying the dead up through the hatches. The gruesome image of several bodies being dumped into the dead boat was “a most appalling spectacle.” He stood transfixed as he watched “a boat loaded with dead bodies” taken to the shore. As a morning ritual, Andros took to counting the number of dead and even the number of times a shovelful of sand was thrown over the bodies during the rushed burial. He determined that the number of corpses was often more than the number of shovels of sand thrown over them. Numerous accounts claim that a half dozen to a dozen dead men were taken off the Jersey each day, a number that matches Andros’s observations.
A few prisoners were sent ashore as the burial detail. After rowing to the nearby banks of Wallabout Bay, they loaded their deceased comrades in wheelbarrows and carted them to one of several shallow, sandy burial sites. The guards stood watch as the prisoners dug makeshift mass graves, but did not permit them to dig proper graves or even convene a brief service for the dead. Instead, as soon as the corpses were interred the guards barked orders and shoved the prisoners back into the dead boat.
When Thomas Dring’s friend and former crewmate Robert Carver died, the former master’s mate asked the guards if he could be a part of the burial detail. The guards agreed but proceeded to make a “mockery” of the burial. They were completely unaffected by the horror of so many dead prisoners, as “if we were burying the bodies of dead animals instead of men.” However, on this one occasion after Dring buried his friend, he begged the guards to allow him and his fellow prisoners to wash themselves in the bay and remain a few minutes to breathe the fresh air. The request was denied at first, but the guards then changed their mind and allowed the small party to remain there for thirty minutes after the burial. It was not on account of compassion, Dring guessed, but rather that the guards did not want to return to the polluted, malodorous ship either. The only prisoner in the party with shoes that day, Dring quickly kicked them off in order to feel the earth below his feet. He remembered feeling “high gratification” at the chance to breathe clean air and stand on “our native soil.” He even dug up a small patch of turf, which he took back with him to the boat so that the other prisoners could feel the dirt and smell the grass. The appreciative prisoners passed it “from hand to hand,” eagerly inhaling its scent “as if it had been a fragrant rose.”
The irony of knowing they too might soon be dumped into one of the graves must have weighed on the prisoners, especially Dring and others in the burial detail. But, despite the grisly assignment, the men often volunteered for the interment detail so that they could say a final good-bye to a friend. Mostly, Dring admitted, there were always volunteers “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 become strangers), as from the desire of once more placing their feet upon the land, if but for a few minutes.” Dring returned from burying his friend filled with sadness. Although he was glad to be momentarily off the ship, he admitted the “visit to the land caused me to feel the extent of my wretchedness, and to view my condition with feelings of greater abhorrence, and even of despair.”
One winter, a prisoner named Isaac Gibbs asked permission to go ashore to bury his father, who had died on the old hulk. The guards let him join two other prisoners on the burial detail that day, but would not provide them with coats. All three men returned to the ship shivering and with frostbite, and died soon afterward. Another time, a sailor named Gavot from Providence was sewn up in a blanket with other corpses and was about to be loaded on the dead boat for burial. Just then a royal captain on the upper deck saw that Gavot was still alive. Reluctantly unsheathing hi
s knife and cutting Gavot free, the captain joked, “If he is not dead, he soon will be.” Such inhuman incidents soon became commonplace on the Jersey.
As if all that was not enough, because the graves were so hastily dug and shallow the remains of the deceased were often carried away by the tide. Ironically, Andros believed that had they not been so easily “disinterred” by the waves and wind, there would soon have been an enormous pile of bones. Indeed, he had boarded the Jersey with thirteen members of his former crew. All but three died “in short time.” Even the young and strong succumbed to the deadly conditions of the Hell Ship. Yet he, far less “muscular” and healthy than his shipmates, was spared by “mercey.” The experience made Andros a devout Christian. He promised God that if he ever made it off the ship, he would devote the remainder of his life to the Almighty.
11
Tempest
Black as the clouds that shade St. Kilda’s shore,
Wild as the winds that round her mountains roar,
At every post some surly vagrant stands,
Cull’d from the English or the Scottish bands.
Dispensing death, triumphantly they stand;
Their muskets ready to obey command,
Wounds are their sport, as ruin is their aim;
On their dark souls compassion has no claim;
And discord only can their spirits please:
Such were our tyrants; only such as these.
—Philip Freneau, “The British Prison-Ship” (1781)
The prison ship Jersey was crewed by Captain David Laird, two mates, a cook, a steward, a dozen sailors, and roughly one dozen “old invalid marines.” Thomas Dring remembered that “the crew had no communication whatever with the prisoners,” and he recalled seeing an officer only on rare occasions when they boarded or disembarked by boat. Approximately thirty soldiers from various units quartered throughout Long Island were stationed on the Jersey to provide extra security. They rotated their assignment on the ship and were replaced by a “fresh party” each week; these consisted of British regulars and “refugees,” who were Americans loyal to the Crown who had fled to British-occupied New York when the fighting started. However, “the soldiers in charge of the Prison ships were mostly Hessians, and were universally hated as mercenaries.” Some of these were the same Hessians who had earlier crushed General Washington’s army at Brooklyn, murdering in cold blood many of those who attempted to surrender.
The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn Page 12