icans 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 uni