USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, from its earliest traditions to the present together with early town sketches > Part 14
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For months before, at intervals, the subject of Indian outrages had been considered in Congress. In truth, twice in the previous year that body had resolved to fit out an expedition against the Senecas and other western tribes. In October preceding, the subject had been referred to Governor George Clinton and Generals Schuyler and Hand, who conceived it too late in the season to prepare for an enter- prise of such magnitude. The massacre of Wyoming had, indeed, called forth special resolutions. But other matters were suffered to interfere, and no action resulted from such well-worded sympathy. Now, however, New York, a leading member of the Federation, had taken a decisive step toward protecting the outlying districts; and Congress feeling the justice of the demand, listened to the communica- tion with an attention which presaged good result. Bold George Clinton was Governor of New York. He had held a seat in the Con- tinental Congress, and its members were aware that he would yield to no tardy policy; indeed, he intended to conduct the expedition in person. And the Legislature, it was known, contained members equally earnest, who, when once enlisted in such a work, would be content with nothing savoring of procrastination.
The Congress, therefore, without further delay, applauded the "spirited exertions of the New York Legislature to facilitate such en- terprise," and directed that the State's militia contingent raised for
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this purpose be allowed rations and Continental pay. Proper meas- ures were also taken to collect an army of ample strength to effect the object. Washington, no doubt, was quite ready to approve this action. He had passed the previous winter in Philadelphia, where Congress was sitting, to deliberate with the Board of War about the campaign of 1779, and, especially to urge action in respect to Indian outrages along the frontier. Correspondence with General Hand, who appears to have devoted particular attention to the subject of a western expedition, shows that he had been carefully examining the routes best to be taken, and securing information having particular regard to the distance and face of the country, and kind of naviga- tion. But the result of these deliberations could not have been en- couraging to the chief at that session, for our Continental council did not partake of his anxiety in respect to the situation of public affairs. To him the period was a momentous one. The country, exhausted by years of war, needed rest. Bread was scarce, wages were high, and employment abundant, while the pay of the soldier was small and uncertain, and the terms of many were about expiring. The army, indeed, had begun to melt away. The alliance with France had pro- duced a baneful feeling of security, which, it appeared to him, was paralyzing the energies of the country. England, it was thought, would now be too much occupied in securing her position in Europe to increase her force or extend her operations in America. Many, therefore, considered the war as virtually at an end, and were unwill- ing to make the sacrifices or supply the means necessary for important military operations. "Dissensions and party feuds were breaking out in Congress, owing to the relaxation of that external pressure of a common and imminent danger, which had heretofore produced a unity of sentiment and action." Congress had. in fact, greatly deter- iorated "since the commencement of the war. Many of those whose names had been as watchwords at the Declaration of Independence, had withdrawn from the National councils, occupied either by their in- dividual affairs or by the affairs of their individual States. "1 Never too sanguine, Washington was now beguiled into no feeling of secur- ity; but the country was languid and exhausted, and had need of rest. and, all things considered, be deemed it wise to allow America "a breathing time." He therefore assented to a defensive policy for the
I. Irving's Washington.
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approaching campaign, with the single exception of this Western ex- pedition against the Indians.
He held that Indian warfare, to be effective, should not be merely defensive, but that we must make "war upon them in their own style : penetrate their country, lay waste their villages and settlements, and, at the same time, destroy the British post'at Niagara, that nestling place of Tories and refugees." This policy prevailed, and the cam- paign, now finally decided upon, was set on foot at once. It consisted at the outset of an expedition from Fort Schuyler, under Colonel Van Schaick, with six hundred men, who, on the 19th of April, surprised and destroyed the Indian villages of Onondaga, and got back to camp without loss. The principal expedition of the campaign, however, was that to Western New York, under General Sullivan. Washington had devoted much thought as to the best route by which to reach the Indian settlements, and his leading officers were consulted, as we have seen. General Schuyler, more familiar with the country than others, believed that the most eligible course would be to ascend the Mohawk river, and continue thence westward to the Seneca villages, and, if practicable, to Niagara. There were difficulties, however, in this plan, and, upon the whole, the line adopted was doubtless the best. It was Washington's original design that General Brodhead, who left Pittsburg in August of that year, with six hundred men, and destroyed several Indian towns on the Allegheny and other trib- utaries of the Ohio, should form a junction with Sullivan; but this part of the campaign was afterward abandoned.
