Two Centuries of New Milford Connecticut. Various
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Most of the men of Captain Bostwick’s company, as well as those of Lieutenant Couch’s company, appear in the new organization. The company and regiment remained at the siege of Boston until after the evacuation of that place by the British, when they accompanied General Washington to New York, going by land as far as New London and thence by boat. They were put to work at first upon the fortifications of New York, then, on the completion of that work, they were taken over to Brooklyn, and were employed, on the left of the line, in completing the fortifications there. They were not engaged in the battle of Long Island, but they covered the retreat, after that disaster, and played an important part in the subsequent movements about New York. They rendered some aid to the Brigade of Connecticut Militia in the disastrous affair of Kipp’s Bay, moved with the army across the Harlem to Westchester, and were hotly engaged, with considerable loss, in the battle of White Plains.
After this battle, and before the capture of Fort Washington, they were brought down to Spuyten Duyvil creek, just at its junction with the Hudson, and were kept there furnishing guards, orderlies and escorts for the movements about the fort. While the Jumel mansion (then the old Morris house) was being used as the American Headquarters, many of Captain Bostwick’s men were frequently on duty about the place as guards and orderlies. The following is a tradition for which the only authority is the stories told by the old soldiers around John Turrill’s fireside many years after: During the engagement of the British with Fort Washington, a sergeant’s guard under the command of David Buell of New Milford, which had been placed at a picket station near the base of Inwood Hill, were separated, by the rapid advance of the Hessians up the Harlem River (a movement, which, but for the quickness of a soldier’s wife at the Morris house, would have resulted in the capture of General Washington), from their regiment across the creek and obliged to fall back to Fort Washington. Being hotly pursued by the advancing enemy, they were forced to take cover under the banks of the Hudson, to avoid the fire of almost an entire regiment. A small party of the Hessians endeavored to cut off their retreat to the fort and one of them succeeded in jumping down the bank in front of the New Milford men. Roger Blaisdell was in the advance, and, as the German stumbled down the bank in front of him, pushed him with a thrust of his bayonet into the river and the party reached temporary safety in Fort Washington.
The Fort was soon captured by the British, however, and our New Milford men found themselves in the unfortunate position of prisoners of war.
The prisoners, according to the stories told by them afterward, were moved down to a point about where Union Square is now, and were there confined in a barn, for three days, before any food was given them. Then, wagons from the British slaughter-houses arrived, loaded with the hock bones of the cattle killed for the British troops. These wagons having been backed up to the door of the barn, the hock bones were shoveled in on the floor, while the prisoners scrambled for what they could get. It is said that their hunger was so great that they seized the bones and gnawed them as a dog would. They were kept for three days in this barn, and were then conveyed down to that much-dreaded place of confinement, the Old Sugar House Prison, a sugar store-house, which was between Ann and Fulton streets. It was a building with a large central portion, and had two wings which projected on either side of a little courtyard. There were no cellars and the floor was of puncheons (hewn logs eight or ten inches thick) laid loose on the floor timbers. It was very strongly constructed in order that it might sustain the weight of the heavy casks of sugar and molasses which came from the West Indies.
The place where our twelve New Milford men slept was just inside one of the doors. The two projecting rooms on either side were occupied by the guard of the prison and the officers, respectively. A sentry paced up and down the front from the guard room to the room of the officers. The provisions furnished to the prisoners were exceedingly scanty and of so poor a quality that they had been condemned as unfit for the use of the soldiers and sailors of the British army. Their rations consisted mainly of moldy and wormy pilot bread. This régime, following the “bone diet” of the barn, soon reduced them to the verge of starvation. These poor Continentals had little or no money with which to purchase favors and they were soon in a very bad way. The British profited by this situation to try to get the Americans to renounce the Patriot cause and enlist in the British army. A guinea a head was offered to each British soldier who would induce a rebel to join their cause. The English guard was well fed and it was very tantalizing to our New Milford men to see the burly Englishmen enjoying their abundant repasts. Necessity is the mother of invention, however, and our men soon formed a plan to obtain some of the much coveted food. The cooking for the guard was done in the room occupied by them and a limited amount of provisions was, from time to time, brought there. Late one afternoon, a half-barrel of mess pork was brought in and opened for use, and left standing under the charge of the sentry for the night. This was our boys’ opportunity and, as soon as the other prisoners were sound asleep, they very quietly raised one of the logs in their floor space and scooped out a little hole in the sand underneath. A place having been thus prepared for their expected booty, they then proceeded to get the much desired pork. The night was so dark that a man could not be recognized at any distance and this was much in their favor. Roger Blaisdell quietly approached the sentry and, explaining that he was tired of starving, asked to be told where he could go to enlist in the British army, adding that he did not dare to come when the other prisoners were awake. The sentry, overjoyed at the prospect of the guinea, and fearing that, if he let the man go, some other would secure the much-coveted prize, told Blaisdell to walk up and down his beat with him until he should be relieved, when he would take him to the officer of the day. Accordingly, they paced up and down the sentry’s beat until, when a good opportunity occurred at the point farthest from the quarters of the guard, Blaisdell hit his companion a blow behind the ear which would have felled an ox and which knocked the sentry senseless. The men, who were on the watch, rushed to the pork barrel, scooped out an armful of pork each, quickly deposited it in the hole that they had prepared, replaced the plank, and dropped down upon it, snoring to beat a bass drum. Of course an alarm was raised and the prisoners were turned out, but the sentry was too much shaken up by the blow to be able to tell much about the matter. The loss of the pork was not discovered that night, if at all, so there was nothing to direct attention to the men, and they escaped detection. Each night, while the other prisoners were sleeping, the enterprising twelve would quietly raise the plank and have a meal of raw salt pork. In after days, those of the group who survived the prison experiences (particularly Sergeant David Buell) used to refer to their prison pork as the sweetest food that they had ever eaten, and for years the standing toast at their reunions was, “To Roger Blaisdell’s pork barrel.”
Within the last few months I have compared my recollections with those of other descendants of these men and have found that the traditions of these events agree so nearly as to warrant the belief that there was much truth in the stories told by the old veterans.
After being confined for a number of weeks in the sugar house, the prisoners were taken to the prison ship Dutton. Two hundred of them were transported to Milford and put ashore there. Twenty were dead before the vessel arrived and twenty more died very soon after. All the forty are buried in the graveyard of that place. Of the twelve men of New Milford, tradition narrates the return of only four, Roger Blaisdell, David Buell, William Drinkwater and Lyman Noble. Through friends in Milford, they were able to secure a horse, and thus worked their way back to New Milford, reaching there about March, 1777. This group was eliminated from Captain Isaac Bostwick’s company and did no further service until their companions came home from the successful fields of Trenton and Princeton. Shortly after the fall of Fort Washington, the regiment containing Captain Bostwick’s company was ordered to Philadelphia. It was with Washington at Germantown before the army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge. Its term of service was to expire December 20, 1776. But Washington was then planning the move which ended in the crossing of the Delaware at Trenton, and many of its members remained in service, at his personal request, for a six weeks’ campaign.
Most of the men of Captain Bostwick’s company were with Washington and crossed the Delaware on the twenty-fifth of December, 1776, and, on the early morning of that day, they were in the battle of Trenton, where they assisted in the capture of the Hessian regiment. They were engaged in the succeeding battle at Princeton, January 3, 1777, and were finally discharged on the first of February, 1777, when they returned to New Milford.
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