USA > New York > A history of the state of New York, from the first discovery of the country to the present time: with a geographical account of the country, and a view of its original inhabitants > Part 20
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succeeding troops. General Wayne directed both columns to 4 march in order and silence, with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets.
At midnight, they arrived under the walls of the fort. The two columns attacked upon the flanks, while major Murfee engaged the attention of the garrison by a feint in front. An unexpected obstacle presented itself; the deep morass which covered the works was, at this time, overflowed by the tide. The English opened a most tremendous fire of musketry, and of cannon loaded with grape-shot ; but neither the inundated morass, nor a double palisade, nor the bastioned ramparts, nor the storm of fire that was poured from them, could arrest the impetuosity of the Americans; they opened their way with the bayonet, prostrated whatever opposed them, scaled the fort, and the two columns met in the centre of the works.
General Wayne received a contusion in the head, by a musket ball, as he passed the last abattis. Colonel Fleury struck with his own hand the royal standard that waved upon the walls. Of the forlorn hope of Gibbon, 17 out of 20 per- ished in the attack. The English lost upwards of 600 men in killed and prisoners. The Americans abstained from pil- lage and all disorder ; a conduct the more worthy to be com- mended, as they had still fresh in mind the ravages and butcheries, which the enemy had so recently committed in Connecticut and Virginia. Humanity imparted new efful- gence to the victory which valor had obtained .*
The enterprise against Verplanck's was intrusted to general Howe, and miscarried for the want of artillery, and imple- ments for the construction of bridges, by which only the place was approachable. Intelligence was, in the mean time, re- ceived of the approach of a large body of the enemy, and the Americans, not deeming it safe to hazard a battle, after bringing off the artillery and stores of the fort at Stoney Point, with the garrison, dismantled the fortifications, and retired,
SEC. VII. The Americans were imboldened by the success of the enterprise against Stoney
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Point, and continued frequently to harass the outposts of the royal army. Major Lee, on the 19th of July, completely surprised the British garrison at Paulus Hook. He attacked the place with a detachment of about 300, and, with the loss of only two men, brought off 159 pris- oners.
SEC. VIII. At an early period of the war, exertions were made by the Americans to pre- vent the Indians from engaging in the contest. For this purpose, commissioners were appointed to hold a conference with the Six Nations, and other northern tribes. In July, 1775, a treaty . was concluded by general Schuyler, on the part of congress, with the Six Nations, in which they engaged to observe a strict neutrality between the contending parties. They were, however, afterwards induced, by the solicitations and pres- ents of the enemy, to take up the tomahawk on the side of the British, and the frontiers were again exposed to all the depredations and horrors incident to Indian warfare.
In the campaign of 1778, the savages took a very active part. In July, a large body of Indians and tories made an irruption into Wyoming, situated on both sides of the Sus- quehannah, in the northern part of Pennsylvania. This flourishing settlement was utterly destroyed, and its destruc- tion attended by circumstances of horrible cruelty and devas- tation. The district contained 1100 families, and furnished 1000 soldiers for the continental army, besides garrisons for its own forts. While a large proportion of the inhabitants were devotedly attached to the American cause, a considera- ble number still adhered to the British. Some of the tories, having experienced severity, in consequence of their attempts
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to promote the royal cause, were induced to take refuge among the Indians, or at the British posts. They were fol- lowed by others, who had been expelled from the colony. As their numbers increased, their hatred became continually more and more rancorous. The tories swore revenge; they coalesced with the Indians. The time was favorable, as the youth of Wyoming were in the army. In order the better to secure success, and to surprise their enemies before they should think of standing upon their defence, they resorted to artifice. They pretended the most friendly dispositions, while they meditated only war and vengeance.