The command of the expedition had been tendered by Washington to General Gates; but that officer, ever jealous of the Commander-in- chief, declined the service in a cold and uncourteous letter. The leadership was then offered to General Sullivan, who accepted and entered with alacrity upon the honorable and responsible duty.
The headquarters of the force was first established at Easton, Penn- sylvania, from which point a general order for the arrangement and marching of the army was issued on the 24th of May. In the latter part of June the troops moved to Wyoming, then recently the scene of that bloody massacre, which had so shocked the sensibilities of Christendom. By the last of July three thousand troops were as- sembled at Wyoming, and at one o'clock on the afternoon of the 31st of that month, the army commenced its march for Tioga, by way of
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the western branch of the Susquehanna river, the stores and artillery being conveyed up that stream in a hundred and fifty boats. 1
This expedition, so fruitful in good results, was attended with more than its share of painful incident at each step of formation and earlier movements. At the outset, the officers of a Jersey regiment hesitated to obey marching orders. Washington received the intelli- gence of their wavering "with infinite concern," and declared that nothing had happened in the course of the war which gave him so much pain as their action. He was fully sensible of the justice of their demands. He was aware that they had appealed, without effect, to the Legislature of their State on the subject of the arrear- ages of their pay; that they had urged the starving condition of their families, and the burthen of accumulating debt; that their appeal had been slighted, and that they had obtained no satisfaction whatever. They next remonstrated. "Our pay, " said they, "is only nominal, not real. Four months' pay of a private soldier will not procure his wretched wife and children a single bushel of wheat! The situation of your officers is worse. The pay of a colonel of your regiment will not purchase oats for his horse, nor will his whole day's pay procure him a single dinner." The remonstrance closed by urging that un- less immediate relief was afforded they would be under the necessity of quitting the service, and, unless provision for arrears was made in three days, they must be considered as having resigned. The emer- gency was serious. The cause of complaint was widespread and well founded: and had not Washington now exerted his powerful influence, as well with the civil authorities as with the army, the expedition might have failed at this stage. But he succeeded in securing atten- tion to the appeal. The memorial was withdrawn and the pay sent to the regiments, who promptly took their places in the brigade, to vindicate anew throughout the campaign their reputation, won cn many a battlefield, for unflinching valor.
It is said that Sullivan's requisitions embraced many articles
1. The army, as it now moved out, was composed as follows:
Gen. Hand's Brigade-Hubley's and the German regiment, and Schott's and Spaulding's Independent Corps, composing Light Corps,
Gen. Maxwell's Brigade-Dayton's, Shreeve's, Olden's, Spence's regiments.
Gen. Poor's Brigade-Cilley's, Reed's, Scammel's, Cortlandt's regiments.
Total fit for duty July 22: Brig. Generals, 3; Colonels, 7; Lt. Colonels, 6; Majors, 8; Captains, 48; chaplains, 3; Surgeons, 10; Drift Majors, 8; Fife Majors 3; Drummers and Fifers, 131, rank and file, 2,312.
