Part 5

When the battle had ended, and the enemy had set a guard, Corporal Van Arsdale, who had shown great spirit in the fight, and was among the last to cease firing, resolved not to be made a prisoner, and managed to escape from the fort; but he had only gone a short distance when he was shot in the calf of the leg, and seized by a British soldier while in the act of crossing a fence. He was conducted back into the fort, under a torrent of abuse from his captor, who threatened to take his life, and he himself expected instant death. His gun was demanded, and when delivered, the barrel was yet so hot from frequent firing that the soldier quickly dropped it, with another imprecation. Then the old musket, its last work so nobly done, was ruthlessly broken to pieces over the rocks. Van Arsdale and the other prisoners, two hundred and seventy-five in all, including twenty-eight officers, were kept under guard for a day or two at the forts, then put on board the British transports and taken to New York. Forty-four of Van Arsdale's regiment were among them including the brave colonel McClaughry (who was suffering from seven wounds),[25] and his brother-in-law Capt. Humphrey, of whom it was said by one Van Tuyl (among the last to escape from Fort Montgomery) that, when he left, Humphrey was yet throwing stones! The prisoners, on arriving at New York, October 10th, were landed, and the privates marched up to Livingston's Sugar House, in Liberty Street, between Nassau and William, and put in custody of Sergeant Woolly; excepting the badly wounded, who were sent to the hospital. The officers, with similar exception, were taken to the old City Hall, whence, two days after, they were marched up to the Provost, and placed in charge of the brutal Cunningham, where they remained till after the surrender of Burgoyne, when, retaliation being feared, nearly all the officers were sent (November 1st) to Long Island, upon parole.[26] The privates had all been removed from the Sugar House, October 24th, and put on board a prisonship, anchored opposite Governor's Island. Van Arsdale, and his friend Sears, needing surgical aid, were, with others, suffering from their wounds, taken directly to the Presbyterian Church in Beekman Street, known as the "Brick Church," and then used by the enemy as an hospital. Sears had been very badly hurt in the battle. After being shot in the leg, and stabbed in the side by a bayonet, which filled his shoes with blood, he was knocked down with the but of a gun and trampled upon by the invading column. At the hospital, the bullets being extracted and their wounds dressed, they began to mend, but only three weeks and three days elapsed, when they too were sent to the prisonship, and confined between decks. Winter had set in very inclement, their food was not only stale and unwholesome, but even this was limited in quantity to two-thirds of a British soldiers when at sea, which was one-third less than the allowance upon land; in consequence of which they suffered everything but death from hunger and cold. Nor was this the worst. The prisoners, from these and other causes, became very sickly, and died off in great numbers. Abel Wells and four others of the Fort Montgomery party, being tailors, were sent from the prisonship to the Provost, November 24th, to make clothing for the prisoners there.[27] They informed Judge Fell, a prisoner, that their company was then reduced to one hundred. This mortality would seem to have been heavy among Col. Dubois's men, very few of whom ever rejoined their regiment. Van Arsdale was taken sick about the 20th of December, and had the good fortune to be sent to the hospital, where he had some care, and soon recovered. Shortly after going there he was joined by Sears, who was in a suffering and helpless condition, his feet and legs having been badly frozen in the prisonship. Fortunately Van Arsdale was getting better, so that he was of great service to his friend, and which also tended to divert his mind from his own misfortunes. He even begged "coppers" from the British officers to buy little comforts for Sears; but which, had it been for himself, he declared he would have scorned to do, in any extremity. Sears always held that Van Arsdale saved his life, and he spoke feelingly of his kindness to him to the day of his death. Van Arsdale finding his condition in the hospital much more tolerable, managed to prolong his stay, by tying up his head and feigning illness when the doctor made his daily call. The latter would leave him some powders, but only to be thrown away. This did not long avail him, and when reported well enough to remove, he was taken back to the prisonship, to endure its indescribable miseries for several weary months. Words cannot portray the horrors of this prison, which was loathsome with filth and vermin, and where to the pangs of hunger and thirst, were aided the alternate extremes of heat and cold. Especially when the hatches were closed, as was always done at night, the heat and stench caused by the feverish breath of hundreds of prisoners became almost suffocating. Consequently dysentery, smallpox and jail fever made fearful ravages. The ghastly faces of the starved and sick, and the pale corpses of the dead, the groans of the dying, the commingled voices of weeping, cursing and praying, joined to the ravings of the delirious; such were the shocking scenes to which Van Arsdale was a witness, and which added to his personal sufferings, made his situation one of the most appalling to be conceived of. Fitly was this dungeon described by one of its inmates as "a little epitome of Hell!" Kept near to starvation, Van Arsdale, when allowed with other prisoners, a few at a time, to go up on the quarter deck, was glad to eat the beans or crusts he skimmed from the swill kept there to feed pigs, that he might

## partially relieve the gnawings of hunger! But we forbear further comment

upon a fruitful topic, the cruel treatment of the American prisoners, and which has fixed a stain upon the perpetrators never to be wiped out!

