A Boy in Prison
Conveyed to York we found, at length, too late,
That Death was better than the prisoner’s fate
There doomed to famine, shackles, and despair,
Condemned to breathe a foul, infected air,
In sickly hulks, devoted while we lay,--
Successive funerals gloomed each dismal day
Philip Freneau
A Poet on a Prison Ship[i]
That Death was better than the prisoner’s fate
There doomed to famine, shackles, and despair,
Condemned to breathe a foul, infected air,
In sickly hulks, devoted while we lay,--
Successive funerals gloomed each dismal day
Philip Freneau
A Poet on a Prison Ship[i]
It was four days before the privates taken at Fort Washington had one morsel to eat. They were given a little moldy biscuit and raw pork. They were marched to New York, and Daniel was lodged with many others, perhaps the whole company, in the Old Sugar House on Liberty Street. Daniel was held prisoner for four months under harsh conditions of starvation and exposure where he nearly died. There was no glass in the windows and scarce one of the prisoners was properly clothed. When it snowed they were drifted over as they slept.
One day Daniel discovered in some vats a deposit of sugar which he was glad to scrape to sustain life. A gentleman confined with him in the Old Sugar House, used to tell his descendants that the most terrible fight he ever engaged in was a struggle with a comrade in prison for the carcass of a decayed rat.
One day Daniel discovered in some vats a deposit of sugar which he was glad to scrape to sustain life. A gentleman confined with him in the Old Sugar House, used to tell his descendants that the most terrible fight he ever engaged in was a struggle with a comrade in prison for the carcass of a decayed rat.
It is possible that Henry Bedinger, an officer on parole in New York, may have found some means of communicating with his young brother, and even of supplying him, sometimes, with food. Daniel, however, was soon put on board a prison ship, possibly the Whitby, in New York Harbor.
Before the first exchange was effected the poor boy had yielded to despair. He had turned his face to the wall to die. How bitterly he must have regretted the home he had been so ready to leave a few months before! And now the iron had eaten into his soul, and he longed for death, as the only means of release from his terrible sufferings.
When the Hessian officers in charge of exchanging prisoners went among the prisoners, selecting those who were to be exchanged, they twice passed the poor boy Daniel as too far gone to be moved. But he, with a sudden revival of hope and desire to live, begged and entreated the Hessian so pitifully in his native language not to leave him behind, that the Hessian, who is said to have been an officer, declared that he be responsible for him, had him lifted and laid down in the bottom of a boat, as he was too feeble to sit or stand. In this condition he accompanied the other prisoners to a church in New York where the exchange was made. One or more of the American surgeons accompanied the prisoners. In some way Daniel was conveyed to Philadelphia, where he completely collapsed, and was taken to one of the military hospitals.[ii]
George Michael Bedinger was in Philadelphia when he heard of the exchange of prisoners taken at the Battle of Fort Washington. George Michael Bedinger and Benoni Swearingen had volunteered for a three month tour of duty in a company of Volunteer Riflemen commanded by William Morgan[iii] of Berkeley County, Virginia. George Michael Bedinger, Edward Lucas and William Lucas were the lieutenants. When the company reached Philadelphia George Michael searched for Daniel in the military hospitals. Following is George Michael Bedinger’s narrative: “When Captain William Morgan’s Company got to Philadelphia which I think was about the first of January 1777, I found my brother Daniel with a few others of those soldiers who had been taken with him at Fort Washington, all of them sick and so much reduced that I think few of them got well. I took him a few miles out of the city to a Quaker’s house where I left him until he should be able to bear to be hauled home. I then left him and I think the next day overtook our company of riflemen.”
An account of the meeting of the two brothers was written in 1871 in a letter by Dr. B. F. Bedinger, son of George Michael Bedinger, to Mrs. Henrietta Bedinger Lee, one of Daniel’s daughters. “My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not recognize him. On inquiry if there were any [that had been] prisoners there a feeble voice responded, from a pile of straw and rags in a corner, ‘Yes, Michael, there is one.’
“Overcome by his feelings my father knelt by the side of the poor emaciated boy, and took him in his arms. He then bore him to a house where he could procure some comforts in the way of food and clothing. After this he got an armchair, two pillows, and some leather straps.
“He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair, supported him by the pillows, swung him by the leather straps to his back, and carried him some miles into the country where he found a friendly asylum for him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food, until he partially recovered strength.
“But your father was very impatient to get home, and wished to proceed before he was well enough to walk, and did so leave, while my father walked by his side, with his arm around him to support him. Thus they traveled from the neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Shepherdstown, Virginia, of course by short stages, when my father restored him safe to his mother and family.
“After your father recovered his health he again re-entered the service and continued in it to the end of the war. He was made Lieutenant, and I have heard my father speak of many battles he was in, but I have forgotten the names and places.”