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deemed extravagant by the Board of War. Among other things, a large number of eggs were called for, while the quantity of rifle pow- der was greater, the board thought, than could in any event be neces- sary. It is certain that Congress received the requisitions with dista- vor, and tardily granted orders for such supplies as by them were regarded essential. All this tended to delay the movement, and give publicity to what it had been designed to keep secret. Washington meantime, grew anxious, and urged that success depended upon ce- lerity. The commissariat, even at last, was but illy supplied either in quantity or quality. On reaching Wyoming not a pound of salted meat remaining was fit to eat , and in other departments contractors had equally wronged the public service. Sullivan says that more than a third of his men were without a shirt to their backs. Many of the cattle furnished him were too poor to walk and some were even unable to stand. Of the fourteen hundred horses provided, at least fifty were worn out and unable to travel further than a single day's march beyond the Chemung river, where they were abandoned and ordered shot. The Indians afterward gathered the heads of these slaughtered animals and arranged them beside the trail. From this circumstance the locality derived its present name of Horseheads.
On the 11th of August the army arrived at Tioga. A mile above the junction of the Tioga and Susquehanna rivers they approached each other to within a few rods. "Here a fort was built called Fort Sullivan, while the army, somewhat fatigued lay on what might almost be called an island below," awaiting the arrival of Clinton's division. The water of the Susquehanna, through which the troops had to pass, was up to their arm-pits, and to preserve the ammunition dry they hung their cartouch boxes upon their bayonets, carried high above their heads. From this point Sullivan detailed General Poor with a detachment of seven hundred men to meet Clinton. The precaution proved a wise one, for, after traversing thirty miles or more of wilderness, the detail came upon a body of Indians lying in ambush beside a well beaten trail at Round Hill, near Choconut creek, awaiting the coming of Clinton. The Indians were surprised, and being driven down the bank and dispersed, the detachment moved on and soon after came up with Clinton's division. After a brief halt the latter's march southward was resumed.
The advent of Clinton's army into the region of Otsego lake, with a
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well appointed force, was an event so unexpected to the Indians and so formidable in character, that a widespread terror seized their families, and they fled in large numbers across the country. first, to near New- town, and, after the battle of the latter place, to the homes of the Senecas on the Genesee, where, remote from white settlements, they fancied themselves secure, little suspecting the blow, now preparing through the agency of this very force, to fall upon those distant towns.1
At ten o'clock on Sunday morning, the 22d of August, General Clin- ton appeared with his division, in two hundred and ten boats. Salvos of artillery announced their arrival. The light corps was drawn up, Colonel Proctor's music was advanced to the front, and, with drums beating and fifes playing, the division floated past the light corps to the camp of the main army. The force, with this addition, now num- bered about five thousand men.
Clinton's division, consisting of sixteen hundred men, had come from the valley of the Mohawk, by way of Otsego lake and the easterly bank of the Susquehanna. As he neared Sullivan he dispatched a small detachment under command of Lieutenant Boyd. whose untimely tate a few days later near Conesus lake gives a tragic coloring to the expedition's history, to announce his coming; he arrived at the general headquarters in a soaking rain.
The baggage was now got ready for the march. Several tents were cut up and a considerable force was detailed for work through the day and night, to make up this material into Bour sacks convenient for transporting on horseback.
Having attained a comparatively open country, the line of march was arranged in the following order: General Hand's brigade in front in eight columns; Gen. Poor's brigade on the right in eight columns, flanked by a strong body of light troops; Gen. Maxwell's brigade on the left in eight columns, flanked by light troops; Gen. Clinton's brigade, in eight columns, in the rear; Col. Proctor's artil-
1. In 18to, Judge Avery, of Flint, Michigan, saw, on the Grand river, in Canada, a venerable squaw nearly a hundred years old, of the Nanticoke tribe, named l'ar-way, who was born at Choconut, and resided near that place at the time Clinton's army was on its way to form a june- tion with Sullivan. She recollected perfectly the dismay occasioned by that event, and also the flight with her people to the Genesee to seek safety, and when driven from the Seneca villages along the latter river by Sullivan, the continued fight with others, to Niagara. On the return of peace, f'ar-way and her mother (she lost her father in the Newton battle) came back with others and settled near Owego, where they recovered their kettles and other valuables left buried when they fled westward. Judge Avery has used his interesting pen with marked success in rescuing many a fugitive leaf of early history from destruction.