Sears had returned to the prisonship about the last of March, and in the month of May he and Van Arsdale, with other prisoners, were picked out and removed again to the Sugar House. This was probably a step towards an exchange of prisoners, then contemplated, which made it necessary to separate those belonging to the land service from the naval prisoners. The Sugar House, with its five or six low stories, was crammed with American patriots, and the passerby in warm weather could see its little grated windows filled with human faces, trying to catch a breath of the external air! But now a little more lenity seems to have been shown some of the prisoners, perhaps in view of the exchange. Van Arsdale found a friend in his father's cousin, Vincent Day, who had enlisted in Lamb's Artillery, in 1775, but did not go to Canada, and was now regarded as a loyalist. He was permitted to see Van Arsdale, bring him food, etc.,[28] and a next step was to get leave for him to visit his house. This was a most grateful relief; but it being suspected that Van Arsdale meditated an escape (which my informant said was the case), this privilege was cut off, and Day sent to the Provost for his humanity. This incident was related to me by Mr. Abraham Van Arsdale, before mentioned.

Van Arsdale had dragged out some two months of miserable existence in the Sugar House, and in all nine months and a half as a prisoner, when the day of happy deliverance arrived. Gen. Washington had long been trying to effect an exchange of prisoners, but to overcome the scruples of the British commander took months of negotiation. Terms were at length agreed upon by which some six hundred Americans were set at liberty. On July 20th, Van Arsdale was released from his dungeon, and taken with others in a barge down the bay, and _via_ the Kills to Elizabethtown Point, where they landed, and were delivered up to Major John Beatty, the American Commissary. In marching from the Point two miles to the village of Elizabethtown, Van Arsdale was obliged to support his friend Sears, who was too feeble to walk alone. Now breathing the air of freedom, they set out together for their homes in Hanover Precinct, where Van Arsdale was heartily greeted by his numerous friends who received him as one risen from the dead, and found a warm welcome in the house of his brother Tunis. Emaciated to a degree, and suffering from scurvy, he was for some time under the doctor's care, but finally regained his health.

A nation's gratitude is the least tribute it can render to its brave soldiers who have fought its battles; but if any class of patriots should be tenderly embalmed in a nation's memory, it is those who, through devotion to country, have languished in prison walls, whether the "Sugar House," or a "Libby!" What firmness, and what consecration to country was required in the Revolutionary prisoners, under the pressure of their sufferings, to spurn the alluring offers frequently made, to entice them into the British service; but so rarely successful. Do not their names deserve to be written in letters of gold, on the proudest obelisk that national gratitude and munificence united could erect?[29]

Van Arsdale's bitter experience at the hands of the Britons, had changed his animosity towards them into unmitigated hate, and we know that time but partially overcame it. So far from weaning him from the dangers and hardships of a soldier's life, it only nerved him with courage, and fixed his purpose to re-enter the service, an opportunity for which soon offered.

The frequent atrocities committed by the Indians and Tories upon the settlers on the frontiers, within New York and Pennsylvania, and especially the massacres, the preceding year, at Wyoming and Cherry Valley, led to retributive measures, which took the form of an expedition into the Indian country. This expedition was to move in two divisions; one under Major General Sullivan, who was chief in command, to ascend the Susquehanna river from Easton, the other under General James Clinton to descend that river from the Mohawk Valley; and the two meeting at Tioga Point, the united force was to proceed up the Chemung, to give the Indians battle, should they make a stand, or otherwise to burn and lay waste their villages, orchards and crops, thus depriving them of subsistence, and the power to repeat their bloody forays upon the border settlements.

This design was scarcely matured, when our legislature, on March 13th, 1779, ordered the raising of two regiments from the militia, to be called State Levies, for the special defense of the State, and

## particularly of the frontiers of Orange and Ulster, which were subject

to the stealthy attacks of roving Indians, and of Tories disguised as Indians, the fear of which kept the loyal inhabitants in constant alarm, and called for the maintenance of a military guard to prevent their falling a prey to these destroyers in the British interest, or their abandonment of their homes and possessions. One battalion of levies, so raised, was commanded by Lieut.-Col. Albert Pawling, and under whom, in the company of Capt. William Faulkner, our Van Arsdale enlisted on the 10th of May. Governor Clinton had assured Washington that Pawling would reinforce Gen. Clinton on his march, and take part in the expedition. But the sudden seizure of Stony Point by the British, May 31st, and a further advance which menaced West Point and obliged Governor Clinton to take the field with all his available force, together with the burning of Minisink by red and white savages under the cruel Brant, and the fatal battle that ensued, July 22d, near the Delaware, in which fell many of the brave yeomen of Orange, made it so unsafe to withdraw the levies from these borders that Governor Clinton expressed a fear that he might not be able to detach them upon the western expedition.

