Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. XXIII.

CAPTURE OF FORT WASHINGTON.

895

defended by Pennsylvanians commanded by Colonel Lambert Cadwallader. Magaw commanded in the fort. Rawlings and Baxter occupied redoubts on rugged and heavily-wooded hills.

The attack was made by four columns. Knyphausen, with Hessians and Waldeckers, moved from the plain along the rough hills nearest the Hudson River on the north at the same time Lord Percy led a division of English and Hessian troops to attack the lines on the south. General Matthews, supported by Lord Cornwallis, crossed the stream near Kingsbridge, with guards, light-infantry, and grenadiers, under cover of the guns near the High Bridge, while Colonel Sterling, with the 42d regiment of Highlanders, crossed at a point a little above the High Bridge. Knyphausen divided his forces. One division under Colonel Rall (killed at Trenton a few weeks afterward) drove the Americans from Cock Hill Fort, a small redoubt near Spuyten Duyvel Creek, while Knyphausen, with the remainder, penetrated the woods near Tubby Hook, and after clambering over rocks and felled trees, attacked Rawlings in a redoubt afterward called Fort Tryon. Meanwhile Percy had driven in the American pickets at Harlem Cove (Manhattanville), and attacked Cadwallader at the advanced line of intrenchments. A gallant fight ensued, when Percy yielded and took shelter behind some woods.

While Rawlings and Cadwallader were keeping the assailants at bay, Matthews and Sterling were making important movements. The former pushed up the wooded heights from his landing-place on the Harlem River, drove Baxter from his redoubt (afterward named Fort George), and stood a victor upon the hills overlooking the open fields around Fort Washington. Sterling, with his Highlanders, after making a feigned landing, dropped down to a point within the American lines, and rushing up a sinuous pathway, captured a redoubt on the summit, with two hundred men. Perceiving this, Cadwallader, who was likely to be placed between two fires, retreated along the road nearest the Hudson, battling all the way with Percy, who closely pursued him. When near the upper border of Trinity Cemetery (One Hundred and Fifty-fifth street), he was attacked on the flank by Sterling, who was pursuing across the island to intercept him. He passed on and reached the fort with a loss of a few killed, and about thirty made prisoners. Meanwhile the German and British assailants on the north, who were as four to one of the Americans in number, pressed the latter back to the fort, when Rall sent a summons to Magaw to surrender. This was soon followed by a like summons from Howe. The fight outside had been desperate. The ground was strewn with the mingled bodies of Americans, Germans, and Britons. Resistance to pike, ball, and bayonet, wielded by five thou

sand veteran soldiers, was now vain, and at noon Magaw yielded. At half-past one o'clock the British flag waved over the fort in triumph, where the American flag had been unfurled in the morning with defiance. The Americans had lost in killed and wounded not more than one hundred men ; the British had lost almost a thousand. The garrison that surrendered numbered, with militia, about twenty-five hundred, of whom over two thousand were disciplined regulars. Knyphausen received Magaw's sword, and to the Germans and Highlanders were justly awarded the honors of the victory. Washington, standing on the brow of the Palisades at Fort Lee, with the author of "Common Sense" by his side, witnessed the disaster

[graphic][merged small][ocr errors]

with anguish, but could afford no relief. The fort was lost to the Americans forever, and was named Knyphausen. Its unfortunate garrison filled the prisons of New York and crowded the British prison-ships, wherein they were dreadful sufferers.

The Jersey was the most noted of the floating British prisons. She was the hulk of a 64-gun ship lately dismantled, and placed in Wallabout Bay near the present Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sometimes more than a thousand prisoners were confined in her at one time, where they suffered indescribable horrors from unwholesome food, foul air, filth, and vermin, and from smallpox, dysentery, and prison fever, that slew them by scores. Their treatment was often brutal in the extreme, and despair reigned there almost continually. Every night, the living, the dying, and the dead were huddled together. At sunset each day was heard the savage order, accompanied by horrid imprecations—“ Down, rebels, down!" and in the morning the significant cry— Rebels, turn out your dead!" The dead were then selected from the living, sewed up in blankets. taken upon deck, carried on shore and buried in

CHAP. XXIII.

THE BRITISH PRISON-SHIPS.

897

shallow graves. Full eleven thousand victims were taken from the Jersey, and so buried, during the war. Their bones were gathered and placed in a vault by the Tammany Society of New York in 1808, with imposing ceremonies. That vault is at the southwestern corner of the Navy Yard, where their remains still rest. Several years ago a magnificent monument dedicated to the martyrs of the British prisons and prison-ships was erected in Trinity Churchyard, near Broadway, at a point over which speculators were trying to extend Albany street through the property of that corporation. The street was not opened. So patriotism triumphed over greed.

Philip Freneau, a contemporary, and sometimes called "the Poet of the Revolution," wrote a long poem, in three cantos, in 1780, entitled The British Prison-ships, in which he assumed the character of one of the victims. He bitterly complained of the American Loyalists or Tories, who bore a conspicuous part in the horrid scenes. Of these he wrote:

“That Britain's rage should dye our plains with gore,

And desolation spread through every shore,

None e'er could doubt, that her ambition knew

This was to rage and disappointment due;

But that those monsters whom our soil maintain'd,

Who first drew breath in this devoted land,

Like famished wolves should on their country prey,
Assist its foes, and wrest our lives away,

This shocks belief-and bids our soil disown
Such friends, subservient to a bankrupt crown."