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lery in the center, flanked on the right and left by double files of pack horses, which separated his command from Poor's and Maxwell's brig- ades; Major Parr, with the riflemen, disposed considerably in front of the whole, with orders to reconnoitre all suspicious places previous to the arrival of the army. Colonel Cortland's regiment was added to Clinton's division, Olden's to Poor's brigade, and Butler's regiment and Major Parr's corps to Hand's brigade.
On the 26th of August the signal gun was fired, and the whole army took up its line of march. A great and unknown wilderness-formida- ble obstacles to the movement of in army -- spread before then. Unbridged creeks and rivers were to be forded, mountain defiles to be threaded, and morasses to be crossed. The maps of the country were full of errors; while the guides, even the best that could be procured. were so little acquainted with the route that they "could not conduct a party out of the Indian path by day nor in it by night." General Hand had been informed that the region between the Chemung river and the Genesee was in great part particularly low, wet and swampy, and could be travelled only with difficulty, and so informed Washing- ton in March; yet nothing, as we know, could well be further from the truth. A wily foe, perfectly familiar with every pass, and at home on every trail, hovered always upon their flanks. Pioneers moved invar- iably in advance, and riflemen were disposed in front to reconnoitre suspicious places, and thus prevent surprise. But while these precau- tions were taken to guard against disaster, confidence and good nature prevailed throughout the ranks, and neither officers nor men were unmindful of the demands of the palate. Besides the usual supplies, the Commander carried dried tongues and other articles of like char- acter; and a number of live cattle were driven along to supply them with fresh meat. The general officers were entertained at Sullivan's table, where, with characteristic freedom, he criticised the Congress, and particularly the Board of War. This impolitic course, though evincing independence, was cause for much after controversy and personal embroilment.
Six light brass field pieces and two howitzers were carried by the artillery. The morning and evening guns were always fired, even in the deepest recesses of the forest ; and much as Sullivan was criticised. even on the floor of Congress, for thus notifying the Indians of his progress and whereabouts, he never justified his course as he might
.
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have done, by quoting his orders from the Commander-in-chiet him- self. These orders in the handwriting of Hamilton, and bearing Washington's autograph signature, are still in existence.
Sullivan was familiar with Indian warfare, and was well aware of the terror which the discharge of cannon occasioned in the Indian mind. The peace of New England had in a measure been preserved by providing a "big gun" for exposed settlements, to be now and then fired from the little garrison house. Indeed, the shaking of a linstock by a woman over an unloaded cannon, proved enough on a notable occasion to hold at bay a band of savages. As the expedition was no longer a secret, be determined to make the most of this feeling of dread on the part of the red man. In his special orders of the 31st of May, Washington said, "The immediate objects (of the expedition) are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible." Washington had hoped to keep the route of the army a secret, but this was obvi- ously impracticable; and as the natives, encumbered by little or no baggage and familiar with the country, could easily keep out of the way of forces whose progress at best must be necessarily slow, it be- came apparent at once that an effective campaign must have for its object the destruction of their settlements, since he could take no prisoners; and even if he had been able to do so, no suitable provision could be made for their maintenance or transportation. The morning and evening guns afforded little information as to the army's where- abouts, for the Indian runners were constantly watching its progress and reporting its movements to the retreating chieftains.
Washington was well aware of the effect of dash and clamor, and he particularly suggested that when going to attack the Indians, "it should be done with as much impetuosity, shouting, and noise as pos- sible, " and that it should be "impressed upon the minds of the men whenever they have an opportunity, to rush on with the warwhoop and fixed bayonet. Nothing will disconcert and terrify the Indians more than this."