But eventually Col. Pawling, with his battalion, about five hundred men, left Lackawack and Shandaken, on the borders of Ulster, upon the 10th of August. The route lay across the country for a hundred miles, over mountains and rivers, and through dark forests known only to the guides; but it so happened that, added to these obstacles, the rains set in and the rivers became swollen and impassable, except by rafts. This, with the state of his provisions and other considerations, rendered it impracticable for him to proceed, and he reluctantly turned back. He, however, pushed forward a small detachment of sixteen men, under Capt. Abraham Van Aken, either to advise Gen. Clinton of his approach or of his inability to join him; but Van Aken reached Aghquaga, or Anquaga, on the Susquehanna, the day after Clinton had passed, so missed of seeing him; and remaining there some days, as would appear, then returned to camp, where he arrived September 1st. It transpired that Clinton had reached Anquaga on the 14th, and, waiting till the 16th, then sent out Major Church, with the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, five or six miles to look for Pawling, but they returned without seeing him, and the next morning Clinton pursued his march. This was a great disappointment to Van Arsdale and others, who were full of ardor to share in the expedition under Sullivan, and our statement must correct the existing belief that Van Arsdale did take part in it, while it explains how he failed of the coveted opportunity.

Major Van Benschoten, with a detachment of the levies, including Van Arsdale and his company, in which he was serving as corporal, proceeded, October 31st, to the camp on the Hudson, and were ordered to Stony Point to augment its garrison. But the winter setting in with severity, the men through anxiety to reach home, began to desert in great numbers, on account of which they were ordered to Poughkeepsie, and set out December 16th. At Fishkill, the next day they were paid off, up to October 31st, the date they arrived in camp. What Capt. Faulkner then paid him was all that Van Arsdale received in lieu of his services, past or subsequent, till after the war ended. He remained with his company until it was disbanded on December 25th, when he was honorably discharged and went home, having acquitted him as "a good soldier" in the estimation of his captain.

He spent the winter at Neelytown, giving spare time to improving his mind in some useful studies. It was the famous "Hard Winter," and it made a fearful draft on the woodpile; taking the brothers often to the woods with their axes, to keep up the supply of fuel. Snow covered the ground to an average depth of six feet or more, fences and roads were obliterated, and travel went in all directions over the hard crust. Being difficult if not dangerous for a team, they drew their wood home on a hand sled. On the melting of the snow in the spring, the stumps left were of sufficient length to be used by Tunis for making fence rails!

A dark cloud hung over our cause in the spring of 1780; there were no funds with which to pay the army, or even to supply it with necessary food and clothing. Pressed by keenest want, officers were resigning, large bodies of soldiers whose time had expired were leaving, while such as remained were disheartened,--less by the remembrance of hardships past, than by what the future seemed to forebode. It was under such discouragements, when

"Allegiance wand'ring turns astray And Faith grows dim for lack of pay."

that Van Arsdale re-entered the army, to share its fortunes whatever those might be. An Act had been passed March 11th, 1780, to raise a body of levies for the defense of the frontiers. It required every thirty-five male inhabitants, of competent age, to engage and equip one able-bodied recruit to serve in their stead in said levies. Whether at the solicitation of his neighbors, liable under this Act, or prompted by his own devotion to the service, or both combined, we have no means of knowing, but we find Van Arsdale joining the levies on the 2d of May. But under an act of June 24th ensuing, which permitted privates serving in the levies to enlist in either of the continental battalions belonging to the State Line, provided they engaged to serve for the war, Van Arsdale with the then common idea that this was the more honorable service, took his discharge from the levies, and enlisted in the company of Capt. Henry Vandebergh (being the 1st company) of the 5th New York regiment, of which Marinus Willett was Lieut.-Col. Commandant, and belonging to Gen. James Clinton's brigade. This brigade was then in garrison at West Point, and Van Arsdale's initial service was fatigue duty on the four redoubts at that post, and guard duty at Fort Montgomery; the latter reviving but too vividly the campaign of 1777, and its great disaster, many traces of which were still visible. Vandebergh, who had had command of the company as lieutenant for the four months since its captain, Rosecrance, became a major, was now promoted July 1st, and on the 30th, was officially put in command as captain. Upon the latter date (it having before been given out that an attack was to be made upon New York City), the New York brigade was directed to march next morning at sunrise. They moved accordingly, crossed the Hudson and took up a position below Peekskill. But the object of the advance, which was merely strategic, having been served, the army again crossed the river at Verplank's Point, and on August 7th made headquarters at Clarkstown. Washington had given orders a week previous for the immediate formation of a corps of Light Infantry, to be commanded by General Lafayette. It consisted of two brigades, each of three battalions, and each battalion composed of eight companies selected from the different lines of the army, by taking the first or "light company" of each regiment. Capt. Vandebergh's company was included in a battalion under Col. Philip Van Cortlandt. Gen. Lafayette was at great expense to equip this corp which was pronounced as fine a body of men as was ever formed. They were in neat uniform, and each soldier wore a leather helmet, with a crest of horsehair, and carried a fusil. The General took command August 7th, and at three o'clock the next morning the army marched, with the light infantry in the advance, and proceeded to Orangetown, where and in the vicinity it lay for some time, in readiness, should Sir Henry Clinton leave on an expedition eastward or southward, of which there were indications, to strike a vigorous blow at New York. Soon after occurred the foul treason of Arnold, and the capture, trial and execution of Major Andre. The light infantry were at Tappan, October 2d, when this last sad tragedy took place.[30] Lafayette felt great pride in this corps, and was at infinite pains to perfect its discipline, which by the assiduity of the officers he brought to high proficiency. But the campaign passed without affording him an opportunity to perform any signal service. The corps was broken up on November 28th for the winter, and the companies returned to their respective regiments.