He gives the following picture of suffering:
"No masts or sails these crowded ships adorn,
Dismal to view, neglected and forlorn!
Here nightly ills oppress the imprison'd throng-
Dull were our slumbers, and our nights too long-
From morn to eve along the decks we lay,
Scorch'd into fevers by the solar ray;
No friendly awning cast a welcome shade;
Once was it promis'd, and was never made.
No favors could these sons of death bestow,
'Twas endless cursing, and continual woe;
Immortal hatred doth their breasts engage,

And this lost empire swells their soul with rage."

The poet referred to the British commissary of prisons in New York, in the following lines:

Here, generous Britain, generous, as you say,

To my parch'd tongue one cooling drop convey;
Hell has no mischief like a thirsty throat,

Nor one tormentor like your David Sproat."

CHAPTER XXIV.

GATES IN THE NORTHERN DEPARTMENT-WAR-VESSELS ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN UNDER ARNOLDBRITISH FLEET IN THE SOREL-NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS ON THE LAKE-THE BRITISH RETREAT WAR WITH THE INDIANS-FORT LEE EVACUATED-MARCH OF WASHINGTON AND CORNWALLIS ACROSS NEW JERSEY-BAD CONDUCT OF GENERAL LEE-HIS CAPTURE-WASHINGTON BEYOND THE DELAWARE-HIS HOPE AND ENERGY EFFECTUAL-FLIGHT OF THE CONGRESSTHE BRITISH ARMY IN NEW JERSEY-CAPTURE OF HESSIANS AT TRENTON-EFFECTS OF THE VICTORY-WASHINGTON A SORT OF DICTATOR-MORRIS SUPPLIES MONEY-THE TWO ARMIES AT TRENTON-BATTLE AT PRINCETON.

HILE important events were occurring near the city of New York, others were in progress near the northern frontiers of the Union, where we left the shattered army that came out of Canada with Sullivan, in June, as recorded in Chapter XX of this Book. That army, sick and dispirited, halted, as we have seen, at Crown Point, whither General Gates was sent to take the command of them, General Sullivan retiring. Gates at once aspired to be chief of the Northern Department, then under the command of General Schuyler, and his pretensions were supported by a small faction in the Congress. He began to exercise authority which belonged exclusively to Schuyler. The latter resented the affront and referred the subject to the Congress, when a majority of that body lowered the pretensions of Gates by a resolution which instructed him. that he was a subordinate in the Northern Department. He was greatly chagrined and irritated; and from that hour he continually intrigued for the place of Schuyler, until he aspired to the more exalted position of commander-in-chief, and conspired with others to obtain it, as we shall observe hereafter.

Satisfied that Carleton would attempt the recapture of the Lake fortresses, so as to control the waters of Lake Champlain, the little army, by order of General Schuyler, withdrew from Crown Point and took post at Ticonderoga, where they began the construction of a flotilla of small war-vessels. By the middle of August, a little squadron was in readiness for service at Crown Point, and General Arnold was appointed its chief commander. It consisted of one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas, carrying an aggregate of fifty-five guns which Forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point had

CHAP. XXIV.

NAVIES ON LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

899

furnished. The schooner Royal Savage was Arnold's flag-ship, and he had brave commanders of other vessels under him. With this little squadron he sailed down the lake toward the close of August, almost to the present Rouse's Point, and anchored. Seeing British and Indian warriors prowling along the shores of the narrow lake, he fell back to Isle la Motte, where his flotilla was joined by other vessels, increasing it to almost forty sail. With these he roamed the lake defiantly.

When Carleton heard of the ship-building on the lake, he sent about seven hundred skilled workmen from Quebec to St. John, to prepare a fleet to cope with the Americans. In the course of a few weeks a considerable

[graphic][merged small][subsumed]

naval force was floating on the Sorel, and a strong land force under Burgoyne were on Isle aux Noix. Ignorant of the real strength of the British armament, Arnold withdrew to Valcour Island, not far south of Plattsburgh, and anchored his vessels across the channel between that land and the western shore of Lake Champlain, leaving the main channel free for the passage of the vessels of the enemy. This disastrous blunder was approved by Gates, who was as ignorant of naval affairs as Arnold.

Early on the morning of the 11th of October, the British fleet appeared off Cumberland Head. It was commanded by Captain Pringle. It bore twice as many vessels and skilled seamen against untutored landsmen, as the American force presented. The flag-ship—the Inflexible—was a threemasted ship, carrying eighteen 12-pounders and ten smaller guns. This formidable fleet swept by Valcour Island without opposition, and gaining the rear of Arnold's squadron, attacked it at noon. The Carleton, Captain Dacres, assisted by gun-boats, fell upon the Royal Savage and soon crippled

« ZurückWeiter »