Elias Cornelius

“ Cornelius and his comrades afforded the fat old beer-drinking Hessian general great delight; and such as Spaniards feel at a bull fight. Baiting and wounding with the tongue is often to a man of fine feeling as exquisite pain as to the bull is baiting with swords. After the Hessian general had enjoyed his fill of rebel sport, Dr. Cornelius was marched entirely across the island until Bowery was reached, which, said his journal, “is three-quarters of a mile from the City of New York.” ”

“ Now, Doctor Cornelius was a non-combatant as a surgeon and to be respected as such by the rules of war—rules that the generals of George III. by the aid of Aboriginal Indian allies hunting for scalps and of Hessian allies bent upon plunder seldom respected throughout the whole Revolutionary and naval wars. The ambush had been planned for the red coats by a Tory civilian—for, sad to relate, the city and its suburbs abounded with Tories and traitors, and new converts are generally the most zealous. ”

“ So long as American children receive common school education, so long will their own native logic teach them to hate a government guilty of oppressions toward their ancestry such as characterized the era of George III., or countenanced the felonious raid of British troops on the National Capitol during the naval war in President Madison’s time ”

“ As we come into the town the Hesians, Negroes, and children insulted, stoned and abused us in every way they could think of. At that time two of our men had become so fatigued that we were obliged to carry them. In this way we were led through half the streets, as a show. At last we were brought before Gen Jones who ordered us to the Sugar House which formerly went by the name of Livingston’s Sugar House which was the Prison the private Soldiers were kept in. Here one Walley a Seargent of the 20th Regt. of Irish troops in the British Service, had the charge of the prisoners. ”

“ Cornelius was of great service to the Continental camps. Two years more he continued in surgical army duty, but through illness was obliged to seek his honorable discharge in the very year of Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown. It was in a village by that name in the north of Westchester County that he settled as physician, but passed most of his declining years in the town of Somers, dying there in 1823. And many now old men residing in it recall hearing, when they were young, from the lips of old Dr. Cornelius the stories of his sufferings in New York City English prisons. ”

“ Previously contemplating and Meditating that the cause we were contending for, was a just cause, and a cause that all mankind ought to be interested in. Having meditated on all these things, I thought myself in duty bound, to suffer with patience & fortitude, with my fellow prisoners in my country’s cause. ”

“ England, according to his views, must surely conquer the rebellious Colonies, and his erring son would then, when it was too late, realize the folly of his course, and without doubt meet the fate due a traitor to his king and country. ”

“ I stood some minutes thinking what course to pursue, but on looking at the man found he did not move and was leaning on his gun, I advanced toward him and succeeding in passing by without waking him up. ”

“ Soon they were marched under guard toward New York, and on the way, on a point overlooking the Hudson that would seem to have been situated about where now is Grant’s tomb, they were brought into the headquarters of a Hessian general for triumphant exhibition. It would seem to have occasioned great sport to the red coat officers to find captured rebels brought before them to be baited with rough jests and coarse aspersions upon their disloyalty ”

“ I concluded to endeavor to go around the head of the creek which was about half a mile, but on getting out of the hole I took hold of a limb of a tree which gave way, and made a great noise, the sentinal on hearing it said “did you not hear a person on the cr,” I waited some minutes and then went around the head of the creek and came down to the river on the other side of the house to see if I could not find a boat, to cross to Long Island. But on finding sentinals near by I returned back a short distance, and went up the river. ”

“ When he arrived on Long Island, he writes in his Journal that he walked nine miles and passed his grandfather’s house but did not dare go in to ask relief for fear that the old gentleman, who was a strong Tory, would deliver him up to the British. Shortly after, in his wanderings, [Pg 18] he again found friends to the American cause, and also met two men who had been prisoners of the British, and like himself, had been fortunate enough to make their escape without detection. ”