On December 4th the New York line sailed for Albany to go into winter quarters, but, the levies which had joined it, being discharged by order of Gen. Washington, because of a scarcity of provisions and clothing, Van Arsdale took leave of his regiment, December 15th, much to his disappointment, having enlisted for the war. But he had won the favor of Col. Willett, who was pleased to say that he was "a good soldier and attended to his duties." Except a small gratuity from the State, of "Twenty Dollars of the Bills of the new emission," received when he joined the 5th regiment, he returned without any remuneration for his services in this campaign; but with a patriotism uncooled, and rising superior to mercenary motives, the winter recess was no sooner past when Van Arsdale again joined the levies raised for the defense of the State, under Col. Albert Pawling. One of the captains was John Burnet, of Little Britain, who had been in the battle at Fort Montgomery. Van Arsdale entered his company, April 25th, 1781, and was given the position of sergeant, with ten dollars a month pay, which was an advance of two dollars. He was posted much of the time on the frontier of Ulster County, where the levies were billeted on the families, a few in a house, to protect them from Indians. These had done but little mischief in this section of the State, since the crushing blow inflicted upon them by Sullivan's expedition. The principal outrage had been committed the last year (1780), when a small party under Shank's Ben, on September 17th, attacked the house of Col. Johannes Jansen, in Shawangunk, intending to capture him, but, failing in this, seized and carried off a young woman named Hannah Goetschius, and whom, with one John Mack and his daughter, Elsie, they murdered and scalped in the woods!

But the present year witnessed a more formidable invasion. Col. Pawling had sent out Silas Bouck and Philip Hine, on a scout, to watch for the enemy. Near the Neversink River, they discovered a large body of Indians and Tories approaching; but, then starting back to give the alarm, were intercepted by Indian runners and captured. The settlements were therefore unprepared for a visit; when early on Sunday morning, August 12th, this savage horde stole into Wawarsing and began an attack upon the stone fort. Being repulsed with loss, they departed to plunder and burn a dozen scattered dwellings; many others being saved by the bravery of the levies quartered in them. Pursued by Col. Pawling as soon as he could collect a force, they had time to escape; but, on September 22d, returned again to burn Wawarsing. On this occasion, also, they first attempted to surprise the fort, but an alarm being given by the sentinel firing his gun, the garrison were warned and the inhabitants fled from their houses and secured themselves. The enemy, again repulsed with a number slain, proceeded to pillage and burn the place. Capt. Burnet was then stationed at a blockhouse at Pinebush (in Mombackus, now town of Rochester), whence he and Capt. Kortright marched towards Wawarsing, but, not being in sufficient force to give battle, turned back. Soon Col. Pawling arrived and they pursued the enemy about 40 miles, being out seven days, but they could not overtake them. There was a private in Van Arsdale's company named George Anderson, who three years before had performed an exploit which marked him as a hero. He and Jacob Osterhout were seized one evening in a tavern at Lackawack, by some Indians and Tories, and carried off towards Niagara. When within a day's march of that place, Anderson, at midnight, effected their release, and with his own hand tomahawked the three sleeping Indians who then had them in charge; then, each taking a gun, provisions, etc., set out with all speed for home, where they arrived exhausted and almost starved, after seventeen days. The State gave Anderson L100 "for his valor." Van Arsdale used to relate this adventure, whence has come the mistaken idea that it happened with himself.[31]