“It was told of George Michael that he could never speak of the condition in which he found his young brother, without tears filling his eyes.”[iv]
[i] Opening stanza of a Philip Freneaus’s poem describing the horrors and suffering of himself and other prisoners aboard the prison ships, quoted by Danske Dandridge in “Prisoners of the American Revolution.” Philip Freneau of New York, the poet of the revolution, as he has been called, was of French Huguenot ancestry.
[ii] “A Boy in Prison”, p. 59-63, in Dandridge, Danske, 1910, American Prisoners of the Revolution, edition of 2005, D. N Goodchild, Philadelphia, 369 p., pp. 59-63 and Dandridge, Danske, 1909, George Michael Bedinger, A Kentucky Pioneer: The Michie Company, Printers, Charlottesville, Virginia, 232 p., p. 23-32.
[iii] William Morgan was the son of Richard ap Morgan and the father of Col. Abraham Morgan who married Anna Maria Bedinger the sister of George Michael Bedinger.
[iv] This very touching and convincingly factual narrative by George Michael’s son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger, does not include the fact that before he assisted Daniel home to Shepherdstown, George Michael returned to his Company and was in the Battles of Piscataway and Germantown. After his three month term of duty was completed, George Michael returned to the his brother at the Quaker home.
Page modified September 2, 2015
Continued: Go to Battles of Piscataway and Germantown
George Michael Bedinger was in Philadelphia when he heard of the exchange of prisoners taken at the Battle of Fort Washington. George Michael Bedinger and Benoni Swearingen had volunteered for a three month tour of duty in a company of Volunteer Riflemen commanded by William Morgan[iii] of Berkeley County, Virginia. George Michael Bedinger, Edward Lucas and William Lucas were the lieutenants. When the company reached Philadelphia George Michael searched for Daniel in the military hospitals. Following is George Michael Bedinger’s narrative: “When Captain William Morgan’s Company got to Philadelphia which I think was about the first of January 1777, I found my brother Daniel with a few others of those soldiers who had been taken with him at Fort Washington, all of them sick and so much reduced that I think few of them got well. I took him a few miles out of the city to a Quaker’s house where I left him until he should be able to bear to be hauled home. I then left him and I think the next day overtook our company of riflemen.”
An account of the meeting of the two brothers was written in 1871 in a letter by Dr. B. F. Bedinger, son of George Michael Bedinger, to Mrs. Henrietta Bedinger Lee, one of Daniel’s daughters. “My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not recognize him. On inquiry if there were any [that had been] prisoners there a feeble voice responded, from a pile of straw and rags in a corner, ‘Yes, Michael, there is one.’
“Overcome by his feelings my father knelt by the side of the poor emaciated boy, and took him in his arms. He then bore him to a house where he could procure some comforts in the way of food and clothing. After this he got an armchair, two pillows, and some leather straps.
“He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair, supported him by the pillows, swung him by the leather straps to his back, and carried him some miles into the country where he found a friendly asylum for him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food, until he partially recovered strength.
“But your father was very impatient to get home, and wished to proceed before he was well enough to walk, and did so leave, while my father walked by his side, with his arm around him to support him. Thus they traveled from the neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Shepherdstown, Virginia, of course by short stages, when my father restored him safe to his mother and family.
“After your father recovered his health he again re-entered the service and continued in it to the end of the war. He was made Lieutenant, and I have heard my father speak of many battles he was in, but I have forgotten the names and places.”
“It was told of George Michael that he could never speak of the condition in which he found his young brother, without tears filling his eyes.”[iv]
[i] Opening stanza of a Philip Freneaus’s poem describing the horrors and suffering of himself and other prisoners aboard the prison ships, quoted by Danske Dandridge in “Prisoners of the American Revolution.” Philip Freneau of New York, the poet of the revolution, as he has been called, was of French Huguenot ancestry.
[ii] “A Boy in Prison”, p. 59-63, in Dandridge, Danske, 1910, American Prisoners of the Revolution, edition of 2005, D. N Goodchild, Philadelphia, 369 p., pp. 59-63 and Dandridge, Danske, 1909, George Michael Bedinger, A Kentucky Pioneer: The Michie Company, Printers, Charlottesville, Virginia, 232 p., p. 23-32.
[iii] William Morgan was the son of Richard ap Morgan and the father of Col. Abraham Morgan who married Anna Maria Bedinger the sister of George Michael Bedinger.
[iv] This very touching and convincingly factual narrative by George Michael’s son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger, does not include the fact that before he assisted Daniel home to Shepherdstown, George Michael returned to his Company and was in the Battles of Piscataway and Germantown. After his three month term of duty was completed, George Michael returned to the his brother at the Quaker home.
Page modified September 2, 2015
Continued: Go to Battles of Piscataway and Germantown