John Clark, the son of John Clark and Ann Rogers, was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, September 15, 1757, and when his eldest brother vacated his position of deputy clerk of Dunmore county, in 1776, John was given the place. He was then quite young, but had already been assisting his brother in the office for some time and was familiar with the duties.
He left the position, however, in August, 1777, when he was appointed a lieutenant in the Fourth Virginia Regiment. The next month after Lieutenant Clark entered the service he participated in the battle of Brandywine, and in the next month after that was in the battle of Germantown, so that it was warm work for him from the beginning. In the latter battle the division of the army to which he belonged broke the British right wing and captured a considerable number of prisoners, but subsequently was forced to retreat; and, being surrounded, a portion was in turn captured, including Lieutenant Clark, Colonel George Mathews and other Virginians. This Colonel Mathews is the same person mentioned in the fac-simile letter of Mr. Jefferson given in Chapter XIV. The capture proved a sad affair, indeed, to Lieutenant Clark, as he was kept a prisoner a long time and subjected to such neglect and harsh treatment that it brought on a disease which occasioned his death. He was held as a prisoner at first in Philadelphia, then in possession of the British, and for a time was kept in what was called the "New Jail." In the summer of 1778 he was removed to Long Island and kept there, or in the neighborhood, several years, and finally was confined in one of those loathsome prison-ships, which, to the disgrace of the British authorities, caused the death of an immense number of American prisoners by barbarous treatment, as shown in Chapter XIV. Poor Clark was one of the victims, and, although he did not die in the prison, yet when he was at last exchanged in 1782, he returned to his father's home in Caroline county, Virginia, a physical wreck from consumption, brought on by the treatment he had received while a prisoner. In the hope of averting the terrible disease he went to the West Indies, but it was in vain, as he was too far gone for anything to save him. He came back without material improvement, and his relatives and friends, with great grief, saw him gradually waste away, until he died at his father's house in 1784, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. The death, under such circumstances, of this bright and promising young man, not only occasioned much sorrow in the community, but greatly added to the indignation felt at the time towards the British for their cruel treatment of American prisoners.
