The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn

by Robert P. Watson

  Washington was outraged by the lie and insolence. Not only did Gage fail to comply with any requests, but most of the colonials taken at the Battle of Bunker Hill in May either died in custody or were killed by their British captors. One group of surviving prisoners was murdered on September 14, 1775, prompting General Washington to report the incident to the Continental Congress and request a response. Washington was right to fume about Gage, for the British general helped craft the brutal policy on prisoners at the outset of the war.

  Gage was replaced by William Howe in September 1775, and Washington continued the discussion about the treatment of prisoners. However, angered by Gage’s reluctance to improve conditions, Washington tried a new approach with Howe. It contained threats: “My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate my conduct towards those gentlemen who are or may be in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe towards those of ours now in your custody.” It had become an eye for an eye, Washington warned. “If severity and hardship mark the line of your conduct, painful as it may be to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and humanity are shown to ours, I shall with pleasure consider those in our hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that treatment to which the unfortunate are ever entitled.”

  But Howe, like Gage before him, refused to consider the conditions of the prisoners.

  Another architect of the cruel prisoner policies was Lord George Germain, the minister in charge of the colonies in 1775. Unlike Gage, however, the scandalous and inept Germain worried about Washington’s threat to treat captured British officers as his own men were treated. This prompted him to write to General William Howe in 1776 about the American prisoners: “It is hoped that the possession of these prisoners will enable you to procure the release of such of His Majesty’s officers and loyal subjects as are in the disgraceful situation of being prisoners to the Rebels for, although it cannot be that you should enter into any treaty or agreement with Rebels for a regular cartel for exchange of prisoners, yet I doubt not your own discretion will suggest to you the means of effecting such exchange, without the King’s dignity and honour being committed, or His Majesty’s name used in any negotiations for the purpose.”

  General Howe also initially favored punishing American prisoners. When his massive army seized New York City in 1776, the war appeared to be in its final throes. Accordingly, Howe did not worry about the ramifications of his brutal treatment of prisoners or about any retaliation by the Americans on British prisoners of war. Howe had no qualms about imprisoning thousands of soldiers and sailors, or about the shockingly high death toll in the prisons, sugar houses, churches, and ships.

  General Washington repeatedly made requests to the British command to improve the situation. In another letter to Howe, he informed his foe that “those who have lately been sent out, give the most shocking account of their barbarous usage, which their miserable, emaciated countenances confirm.” Writing to General Howe again in March 1777, Washington stated his “wish that every reasonable indulgence and act of Humanity should be done to those whom the fortune of War has or may put into our hands.”

  Washington sent yet another letter to Howe later in 1777, writing diplomatically, “I am sorry that I am under the disagreeable necessity to trouble your Lordship with a letter, almost wholly on the subject of the cruel treatment which our officers and men, in the naval department, who are unhappy enough to fall into your hands, receive on board the prison-ships in the harbor of New York.” Washington continued, “I call upon your Lordship to say, whether any treatment of your officers and seamen has merited so severe a retaliation. I am bold to say, it has not. And I hope upon making the proper inquiry, you will have the matter so regulated, that the unhappy persons, in captivity, may not in the future have the miseries of cold, disease, and famine, added to their other misfortunes.”

  Washington ended his letter less diplomatically, issuing another threat: “You may call us rebels, and say that we deserve no better treatment. But, remember, my Lord, that supposing us rebels, we still have feelings as keen and sensible as loyalists, and will, if forced to it, most assuredly retaliate upon those upon whom we look as the unjust invaders of our rights, liberties and properties.”

  After the British again failed to comply with the requests, Washington repeated the warning in another letter to Howe: “I would beg, that some certain rule of conduct towards prisoners may be settled; and, if you are determined to make captivity as distressing as possible, let me know it, what we may be upon equal terms, for your conduct must and shall regulate mine.”

  By the end of 1777, an exasperated Washington appears to have lost his patience with Howe and other British commanders who pretended to be interested in exchanges and claimed incorrectly to have provided adequate care for prisoners. The general fired off an angry letter to Admiral Robert Digby, one of the British commanders in America, saying, “It is preposterously cruel… to confine 800 men in one ship at this sultry season.” He also reminded his foe that he too held prisoners. “We have the means of retaliation in our hands, which we should not hesitate to use, by confining the land prisoners with as much severity as our seamen are held.”

  Like other American leaders, Washington believed British cruelty aboard the prison ships was in part designed to deter colonials from joining the war and also to get Americans to enlist in the Royal Navy. In another letter to General Howe after the British took Philadelphia, Washington protested that the treatment there was intended “to Oblige them to inlist in the Corps you are raising.” Similarly, writing to his fellow commander and French ally, the Comte de Grasse, Washington expressed his continued frustration, noting, “This unhappy class of men are now languishing under every species of inhumanity in the Prison Ships of the British, who pursue this conduct with a view to forcing the men to enter their service.”

