f 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 unwh