USA > New York > The old New York frontier : its wars with Indians and Tories, its missionary schools, pioneers, and land titles, 1614-1800 > Part 13
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* Some of these kettles were still in use among the Indians fifty years afterward.
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(The principal rendezvous of Indians, Tories, and British regulars. ) FORT OSWEGO
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THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY
trading posts, Oghwaga being perhaps his next most important centre. In 1755, General Shirley enlarged and strengthened the fort, but a year later it was captured by Montcalm, dismantled and laid in ruins. Here, in 1759, the fortress having been re- stored, were gathered the English forces which went westward, and gained possession of Fort Niagara.
During the Revolution Fort Oswego underwent considerable repairs. It never became a winter head- quarters, however, being found more serviceable as a rendezvous. Niagara was the place in which the Indians and many Tories spent the winter, and Niagara was the usual destination of the prisoners whom they captured on the frontier. At Oswego, until the last scene of the war, Indians, Tories, and regular troops were now to assemble for descents upon a defenceless frontier, easily reached by follow- ing the small lakes and rivers which there discharge their waters into Lake Ontario.
About 700 Indians were added to the British force in 1777, St. Leger taking command of the whole body, except the Indians whom Brant com- manded, the army now numbering 1,700 men, and St. Leger effecting its final organization at Oswego. The Indians were assured that if they would pro- ceed with St. Leger to Fort Schuyler,* they might sit down and smoke their pipes while they saw the British " whip the Rebels." Mary Jemison says the
* Formerly Fort Stanwix, which had been built in 1758, during the French War, and was named after General Stanwix, a British officer. General Schuyler in 1776, at the suggestion of Washington, had re- paired and strengthened it, and it had been renamed Fort Schuyler. Powder horns which soldiers carved during that summer in the fort bear this new name. Among the English, however, the fort was still called after its old name. Much confusion has resulted, and this has been emphasized by the fact that after the war, the old name of Fort Stanwix was restored.
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Senecas followed St. Leger to a man, but, instead of smoking pipes and looking on, they " were obliged to fight for their lives, and in the battle were com- pletely beaten." This conflict was Oriskany,* fought on August 6th.
Burgoyne's victorious march down the Cham- plain Valley and his easy capture of Fort Ticonder- oga, were already known to St. Leger when, with his motley band, he set out for Fort Schuyler, by way of Oneida Lake. He confidently believed that the fort would capitulate. But it now had a strong garri- son of 750 men, under Colonel Peter Gansevoort, with Colonel Marinus Willett second in command. It had provisions enough for six weeks, with a short supply of ammunition for cannon, though enough for the small arms. But it had no flag.
In June of this year, Congress had formally adopted the Stars and Stripes. Betsy Ross, that summer in Philadelphia, had made the first speci- men of the new American banner, but none had yet reached this fort on the western frontier. A rude specimen was therefore constructed in the fort, one tradition being, that the red material came from a flannel shirt, the white from a cotton shirt, and the blue from the petticoat of a soldier's wife. Above the ramparts this flag was hoisted, and it seems to be the first instance in history in which the Stars and Stripes were ever raised in the face of an enemy.
St. Leger invested Fort Schuyler on August 3d. A flag of truce was at once sent in, with a manifesto offering protection to all who might submit. The offer having met with a prompt refusal, the siege was begun on the following day, Indians completely surrounding the fort while concealed in the adjacent
* The meaning of this word, according to Morgan, is nettles.
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woods. A messenger was despatched to Burgoyne, announcing St. Leger's arrival ; St. Leger being in complete ignorance of the formidable obstacles that were obstructing that general's progress. Burgoyne had found himself with a supply of stores wholly inadequate, and not more than one-third of his horses had been able to follow him from Canada. His advance had been completely blocked. Seek- ing relief, he sent out the expedition to Bennington so disastrously overwhelmed on August 16th by General John Stark.
The people of Tryon County early in the sum- mer had learned of the coming of St. Leger, through Thomas Spencer, the Cherry Valley orator, who brought the news from Canada, after having gone there to observe the movements of the enemy. On hearing that St. Leger had reached Oswego, General Nicholas Herkimer issued a proclamation calling upon the frontiersmen to organize in defence of their homes. Men between sixteen and sixty years of age were urged to enter the service, while those above sixty were directed to defend the women and children. Herkimer gathered a force of between 800 and 1,000 men, a part of whom had gone with him to Unadilla to meet Brant.