  Even in his personal letters, the general revealed his disgust with British impressment. Such was the case when he complained to his aide Colonel John Laurens, “Admiral Digby is capturing all our Vessels, and suffocating all our Seamen who will not enlist into the Service of His Britannic Majesty as fast as possible in Prison Ships.” Yet Washington did not give up hope of improving the conditions aboard the British prison ships, as is evident in a letter written to Admiral Digby later in the war: “If the fortune of war, sir, has thrown a number of these miserable people into your hands, I am certain your Excellency’s feelings for the men must induce you to proportion the ships, (if they must be confined on board ships,) to their accommodation and comfort, and not, by crowding them together in a few ships, bring on diseases which consign them by the half-dozen in a day to the grave.”

  Washington was joined in his efforts to end the suffering aboard the prison ships and bring about prisoner exchanges by other American leaders, including Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance and one of the financiers of the war effort, who wrote to the Board of War urging it to make provisions for exchanges. Thomas Jefferson wrote to General Howe about the American prisoners taken at the Battle of Germantown in 1777, expressing concern that they were “so long without any food furnished them, that many perished with hunger.” Jefferson added, in vivid terms, “Where the bodies laid, it was seen that they had eaten all the grass around them, within their reach after they had lost the power of rising, or moving from their place.”

  The presence of increasing numbers of British officers being captured and Washington’s numerous threats to do unto them as was being done to his own troops finally brought slight changes to British policies. While conditions in prisons and on the prison ships remained deplorable through 1776, the British demonstrated more interest in exchanges. One of the first exchanges occurred in the summer of 1776 when General Howe proposed to General Washington that a total of 43 officers and 848 men be released. He wrote, “I shall redeem them by a like number of those in my possession; for which purpose I shall send Mr. Joshua Loring, my commissary, to
Elizabethtown, as proper place for the exchange of prisoners, on any day you may appoint, wishing it may be an early one, wherein I presume you will concur, as it is purposed for the more speedy relief of the distressed.”

  One of the other early efforts to exchange prisoners occurred around the same time, on July 20, 1776, when Washington met with Colonel James Patterson, an aide to General Howe. Colonel Patterson was sent to negotiate because the British command worried about the safety of captured officers such as General Richard Prescott. Patterson and Washington discussed Prescott’s treatment but were not able to agree. Washington pressed the point that General Prescott was being treated far better than the American prisoners and that several of the paroled British prisoners had violated the terms of their release by returning to military service.

  The first instance where British treatment of prisoners improved was after Washington’s surprise victory over the Hessians at Trenton after Christmas of 1776. General Howe understood that Washington’s victory meant the war would continue beyond 1776. It would not be the short, year-long affair many British commanders had predicted. Washington also now had hundreds of Hessian prisoners. In January 1777, the exchange occurred—some of the Americans taken at the Battle of Brooklyn the year before were freed. Minor improvements occurred again in October 1777, when almost six thousand British and Hessian soldiers and officers under General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne were forced to surrender at Saratoga, giving the Americans more leverage in prison negotiations.

  The decision facing General Washington as to whether or not to exchange prisoners, however, was impossibly complicated. It was not advantageous from a military perspective to exchange healthy British regulars for emaciated, ill, and poorly trained colonial volunteers, just as it was strategically problematic to redeem seasoned British sailors for young boys who had only recently joined the crews of privateers. Any man or boy could serve as a privateer, and the Americans had more than enough motley crews shipping out on any available schooner or merchant craft. The British had the upper hand in the matter and both sides knew it. Accordingly, on the rare occasion when British commanders proposed exchanging prisoners, Washington was forced more than once to decline the offer, especially when it was one-for-one—which effectively meant a professional, veteran soldier for a farmer-turned-volunteer. Plus, American militiamen and privateers generally enlisted for very short periods of time, meaning they would not be back in uniform if exchanged. The general also realized that prisoner exchanges often only prolonged the war by providing the British with more soldiers and sailors, noting, “It would be contrary to the practice of other nations and the soundest policy, by giving the enemy a great and permanent strength.” These realities frustrated the general, who genuinely felt “urged by humanity” to try to secure the release of his men.

  Making matters worse was the fact that General Howe and Admiral Howe also understood their advantage and Washington’s predicament. Moreover, the Howes had a few tricks up their sleeve. They occasionally exchanged sailors, but only those who served on merchant ships, not seasoned naval seamen. At other times, they exchanged only those prisoners who were closest to death and thus unable to fight after their release. Washington complained about British deceit, writing, “Exchanging seamen for soldiers was contrary to the original agreement. Officers should be exchanged for officers, soldiers for soldiers, seamen for seamen, and citizens for citizens.”

  The British, according to another account, were exchanging prisoners “unfit for exchange because of the severity of their treatment.” In 1777, Joshua Loring, the British commissary of prisoners, confessed that he only released those in “deplorable condition.” David Sproat, the naval commissary, did the same thing aboard prison ships. This was observed by Thomas Andros: “It was evidently the policy of the English to return for sound and healthy men, sent from our American prisons, such Americans as had but just the breath of life in them, and were sure to die before they reached home.” Andros recalled hearing the British admit as much.