A few weeks before they purposed to execute their horrible enterprise, they sent several messengers, charged with protes- tations of their earnest desire to cultivate peace. These perfidies lulled the inhabitants of Wyoming into a deceitful security, while they procured the tories and savages the means of concerting with their partisans, and of observing the im- mediate state of the colony. Notwithstanding the solemn assurances of the Indians, the colonists, as it often happens when great calamities are about to fall on a people, seemed to have a sort of presentiment of their approaching fate. They wrote to Washington, praying him to send them immediate assistance. Their despatches did not reach him; they were intercepted by the Pennsylvanian loyalists ; and they would, besides, have arrived too late. The savages had already made their appearance upon the frontiers of the colony; the plun- der they had made there was of little importance, but the cruelties they had perpetrated were affrightful; the mournful prelude of those more terrible scenes which were shortly to follow.
About the commencement of the month of July, the Indians suddenly appeared in force upon the banks of the Susque- hannah. They were headed by John Butler and colonel Brandt, a half blood, with other chiefs distinguished by their extreme ferocity in the preceding expeditions. This troop amounted in all to 1600 men, of whom less than a fourth were Indians, and the rest tories, disguised and painted to resemble them. The officers, however, wore the uniforms of their rank, and had the appearance of regulars. The colonists
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of Wyoming, finding their friends so remote, and their ene- mies so near, had constructed, for their security, four forts, in which, and upon different points of the frontier, they had distributed about 500 men. The whole colony was placed under the command of Zebulon Butler, cousin of John, a man who, with some courage, was totally devoid of capacity. Ile was even accused of treachery ; but this imputation is not proved. It is at least certain, that one of the forts, which stood nearest to the frontiers, was intrusted to soldiers infected with the opinions of the tories, and who gave it up, without resistance, at the first approach of the enemy. The second, on being vigorously assaulted, surrendered at discretion. The savages spared, it is true, the women and children, but butch- ered all the rest without exception. Zebulon then withdrew, with all his people, into the principal fort, called Kingston. The old men, the women, the children, the sick, in a word, all that were unable to bear arms, repaired thither in throngs, and uttering lamentable cries, as to the last refuge where any hope of safety remained. The position was susceptible of de- fence ; and, if Zebulon had held firm, he might have hoped to withstand the enemy until the arrival of succors. But John Butler was lavish of promises in order to draw him out, in which he succeeded, by persuading him that, if he would consent to a parley in the open field, the siege would soon be raised, and every thing accommodated. John retired, in fact, with all his corps; Zebulon afterwards marched out to the place appointed for the conference, at a considerable distance from the fort : from motives of caution, he took with him 400 men well armed, being nearly the whole strength of his gar- rison. If this step was not dictated by treachery, it must, at least, be attributed to a very strange simplicity. Having come to the spot agreed on, Zebulon found no living being there. Reluctant to return without an interview, he advanced towards the foot of a mountain, at a still greater distance from the fort, hoping he might there find some person to confer with. The farther he proceeded in this dismal solitude, the more he had occasion to remark that no token appeared of the pres- ence or vicinity of human creatures. But, far from halting, as if impelled by an irresistible destiny, he continued his
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march. The country, meanwhile, began to be overshaded by thick forests : at length, in a winding path, he perceived a flag, which seemed to wave him on. , The individual who bore it, as if afraid of treachery from his side, retired as he ad- vanced, still making the same signals. But already the Indians, who knew the country, profiting by the obscurity of the woods, had completely surrounded him. The unfortunate American, without suspicion of the peril he was in, continued to press forward, in order to assure the traitors that he would not betray them. He was awakened but too soon from this dream of security : in an instant the savages sprung from their ambush, and fell upon him with hideous yells.
Ile formed his little troop into a compact column, and showed more presence of mind in danger than he had mani- fested in the negotiations. Though surprised, the Americans exhibited such vigor and resolution that the advantage was rather on their side ; when a soldier, either through treachery or cowardice, cried out aloud, " The colonel has ordered a retreat." The Americans immediately break, the savages leap in among the ranks, and a horrible carnage ensues. The fugitives fall by missiles, the resisting by clubs and tomahawks. The wounded overturn those that are not, the dead and the dying are heaped together promiscuously. Happy those who expire the soonest! The savages reserve the living for tor- tures ! and the infuriate tories, if other arms fail them, mangle the prisoners with their nails! Never was rout so deplorable; never was massacre accompanied with so many horrors. Nearly all the Americans perished ; about 60 escaped from the butchery, and, with Zebulon, made their way good to a redoubt upon the other bank of the Susquehannah.