“ I then requested him to suffer me to send for some Medicine or I believe he must die, to which he replied he might die; and if he did he would bury him. All the provision each man had for a week was but, two pounds of Meat and two pounds of bread, always one and sometimes both was not fit to eat, and those who had money were not able to send to purchase any of the necessaries of life. At this time I had not one farthing of money just being robbed of all, and also of my clothing except what I had on. ”

“ But soon Cornelius was taken back to the sugar house, where he found “the Hessian guards stealing our clothes and bed blankets and kicking and beating us.” He became so ill, but had made himself so useful, medically, to the British surgeon that when “the rebel physician” became ill the former sent him “to the brick church hospital in the street called Wall.” From this hospital the doctor one night escaped, and in a blizzard traversed the island up as high as opposite Hell Gate with almost incredible exposure, [Pg 27] suffering and romantic incidents ”

“ Dr. Cornelius was a member of the order of Cincinnati, and his certificate of membership bears the signatures of Washington and Knox, who were his personal friends. This, with the “Journal” to which we have alluded, is now in the office of the R. I. Society, of Cincinnati.
Gen. La Fayette was also an intimate friend of Dr. Cornelius, and presented him with a sword as a token of his esteem, which is now in the possession of his grandson, Rev. Tallman C. Perry, of La Prairie, Canada. Dr. Cornelius died in 1823, and lies buried in the Presbyterian Cemetery at Mahopac Falls. ”

“ Soon a man was brought to us by our friends whom we found to be John Rolston, a man that was confined with us in the Provost Jail. And was carried to the Hospital about 3 weeks after I was, and made his escape the same way, and by friends was brought to Long Island. ”

“ Soon after he was removed from that prison and thrown into a dungeon in the Provost Jail.
Concerning this Jail, Mary L. Booth, in her History of New York City, quotes from a published document of John Pintard, one of the founders of the New York Historical Society, as follows: “The Provost was destined for the more notorious rebels, civil, naval and military. An admission to this modern Bastile was enough to appall the stoutest heart.” ”

“ I was then put under guard and proceeded to West Chester; we had gone but half a mile when we met one of the Seargents of Capt Alden’s party, making his escape from the enemy to our guards. Here the leader of the guard that had taken me seised him and drove him with me to a place 3 miles below West Chester to a Mr Hunt’s an old tavern keeper. This man abused me more than any other, while I was a prisoner here I with my companion was kept till the next morning. ”

“ The commission was also signed by Washington’s staff physician, Doctor Craig, who it will be recalled medically ministered to the dying ex-President. Dr. Cornelius’ father was a tory living on the Sound shore of Long Island and had resented the rebel proclivities of his son—at this time not yet of age—and blamed his medical preceptor, the famous Doctor Samuel Latham Mitchell, afterwards the first Federal Senator from New York, for instilling rebel sentiments. Being without funds and clothing the captured Cornelius begged for pen, ink and paper, so as to write to his father ”

“ Last Thursday the rebels came to Elizabeth-town Point, to enlist recruits for the rebel service, and in order to deceive raised a false report, fired cannon, made fires, and gave away rum without measure, and said that Gen Burgoyne and his whole army were taken prisoners. But notwithstanding all their efforts they could not get a single man. ”

“ He was not aware either that all those cruelties and these of Cunningham were brought up in Parliament by friends therein of the colonists and expressly by vote approved by Lord North’s bloodthirsty administration. And yet the London Times continues to wonder why so many Americans dislike the country of Queen Victoria’s grandfather, who countenanced the cruelties and oppressions of McKinley’s ancestral people. Adds the Cornelius journal: “I frequently saw beaten with canes and ramrods women who came to the prison windows to speak to their husbands, sons or brothers ”

“ There is a pathetic entry in the diary—“passed at night by the house in which I was born and dared not go in lest my grandfather, a devoted loyalist should return me to prison.” He eventually escaped by boat into Norwalk, Connecticut, and was enabled to rejoin the army, which was now at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. There he shared the terrors of that patient and suffering waiting of Washington and his patriot soldiers that history has made memorable, and in his surgical capacity Dr. ”