  The British continued to only release the sickest among the prisoners and those of little military value to Washington. For instance, in December 1778, a cartel in New London managed to secure the release of five hundred men from Connecticut. But the local newspaper’s account of the exchange described the prisoners as “sick with various diseases—they had frozen limbs—and many were infected with small-pox. They died all along the way through the Sound, and every day after their arrival for three weeks.”

  Sadly, such troubling reports were common. One of the earliest exchanges was also one of the most unconscionable. On July 16, 1776, 150 prisoners were released by William Cunningham, the savage warden in New York City. Before their trek home, the men were given bread, which they ate “ravenously.” Unbeknownst to them, the bread had purposely been poisoned so that the prisoners would die before arriving home. Another tragic exchange occurred a few months later, on December 2, 1776, when another group of prisoners from New York City was released. Some of them were so weak and ill that they died while walking home. One of the few to make it home was Lieutenant Oliver Babcock. But he brought along smallpox, which soon killed him and the members of his family.

  As the war dragged on, the British took more and more sailors and privateers as prisoners. In December 1781, General Washington faced the predicament that the British were seizing prisoners simply to advantage themselves in exchanges. He grumbled, “The suffering of seamen for some time past arises mostly from the want of a general regulation… so that the balance of prisoners is against the Americans.” And with the number of privateers entering the fight increasing every year, the situation would only worsen.

  On January 5, 1781, the Continental Congress had formally decreed that Washington and other American commanders could retaliate against British prisoners. Yet, even though Washington had long ago lost his patience with British commanders, he did not resort to the intentional abuse and neglect of his prisoners, as the British had done on the prison ships, nor did he give orders for or condone such behavior among his subordinates.

  13

  July 4

  In slumbers deep I hear the farewell sigh,

  Pale, plaintive ghosts with feeble accent cry;

  At distance far with sickly aspect move,

  And beg vengeance at the throne of Jove.

  —Philip Freneau, “The British Prison-Ship” (1781)

  Given the shockingly high death toll aboard the Jersey, the daily abuses suffered at the hands of the guards, and a war that dragged on for years, the prisoners had little to bolster their spirits. But there were a handful of developments and individuals that helped keep the men alive. One of them, in the words of Thomas Dring, was a “very corpulent old woman.”

  One of the few indulgences permitted by Commissary Sproat and the guards on the Jersey were routine visits by a woman known to the prisoners as “Dame Grant.” Every other day, two local boys would row Dame Grant, whose considerable bulk filled the entire back of the skiff, to the accommodation platform beside the Jersey. She came to sell wares and food from a box placed at the front of the small boat. It contained bread, fruit, sugar, tea, and a few assorted items that the guards would purchase for their own consumption or resell to prisoners who had money. On rare and special occasions, depending on the guards on duty, the prisoners were allowed to organize near the accommodation ladder to purchase items directly from Dame Grant. This, however, never happened when the angry loyalists were on duty. Either way, in anticipation of Dame Grant’s arrival prisoners would eagerly line up along the side of the ship.

  Dame Grant’s boat typically contained roughly the same items each visit and it was the only chance for prisoners to obtain fresh, edible food, a pinch of tobacco, or much-needed items such as needle and thread. The enterprising old woman’s arrival was also one of the connections prisoners had with the outside world. However much the men looked forward to the dame’s visit, the event always elicited mixed emotions, as the old woman rem
inded them of their own mothers or grandmothers—and of their captivity.

  On the other hand, Dame Grant’s visits were tough on prisoners without the means to purchase her items. Thomas Dring, for instance, described the “distress” of seeing the faces of “famished wretches” without money peering hopelessly at the exchange taking place on the upper deck. Outstretched hands jutted from the iron bars of the holds, begging for food. Remembered Dring, “Whenever I bought any articles from the boat, I never enjoyed them; for it was impossible to do so in the presence of so many needy wretches, eagerly gazing at my purchase, and almost dying for want of it.”

  If the prisoners were lucky, a friendly guard would pass along a request to Dame Grant for an item of clothing, comb, pipe, or apple. The old woman would “always faithfully procure” that rare luxury for the prisoners. However, one day Dame Grant failed to arrive at the boat. The prisoners “awaited with extreme anxiety” for her next scheduled visit. But that day too came and went without an arrival. News finally reached the Jersey that the kind old woman had died of a fever she had contracted from the prisoners she served. Her absence, remembered Dring, created “a void which was never afterwards filled up.”

  In the months following the dame’s passing, a sutler—an entrepreneur who followed armies in hopes of selling them food and supplies—occasionally came to the prison ships to sell products. As was the case with Dame Grant, the items were usually purchased by the guards and then distributed to the prisoners through an opening in the bulkhead. Unfortunately, these sutlers, unlike Grant, gouged the prisoners, charging exorbitant fees and providing little in return. The most popular item was spirits. Andrew Sherburne was one of the prisoners who had managed to bring money on board, although he never purchased alcohol. The teenager had just over five dollars and rationed it in order to occasionally purchase sheep liver, pepper and salt, and meat pudding from the sutlers.