December 17th, 1775
Today, another feast of distasteful intelligence. We are stricken with it.
We received notice of the lists of prisoners seized by the enemy at the Great-Bridge; that John, of our number, has been taken alive; and that he and thirty others are to be exported and sold at the foreign ports in the West Indies, the Sugar Isles.
They are sold for profit; the rebels inform us that the sale shall reimburse owners and fund commissions and weaponry for the rebel army, that the criminals might more efficiently defeat us.
We may be sure, however, that this exportation is transacted not simply for the emoluments of sale, but for the instruction of awful example. They wish to show us where we all shall be conducted: those island colonies we weep to hear named, where precise calculations of plantation œconomy suggest it is far less expense to work slaves to death and buy new, imported from Africa’s shores, than to care for those already there.
At the same time, we receive word that as the rebels swept through Great-Bridge, Gosport, Kemp’s Landing, and last, Norfolk, they have taken prisoner all who still wear the red kerchief of Loyalty upon their breast, or any reputed to be favorable to the King’s cause — such individuals as, having pledged their fealty to Lord Dunmore, now find themselves, poor wretches, deserted by our retreat.
We hear also of the punishment accorded them: The enemy has chained each white Loyalist to a black man taken in flight to Lord Dunmore and our Regiment. They are marched, thus paired, black and white rattling together, to Williamsburg for judgment. In the estimation of our enemy, there is no greater indignity, no sharper shame, for a white gentleman than to be thus twinned. We hear that some spake against it and said it was too great an outrage, but the rebels have replied in their broadsheets and papers that it is punishment condign that the damned Tory dogs shall be shackled to the black cattle they consorted with.
They marched one coffle of these paired prisoners across the docks of Norfolk, that the Loyalists on board their ships could see what fate awaited them. There was no jeering then by the rebels, no laughter, but only eyes that surveyed us and warned.
At noon, some hours following the announcement of John’s sad fate, Will fell to beating a fellow soldier over whom should receive an extra ladle of bone and broth.
Only a few blows fell before we took his arms and dragged him back. His rage cooled quickly, and the transports of ire gave way to the listlessness of despair. He pushed us away, but did not heave himself up and quit the place, there being no space for him thither to flee, that he might seek the solitude of his thoughts; for we all were crammed in that small quarter.
He has laid himself transversely upon the deck where we sit, and stares inert. So we crouch in silence, and we each of us entertain the same vision: the fields bleached with sun and hacked cane; the scalding steam of the boiling-houses drifting through the brake; the eternal rows of men scything in gangs; and pushed out among them, the boy, hand useless, armed only with his turkey call.
Dear God; dear God; what Thy creations do.