German Flatts was now made the place of rendez- vous for the militia, and so soon as the fort was in- vested, General Herkimer set out for its relief. He went into camp on August 5th, about eight miles east of it. Here, some of the officers grew impatient at his delay. They urged an immediate advance, and accused Herkimer of disloyalty and cowardice. He remonstrated with them, and pointed out the need for reinforcements, but at last was obliged to yield. He gave the order to advance, only to find his army
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at the mercy of an ambuscade, with Brant leading the Indians and Colonel Butler his own Rangers. This surprise occurred at a ravine, semi-circular in form, and marshy at the bottom, which crossed the road Herkimer had to follow. Stone has best de- scribed the scene of wild slaughter that followed :
Being thrown into irretrievable disorder by the sudden- ness of the surprise and the destructiveness of the fire, which was close and brisk from every side, the division was for a time threatened with annihilation. At every op- portunity the savages, concealed behind the trunks of trees, darted forward with knife and tomahawk to insure the de- struction of those who fell; and many and fierce were the conflicts that ensued hand to hand. The veteran Herki- mer fell, wounded, in the early part of the action-a mus- ket-ball having passed through and killed his horse, and shattered his own leg just below the knee. The General was placed upon his saddle, however, against the trunk of a tree for his support, and thus continued to order the battle. Colonel Cox, and Captains Davis and Van Sluyck, were severally killed near the commencement of the engagement ; and the slaughter of their broken ranks, from the rifles of the Tories and the spears and tomahawks of the Indians was dreadful. But even in this deplorable situation the wounded General, his men dropping like leaves around him, and the forest resounding with the horrid yells of the savages, ringing high and wild over the din of battle, be- haved with the most perfect composure.
The action had lasted about forty-five minutes in great disorder, before the Provincials formed themselves into circles in order to repel the attacks of the enemy, who were concentrating and closing in upon them from all sides. From this moment the resistance of the Provincials was more effective, and the enemy attempted to charge with the bayonet. The firing ceased for a time, except the scattering discharges of musketry from the Indians; and as the bayonets crossed the contest became a death-struggle,
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hand to hand and foot to foot. Never, however, did brave men stand a charge with more dauntless courage, and the enemy, for the moment, seemed to recoil-just at the in- stant when the work of death was arrested by a heavy shower of rain which suddenly broke upon the combatants with great fury.
During this suspension of the battle, both parties had time to look about, and make such new dispositions as they pleased for attack and defence on renewing the murderous conflict. In the early part of the battle, the Indians, when- ever they saw a gun fired by a militia-man from behind a tree, rushed upon and tomahawked him before he could re- load. In order to counteract this mode of warfare, two men were stationed behind a single tree, one only to fire at a time-the other reserving his fire until the Indians ran up as before. The fight was presently renewed and by the new arrangement, and the cool execution done by the fire of the militia forming the main circle, the Indians were made to suffer severely ; so much so that they began to give way, when Major Watts came up with a reinforcement, consisting of another detachment of Johnson's Greens. These men were mostly loyalists who had fled from Try- on County, now returned in arms against their former neighbors.
As no quarrels are so bitter as those of families, so no wars are so cruel and passionate as those called civil. Many of the Provincials and Greens were known to each other ; and as they advanced so near as to afford opportu- nities of mutual recognition, the contest became, if possible, more of a death-struggle than before. Mutual resentment and feeling of hate raged in their bosoms. The Provin- cials fired upon them as they advanced, and then, springing like chafed tigers from their covers, attacked them with their bayonets and the butts of their muskets, or both par- ties, in closer contact, throttled each other and drew their knives, stabbing, and sometimes literally dying in one an- other's embrace.
·
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The parties once more rushed upon each other with bayonet and spear, grappling and fighting with terrible fury ; while the shattering of shafts and the clashing of steel, mingled with every dread sound of war and death, and the savage yells, more hideous than all, presented a scene which can be more easily imagined than described.
Such a conflict as this could not be continued long ; and the Indians, perceiving with what ardor the Provincials maintained the fight, and finding their own numbers sadly diminished, now raised the retreating cry of " Oonah ! " and fled in every direction, under the shouts and hurrahs of the surviving Provincials and a shower of bullets. Find- ing, moreover, from the firing at the fort that their pres- ence was necessary elsewhere, the Greens and Rangers now retreated precipitately, leaving the victorious militia of Tryon County masters of the field.
