"
Woodhull's wounds were neglected nine days before Dr. Bailey was
allowed to attend them.
How long the churches were used as prisons cannot be ascertained, but
we have no account of prisoners confined in any of them after the year
1777. In the North Dutch Church in New York there were, at one time,
eight hundred prisoners huddled together. It was in this church that
bayonet marks were discernible on its pillars, many years after the
war.
The provost and old City Hall were used as prisons until Evacuation
Day, when O'Keefe threw his ponderous bunch of keys on the floor and
retired. The prisoners are said to have asked him where they were to
go.
"To hell, for what I care," he replied.
"In the Middle Dutch Church," says Mr. John Pintard, who was a nephew
of Commissary Pintard, "the prisoners taken on Long Island and at Fort
Washington, sick, wounded, and well, were all indiscriminately huddled
together, by hundreds and thousands, large numbers of whom died by
disease, and many undoubtedly poisoned by inhuman attendants for the
sake of their watches, or silver buckles."
"What was called the Brick Church was at first used as a prison, but
soon it and the Presbyterian Church in Wall Street, the Scotch Church
in Cedar Street, and the Friends' Meeting House were converted into
hospitals."
Oliver Woodruff, who died at the age of ninety, was taken prisoner at
Fort Washington, and left the following record: "We were marched to
New York and went into different prisons.
Pages:
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123