The conquerors invested Kingston anew, and, to dismay the relics of the garrison by the most execrable spectacle, they hurled into the place above 200 scalps, still reeking with the blood of their slaughtered brethren. Colonel Dennison, who commanded the fort, seeing the impossibility of defence, sent out a flag to inquire of Butler what terms would be allowed the garrison, on surrendering the fort. He answered, with all the fellness of his inhuman character, and in a single word-the "hatchet." Reduced to this dreadful extremity,
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the colonel still made what resistance he could. At length, having lost almost all his soldiers, he surrendered at discretion. The savages entered the fort, and began to drag out the van- quished, who, knowing the hands they were in, expected no mercy. But, impatient of the tedious process of murder in ' detail, the barbarians afterwards bethought themselves of en- closing the men, women and children promiscuously in the houses and barracks, to which they set fire, and consumed all within, listening, delighted, to the moans and shrieks of the expiring multitude.
The fort of Wilkesbarre still remained in the power of the colonists of Wyoming. The victors presented themselves before it ; those within, hoping to find mercy, surrendered at discretion, and without resistance. But if opposition exasper- ated these ferocious men, or rather these tigers, insatiable of human blood, submission did not soften them. Their rage was principally exercised upon the soldiers of the garrison ; all of whom they put to death, with a barbarity ingenious in tortures. As for the rest, men, women and children, who appeared to them not to merit any special attention, they burned them as before, in the houses and barracks. The forts being fallen into their hands, the barbarians proceeded without obstacle to the devastation of the country. They employed, at once, fire, sword, and all instruments of de- struction. The crops, of every description, were consigned to the flames. The habitations, granaries, and other con- structions, the fruit of years of human industry, sunk in ruin under the destructive strokes of these cannibals. But who will believe that their fury, not yet satiated upon human creatures, was also wreaked upon the very beasts? that they cut out the tongues of the horses and cattle, and left them to wander in the midst of those fields lately so luxuriant, and now in desolation, seeming to enjoy the torments of their lingering death ?
Several other instances of horrible cruelty we shall relate. Captain Bedlock, having been stripped naked, the savages stuck sharp pine splinters into all parts of his body ; and then, a heap of knots of the same wood being piled round him, the whole was set on fire, and his two companions, the captains
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Ranson and Durgee, thrown alive into the flames. The tories appeared to vie with, and even to surpass, the savages in bar- barity. One of them, whose mother had married a second husband, butchered her with his own hand, and afterwards massacred his father-in-law, his own sisters, and their infantx in the cradle. Another killed his own father, and extermina- ted all his family. A third imbrued his hands in the blood of his brothers, his sisters, his brother-in-law and his father-in- law. 1
These were a part only of the horrors perpetrated by the loyalists and Indians at the excision of Wyoming. Other atrocities, if possible, still more abominable, we leave in silence.
Those who had survived the massacres were no less worthy of commiseration ; they were women and children, who had escaped to the woods at the time their husbands and fathers expired under the blows of the barbarians. Dispersed and wandering in the forests, as chance and fear directed their steps, without clothes, without food, without guide, these de- fenceless fugitives suffered every degree of distress. Several of the women were delivered alone in the woods, at a great distance from every possibility of relief. The most robust and resolute alone escaped ; the others perished. Their bodies and those of their hapless infants became the prey of wild beasts. Thus the most flourishing colony then existing in America was totally erased .*
Soon after the destruction of Wyoming, a body of 500 men, consisting of regulars, tories and Indians, made a de- scent upon Cherry Valley. Colonel Alden, who had been posted there with a continental regiment, while quartering with his family some distance from the fort, was surprised and killed with several of his officers and soldiers. After an ineffcc- tual attack upon the fort, they desolated the settlement, and retired. The most shocking cruelties were committed. After killing the inhabitants, they ripped open and quartered the bodies, and then suspended the mangled limbs on the branches of the trees. Infants were taken from the breasts of their mothers, and their brains dashed out against posts. ..
