Inside groups of six stood for ten minutes
at a time at the windows for a breath of air.
"There were no seats; the filthy straw bedding was never
changed. Every day at least a dozen corpses were dragged out and
pitched like dead dogs into the ditches and morasses beyond the
city. Escapes, deaths, and exchange at last thinned the
ranks. Hundreds left names and records on the walls."
"In 1778 the hulks of decaying ships were moored in the
Wallabout. These prison ships were intended for sailors and seaman
taken on the ocean, mostly the crews of privateersmen, but some
soldiers were also sent to languish in their holds.
"The first vessels used were transports in which cattle and other
stores had been brought over by the British in 1776. These lay in
Gravesend Bay and there many of the prisoners taken in battle near
Brooklyn in August, 1776, were confined, until the British took
possession of New York, when they were moved to that city. In 1778 the
hulks of ships were moored in the Wallabout, a sheltered bay on the
Long Island shore, where the Navy Yard now is."
The sufferings of the prisoners can be better understood by giving
individual instances, and wherever this is possible it shall be
done. We will commence by an abstract of
THE CASE OF JONATHAN GILLETT OF WEST HARFORD
This man with seven others was captured on Long Island on the 27th of
August, 1776, before they could take to their boats.
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