John'a Gillett

New York, Dec. 2nd, 1776.
To Eliza Gillett at West Harford

The figures given in this pathetic letter may be inaccurate, but the
description of the sufferings of the prisoners is unexaggerated. Of
all the places of torment provided for these poor men the churches
seem to have been the worst, and they were probably the scenes of the
most brutal cruelty that was inflicted upon these unfortunate beings
by the wicked and heartless men, in whose power they found themselves.
Whether it was because the knowledge that they were thus desecrating
buildings dedicated to the worship of God and instruction in the
Christian duties of mercy and charity, had a peculiarly hardening
effect upon the jailers and guards employed by the British, or whether
it was merely because of their unfitness for human habitation, the men
confined in these buildings perished fast and miserably. We cannot
assert that no prisoners shut up in the churches in New York lived to
tell the awful tale of their sufferings, but we do assert that in all
our researches we have never yet happened upon any record of a single
instance of a survivor living to reach his home. All the information
we have gained on this subject we shall lay before the reader, and
then he may form his own opinion of the justice of these remarks.



CHAPTER V

WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, THE PROVOST MARSHAL