Page 46 - Demo

In 1785, while researching his book, The History of the Revolution of South-Carolina, Dr. Ramsay asked Fayssoux for details about the treatment of American prisoners in Charleston. Fayssoux composed an account that harshly condemned British behavior during their Charleston occupation. He assured Ramsay that he had not “exaggerated or written a single circumstance from hatred or prejudice.” If he enumerated every British cruelty and severity, he said,
he was certain that “even tears would fall from British eyes.”
Fayssoux explained that from the time of the surrender of Charleston until the catastrophic American defeat at Camden, South Carolina, on August 16, 1780, he had no cause for complaint.
Opposite: David Ramsay, a physician, patriot, and congressman, is also remembered for his work as a historian of the American Revolution. Ramsay consulted his former mentor Peter Fayssoux while researching his first volumes.
The British allowed the Continental physicians to run their own hospital and treat their own patients in the way they saw fit. The attitude of the British, however, changed dramatically after the Battle of Camden. Fayssoux accused them of ramping up their cruelty and showing themselves to be “void of faith, honor or humanity, and capable of the most savage acts of barbarity.”
The first to suffer were the North Carolina and Virginia militiamen who were packed into uninhabitable prison ships in the bitter winter. Small pox was already present aboard these ships and the new prisoners were susceptible. British commandant Lt. Col. Nisbet Balfour begrudgingly gave one Continental surgeon permission to go aboard and inoculate the men
Capt. Thomas Dring, a prisoner aboard the HMS Jersey in New York harbor, illustrated the exterior of the ship in his journal. Courtesy of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
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