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SEC. IX. In consequence of the depredations of the Indians, several expeditions were, during the present year (1779), conducted against them. Colonel Van Shaick marched from fort Schuyler, in April, with 55 men, and burned the whole Onondaga settlement, consisting of about 50 houses, without the loss of a single man ; a con- siderable number of the Indians were killed and taken prisoners.
In August, an expedition was conducted chiefly against the Senecas, who had their principal stations on the banks of the Genesee. General Sullivan, with 3000 men, ascended the Susque- hannah to Tioga Point, where he was met by general Clinton, who, with above 1000, had marched from the Mohawk by the way of Cher- ry Valley. Uniting their forces, they proceeded against the Senecas. The enterprise was suc- cessful ; the Indians were totally routed in an engagement near Newton on the Tioga river, and their settlements laid waste.
The Indians, on hearing of the projected expedition, took possession of an elevated ground, and fortified it with judg- ment. General Sullivan commenced a cannonade against them in their works, which they sustained for more than two hours. They at length gave way, and, when their trenches were forced, fled with precipitation. The victorious army penetrated into the very heart of their country, and laid it desolate. Their villages, with their detached habitations, their corn-fields, fruit-trees, and gardens, were indiscriminately destroyed .*
Different parts of the state suffered severely from the dep- redations of detached parties of Indians. In July, a party of
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Indians, with some white men, under Brandt, burned the Minisink settlement, and made several prisoners. In August, the Indians, with their tory associates, destroyed the settle- , ments at Canajoharic, and burned a number of houses at Schoharie and Norman's creek.
In October, these irruptions were renewed. Stone Arabia and several other places were attacked, and Schoharie afresh. A great extent of country about the Mohawk was laid waste and many of the settlers were killed or made prisoners.
Much public, as well as private embarrassment, was at this period experienced from the depreciation of the bills of credit. Congress had emitted these bills to an immense amount, which was not a little increased by the enemy, who counter- feited the bills, and circulated their forgeries among the states. This depreciation continued to increase, until the bills of credit, or the " continental currency," as it was called, became of little or no value.
SEC. X. 1780. The British continued to occupy their posts in the city of New York and its vicinity ; but no important enterprises were effected in this quarter. During the present and the succeeding year, the operations of the war were conducted chiefly in the Southern States, and were attended with various success.
Towards the close of the campaign of 1779, sir Henry. Clinton embarked, with a force of abore 7000 men, for the reduction of Charleston in South Carolina, which fell into the hands of the enemy on the 12th of May, 1780. General Gates was, soon after, appointed to command the southern division of the American army, and, on the 16th of August, came in contact with the British, under lord Cornwallis, at Camden. A sanguinary conflict ensued, in which the British were victorious.
A detachment of the enemy, consisting of 5000 men from the northern division, under general Kniphausen, made an tocursion into New Jersey, in June, plundered the country, and wantonly burned several villages. The spirits of the
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Americans, in the midst of these misfortunes, were revived by the arrival of M. de Ternay from France, early in July, with a squadron of seven sail of the line, five frigates, and five smaller armed vessels, with several transports, and a reinforce- ment of 6000 men, all under the command of lieutenant-gen- eral count de Rochambeau.
SEC. XI. A remarkable instance of treachery occurred the present year in the northern divis- ion of the American army. General Arnold, having solicited and obtained the command of West Point, entered into negotiations with sir Henry Clinton to deliver that important fortress into the hands of the enemy. The plot was, however, fortunately discovered seasonably to prevent its execution. Arnold escaped to the enemy, and Andre, the agent of the British, was ·taken, condemned and executed as a spy.
To facilitate the correspondence, a vessel, the Vulture, proceeded up the Hudson, and took a station as near West Point as practicable, without exciting suspicion. On the night of September the 21st, Andre went on shore in a boat, which was sent for him, and met Arnold at the beach. They remained here until it was too late for Andre to return to the Vulture, when Arnold conducted him within the American lines for concealment. During the ensuing day, the Vulture found it necessary to change her position, and Andre, being unable to get on board, attempted to return to New York, in disguise, by land.
