Story of Manhattan, The

<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> <h3>NEW YORK <i>a</i> PRISON-HOUSE</h3> <br/> <p>The winter passed, and when the spring came the British army moved from Philadelphia to New York City, but not without great trouble, for Washington's army fought them every step of the way across New Jersey.</p> <p>The city was now quite different from the flourishing town it had been before the war. Held possession of by the British, it was a military camp. No improvements were made. Many of the citizens who were loyal to the American cause had fled. Those who were too poor to leave pretended to favor the British, but as little business could be done, they could find no work, and their condition became worse daily. Thousands of American prisoners were brought here, making it a British prison-house, and every building of any size was a guard-house, every cellar a dungeon.</p> <SPAN name='image-42'></SPAN><center> <ANTIMG src='images/image-42.jpg' width-obs='336' height-obs='300' alt='Old Sugar-House in Liberty Street, the Prison-House of the Revolution' title=''> </center><h5>Old Sugar-House in Liberty Street, the Prison-House of the Revolution</h5> <p>One of the gloomiest of these prisons was an old sugar-house close by the Middle Dutch Church. It was built in the days of Jacob Leisler, with thick stone walls five stories high, pierced with small windows. The ceilings were so low and the windows so small that the air could scarcely find entrance. Underneath was a black and dismal cellar. The pale and shrunken faces of prisoners filled the openings at the windows by day and by night, seeking a breath of air. They were so jammed together that there was by no means room at the windows for all. So these wretched men divided themselves into groups, each group crowding close to the windows for ten minutes, then giving place to another group. They slept on straw that was never changed, and the food given them was scarcely enough to keep them alive. Those who suffered this living death might have been free at any time had they been willing to go over to the British, but few of the patriots, even in this dread hour, deserted their cause. To while away the hours of their captivity, they carved their names upon the walls with rusty nails. Fevers raged constantly and they died by scores, leaving their half-finished initials on the walls as their only relics. Their bodies were thrown out of doors, and every morning gathered up in carts and carried to the outskirts of the city to be buried in a trench without ceremony.</p> <p>This was only one of a dozen such prison-houses. There was one other that, if anything, was worse. It was the New Jail, and it still stands in City Hall Park and is now the Hall of Records. During the war it was known as The Provost, because it was the head quarters of a provost-marshal named Cunningham. It was his custom at the conclusion of his drunken revels to parade his weak, ill, half-fed prisoners before his guests, as fine specimens of the rebel army. It is said of him, too, that he poisoned those who died too slowly of cold and starvation, and then went right on drawing money to feed them. This gave rise to the saying that he starved the living and fed the dead. He took a great delight in being as cruel and merciless as he could, and very often boasted that he had caused the death of more rebels than had been killed by all of the King's forces.</p> <p>Many American sailors were also captured (for the Revolution was fought on the sea as well as on land) and all these were placed aboard prison-ships&mdash;useless hulks, worn-out freight-boats, and abandoned men-of-war. For a time these hulks were anchored close by the Battery, but afterward they were taken to the Brooklyn shore. There was misery and suffering on all of them, but the worst was called the &quot;Jersey,&quot; where captives were crowded into the hold, the sick and the well, poorly fed and scarcely clothed, so many of them as hardly to permit space to lie down, watched over by a guard of merciless soldiers. Disease in a dozen forms was always present, and every morning the living were forced to carry out those who had died over night.</p> <p>During this year 1778, and for several years after, the war was carried on for the most part in the South, in Georgia and South Carolina, while the British soldiers in the city made trips into the surrounding country and laid it waste. Washington and his army in New Jersey could do little more than watch.</p> <p>In the year 1780 the American cause came very near receiving a serious check, when an officer high in rank turned traitor. This man was Benedict Arnold, and had been a vigorous fighter. But now he bargained with the British to turn over to them West Point, where he was chief in command. Major John Andr&eacute;, a brilliant young officer under the British General Clinton, was sent to make the final arrangements. Andr&eacute; was returning to New York when he was captured with the plans of West Point concealed in his boots. He was hanged as a spy, and Arnold, escaping to the British in New York, fought with them, despised by the Americans and mistrusted by the English; for a traitor can never be truly liked or respected even by those who benefit by his treachery.</p> <p>The War of the Revolution went on until the fall of the year 1781, when General Washington made a sudden move that drew his men away from the vicinity of New York before the British army could foresee it. Then he hurried to the South. There, at Yorktown, in Virginia, the combined American army hemmed in, and after a battle forced to surrender, Lord Cornwallis, the British commander in the South, and all his men.</p> <p>This victory was so great that it really ended the war. Great Britain gave up the struggle, and a treaty of peace was signed.</p> <p>And now you will see how the British army left the city of New York.</p> <hr style='width: 65%;' /> <SPAN name='CHAPTER_XXX'></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />