This is a shortened account of the bitter experiences of American prisoners of the British during the war of 1812–14 as seen through the eyes of a young New Englander who kept a diary of events in various prisons on both sides of the Atlantic. Resentment against the delay in release from captivity at Dartmoor prison boiled over in April 1815 and an attempt at mass escape resulted in many casualties. These were admirably dealt with by Surgeon George Magrath (1775–1857) who had been Flag Medical Officer to Nelson in the Mediterranean. His skill and humanity to the American prisoners at Dartmoor earned their deep respect.
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References
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AgnewR. Surgeon James Inderwick (d. 1815) and United States Brig Argus in the war of 1812–14. Journal of Medical Biography2008;16:77–83
2.
RodgerNAM. Operations 1812–1815. In: RodgerNAM, eds. The Command of the Ocean – A Naval History of Britain 1649–1815. London: Allen Lane. An imprint of Penguin Books in association with the National Maritime Museum, 2004:566
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WaterhouseB, BabcockAG. Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts. New York: Printed for the Author, 1815. Second edition ‘with additions and improvements’. Boston: Rowe & Hooper, 1816. Also available online at The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley: See http://www.archive.org/stream/journalofyoungma00waterich. Confusion has arisen as to the authorship being Dr Amos G Babcock or Charles Andrews. According to David Kessler, Librarian Bancroft Library, who quotes the US Navy Department Library, the original journal was written by Babcock and edited by Benjamin Waterhouse (1754–1846). It was printed by Rowe and Hooper in Boston (1816); 240 p., frontispiece, 19 cm. See http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/dartmoor.htm. The subject is well documented in the Beaumont Lecture presented to the Beaumont Medical Club, New Haven, 8 March, 1940 by Professor Waterhouse. Viets HR. “A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts … Written By Himself.” Boston: 1816, and a Note on the Author. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 1940;12:605–22. Professor Waterhouse, Quaker-born, was the first to occupy the chair of the ‘Theory and Practice of Physic’ at the newly opened University of Harvard in 1793. He had resigned his professorship in 1812 to live at Cambridge, MA. There a young ex-ship-surgeon had brought him the original manuscript; Waterhouse edited it for publication, which may account for some of the classical references. Wiets had no doubts about the identity of the ‘Young man’: further proof is found in the list of the crew of the Schooner Enterprise where her surgeon is listed as ‘Amos G Babcock’ but with no mention of ‘Charles Andrews’ (p. 619). Nicolas Fernandez of the Royal Society of Medicine Library, London, has further clarified the situation by pointing out that a similar The prisoners' memoirs or, Dartmoor prison … was printed for Andrews, Charles in New York in 1852. This title is placed in the British library catalogue with the author as 'Charles Andrews'.