On Sunday, the 29th of August, the expedition arrived at Newtown, near the present city of Elmira. The Indians and Tories, one thousand strong, under the Butlers and Brant, were here found intrenched behind well constructed earthworks, a short distance below the modern city, at a point wisely chosen for defence. Sullivan at once began to
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engage them by opening his field pieces upon their defences, mean- time detaching General Hand's light troops to the left and Poor to the right around the mountain, the latter to fall upon their left flank and thus cut off their retreat in that direction. Poor was obliged, how- ever, to march over a mile in full view of the enemy, who readily penetrated his design. They observed, too, that when he opened signal fire other movements were making to surround them; and seeing that opposition was useless, they delayed no longer, but sounding the wild retreating whoop at once quitted their works and betook them- selves to precipitate flight, the artillery's well directed cannonade sery- ing, meantime, to quicken their motions. The engagement lasted two hours. Sullivan had seven men killed and about thirty wounded. The enemy suffered more seriously, and were pushed so closely that in their retreat Walter Butler's commission and the warrant of another Tory officer, together with several orderly books, fell into our hands. The defeat proved decisive. The leaders could not, during the whole progress of the expedition, again bring the savages face to face with the army marching to invade their homes, and though ever on the watch to embarrass its movements and to strike a stealthy blow, they were obliged constantly to retreat, slowly and sullenly, before the steadily advancing expedition.
After the war, Brant told General Peter B. Porter, that Red Jacket, whose great influence was first fully exerted in connection with this expedition, sought to perplex the Indians by holding private councils with the young chiefs and more timid sachems, to induce them to sue for peace, even on humiliating terms. Colonel Stone says that at one time Red Jacket so far succeeded in his plan as to send secretly a run- ner into Sullivan's camp, to make known the divisions existing among the Indians, and to advise the General to dispatch a flag of truce with certain propositions calculated to increase these divisions and to secure a peace dishonorable to them. Brant was privately informed of these proceedings, but fearful to disclose them, detailed two conti- dential warriors to waylay and kill the bearer of the flag of truce be- fore he should reach the Indian camp.
The little Indian village of Newtown was laid in ashes, and the surrounding crops of corn and beans were also destroyed. From this point, on the night succeeding the battle, General Sullivan sent back to Pennsylvania his heavy artillery, retaining only four brass three-
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pounders and a small howitzer. Having loaded the necessary ammu- nition on horseback, and being otherwise ready, the army resumed the march early next morning for Catharine's Town, the home of the half-blood Queen Catharine Montour, which lay on a creek about three miles from Seneca lake, encamping at nightfall within thirteen miles of that village. The next day a road was opened for the artillery. through a hemlock swamp, mine miles in extent. Over this, as well as through several dangerous defiles, the army was now to pass. It had also to ford a swift running river which in many places was consider- ably broad and waist deep, while its course was so serpentine that it had to be crossed seven or eight times in the day's march. Sullivan was cautioned by his scouts against entering the swamp until daylight, and Clinton, who brought up the rear and was much fatigued, on reaching its entrance at nightfall was so strongly assured that the lives of his horses and cattle, if not of his men, would be risked if he tried to go through before morning, that he did not attempt the task till the next day. Sullivan, however, pressed on, determined to cross that night. Flanking parties were accordingly sent forward, and other precautions taken against surprise ; but such was the boldness of the hills and so narrow were the defiles, that a score of two of Indians might easily have obstructed the progress of the troops and thrown the army into confusion. The night was intensely dark, and as the men slowly groped their way, often sinking deep into the treacher- ous ground, they became weary and scattered, and not a few lay down here and there on the pathway for the night, unable to go farther. The situation was one of no little peril; but fully alive to its demands the General encouraged his army forward, and by midnight had the satisfaction of reaching the already deserted town. The Indian scouts had keenly watched the army until evening, but having no thought that they would continue the march in a night so dark, over a route presenting so many difficulties, they made their way at dusk to the town where, roasting their corn, they passed the evening busily in planning for the next day, the resolute commander of the invading forces meantime pushing forward his troops, amid difficulties whose daring character, singularly enough, secured him from the dangers incident to the movement. Such a stroke was characteristic of Sul- livan. Washington, well aware of his intrepidity and dauntless cour- age, had selected him as chief officer of the expedition, which involved
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