Receiving a passport from Arnold, under the name of An- derson, he passed the guards and outposts without suspicion. At Tarrytown, 30 miles from New York, he was met by three militia soldiers,-John Paulding, David Williams and Isaac Van Wert. Showing his passport, he was suffered to proceed. Immediately after this, one of these men, thinking that he observed something singular in the appearance of the travel- ler, called him back. Andre asked them where they were
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from. "From down below," they replied, intending to say from New York. Too frank to suspect a snare, Andre im- mediately answered, "and so am I.".
Andre was immediately arrested, when he declared himself a British officer, and offered them his watch and a sum of gold to be released. The soldiers, though poor and obscure, were not to be bribed. They rejected his offers, and, on searching their prisoner, found in his boots several papers written by the hand of Arnold himself, containing the most detailed information with respect to the positions of the Americans, their munitions, the garrison of West Point, and the most suitable mode of directing an attack against that fortress. , Major Andre was conducted before the officer who commanded the advanced posts. Afraid of hurting Arnold by an immediate disclosure of his true character, and braving the danger of being instantly put to death as a spy, if it should be discovered that he had concealed his real name, he persisted in affirming that he was Anderson, as indicated by his passport. The American officer was at a loss what to decide ; he could not persuade himself that his general, after having so often shed his blood for the country, was now re- solved to betray it. These hesitations, the negations of An- dre, the distance* at which Washington, and even Arnold, found themselves, gave the latter time to escape. As soon as he heard that Andre was arrested, he threw himself into a boat, and hastened on board the Vulture. The news of this event excited universal amazement. The people could scarce- ly credit the treachery of a man, in whom they had so long placed the utmost confidence. The peril they had run filled them with consternation; the happy chance which had res- cued them from it appeared a prodigy.
When major Andre, from the time elapsed, could infer that Arnold must be in safety, he revealed his name and rank. He appeared less solicitous about his safety, than to prove that he was neither an impostor nor a spý. He endeavored to refute the appearances which seemed to depose against him. Hle affirmed that his intention had been merely to come and
* Washington had, at this time, gone to Hartford to hold a conference with count de Rochambeau.
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confer, upon neutral ground, with a person designated by his general; but that thence he had been trepanned and drawn within the American lines. From that moment, he added, none of his steps could be imputed to his default, since he then found himself in the power of others. Washington, meanwhile, having returned, created a court-martial ; among its members, besides many of the most distinguished Ameri can officers, were the marquis de la Fayette and the baron de Steuben. Major Andre appeared before his judges; they were specially charged to investigate and define the nature of the offence, and the punishment it involved, according to the laws of war. The demeanor of the young Englishman was equally remote from arrogance and from meanness. Ilis blooming years, the ingenuous cast of his features, the mild elegance of his manners, had conciliated him an interest in every heart.
In the meantime, Arnold, being safely arrived on board the Vulture, immediately wrote a letter to Washington. He im- pudently declared in it that it was the same patriotism, of which he had never ceased to give proofs since the origin of the contest, which had now prescribed him his present step, whatever men might think of it, always so ill judges of the actions of others. He added, that he asked nothing for him- self, having already but too much experience of the ingrati- tude of his country, but that he prayed and conjured the commander-in-chief to have the goodness to preserve his wife from the insults of an irritated people, by sending her to Philadelphia, among her friends, or by permitting her to come and rejoin him at New York. This letter was followed by a despatch from colonel Robinson, likewise dated on board the Vulture. He earnestly demanded that major Andre should be released, urging in his defence that he had gone ashore on public business, and under the protection of a flag, as well by the invitation of Arnold as by the command of his own general ; that he was the bearer of a regular passport for his return to New York ; that all his doings during the time he had passed with the Americans, and especially the change of his dress and name, had been dictated by the will of Ar- nold. The colonel concluded with alleging that the major
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