According to Dr. Lewis's work, Neptune's Militia, page 96, "the frigate, dead in the water after surrendering, received a boarding party, and the transfer of captives began. Since the Diomede was the biggest of the British pursuers, she took the lion's share of the prize's officers, crew, and marines (some 174), the Quebec the next biggest number (105), and the Astrea the least (87). The remainder, somewhat less than a hundred, maybe as few as sixty or seventy, were left in the hold of the frigate; a small prize crew of twenty-nine, including three officers, took the helm and top deck....There is no indication that the crew and officers of the other two prizes, the Hope and Constance, were removed from their vessels. Since these were not fighting ships, these captives were most likely kept below or supervised by a few armed marines. On December 21, 1782, this small fleet of three British men-of-war and three prizes began a voyage north toward New York" (pages 96-97).
This is the point that Middlebrook's work, The Frigate South Carolina: A Famous Revolutionary War Ship, comes to the fore as a remarkable book. For the purposes of this blog, pages 18-25 of Middlebrook's work are the important pages. It is on these pages that this brief work cites all of the captive American officers, crew members, and marines who were taken with the frigate South Carolina on December 20, 1782 and then carried into captivity in New York City. It also cites on which British man-of-war they were transported to New York City from the engagement with the frigate South Carolina.
Each of the British men-of-war will be cited in their own individual post as to the list of American prisoners placed on board that ship for transportation to New York City and, frequently, the prison hulks that awaited them there. Also, any further information on these men will be cited such as their "position" on board the frigate South Carolina, their ethnicity, whether they filed a pension application after the war or not, and which prison ship they were assigned to, and whether or not they survived incarceration in the bays and inlets of New York City harbor. Again, some of the information will be sketchy at best for some of the men but, the writer of this blog will do his utmost to record here these men and their lives after their capture on board the frigate South Carolina on December 20, 1782 off of the Capes of the Delaware.