Hewson letter in Perfect Occurrences

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Hewson letter in Perfect Occurrences (1649)
by John Hewson

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On Friday, the 5th of October 1649, Henry Walker's Perfect Occurrences was a published. It contains a letter from his friend John Hewson, the regicide, who commanded a New Model Army regiment at Drogheda. His regiment played a prominent part in the assault.

References

The Twentieth Century, vol. 72, Nineteenth Century and After, 1912, p. 483.
Ellis, Peter Berresford (2007), Eyewitness to Irish History, (reprint ed.), John Wiley and Sons, p. 114, ISBN 9780470053126.

1411748Hewson letter in Perfect Occurrences1649John Hewson

[Cromwell's forces] entered their great mount where was their garrison with about 200 officers and soldiers, who were all put to the sword. The rest fled over the bridge where they were closely pursued and most of them slain Some got in two towers on the wall and some into the steeple but, they refusing to come down, the steeple was fired and then fifty of them got out at the top of the church, but the enraged soldiers put them all to the sword, and thirty of them were burnt in the fire some of them cursing and crying out "God damn them" and cursed their souls as they were burning. Those in the towers, being about 200, did yield to the General's mercy, where most of them have their lives and be sent to the Barbadoes. In this slaughter there was, by my observation, at least 3000 dead bodies lay in the fort and the streets,whereof there could not be 150 of them of our army, for I lost more than any other regiment and there was not sixty killed outright of my men.