Oriskany, essentially an accident of war, was a place of frightful slaughter, considering the number engaged, 200 Americans being killed, and as many more made prisoners. General Herkimer died after- ward from his wounds, and among the others killed, was Thomas Spencer. Colonel Samuel Campbell, of Cherry Valley, succeeded Herkimer in command. It was when their ammunition gave out that the combatants engaged at close quarters in that wild struggle on marshy ground, with muskets, bayonets, knives, and tomahawks. The Indians lost about 100 men, of whom thirty-six were Senecas. As many more Tories, and British regulars were slain. Mary Jemison describes the Senecas as returning home in excessive mourning, expressed by "the most doleful yells, shrieks, and howlings and by inimitable gesticulations."
It is interesting to recall here, that had General Herkimer chosen to fight at Unadilla, he could have won with seeming ease. Thus the slaughter at
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Oriskany might have been averted. In October, Brant declared in a letter that at Unadilla he had only 200 available warriors and not twenty pounds of powder, which was probably true; his assertion to Herkimer that he had 500 men, having been made for effect.
Meanwhile, during the battle, Colonel Willett had led a sortie from the fort with 250 men, giving such a surprise to Sir John Johnson, that his men were put to flight, and the Indians retreated to the woods. While Willett held possession of the camp of the enemy, seven wagons were obtained from the fort and three trips were necessary to carry back into it the rich spoils Willett captured, which in- cluded all the papers of the officers and five British standards. Not a man was lost in this enterprise. The British flags were soon hoisted over the fort, upsidedown, below that rude specimen of the Stars and Stripes.
St. Leger soon renewed the siege. On August Ioth, Colonel Willett, in the hope of raising an- other force to relieve the garrison, emerged from the fort at night, with one other officer. The two men tramped through the woods some forty miles east- ward-a dangerous undertaking, with Indians lurk- ing about, but successfully executed, under great hardships. They were armed only with a spear, and had no provisions except crackers and cheese, and a canteen of spirits. When their supplies were ex- hausted, they lived on berries. Having reached German Flatts, Colonel Willett on horseback rode to Albany, returning with Arnold to German Flatts, where the troops assembled to march for relief of the fort.
Arnold's coming alarmed St. Leger. That ac-
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complished general had contrived to get false news to the enemy, indicating that the force approaching was much larger than it really was. This resulted, on August 22d, in a hasty retreat of the motley band which had been storming the walls of this wil- derness fortress. They fled with so much haste that much of their baggage and ammunition was left behind, all of which gave great astonishment to Colonel Gansevoort and his men in the fort, who knew nothing of the cause for the strange retreat they witnessed from its ramparts.
Such was Oriskany ; a battle which Horatio Sey- mour and others have ranked as the decisive con- flict of the Revolution. As Bennington made sup- plies impossible for Burgoyne, so did Oriskany dash to the ground his hopes of reinforcements. Meanwhile the Americans holding Burgoyne in check added constantly to their numbers until they surpassed his forces three to one, and after an inef- fectual attempt to break through their lines, where Arnold once more distinguished himself, Burgoyne was forced to surrender.
But for this frontier the battle of Oriskany had a more personal and deeper significance. The British had now definitely secured the co-operation of the Indians in furthering their ambition to obtain control of the Hudson Valley. No student of the local his- tory that followed can fail to observe how, in Oris- kany, was begun that border fighting which, for the next five years, desolated the Susquehanna, Dela- ware, Schoharie, and Mohawk Valleys. Out of Oriskany, as effects from causes, came the burning of Springfield and German Flatts, the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, the expeditions of Colonel William Butler, General John Sullivan and
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Sir John Johnson ; the battles of Minisink, Johns- town and Klock's Field, by which not alone were the homes of frontiersmen made desolate, but in greater degree those of the Indians themselves.
Heretofore the Indians in large part had shown their intentions to be, if not those of perfect peace, certainly not those of aggressive and initiatory war- fare. When the Senecas returned howling and shrieking to their homes the premonitions of war on the settlements had been heard. Tryon Coun- ty, whose militiamen were recruited from the set- tlers, was to pay the penalty of the Indian losses. Back to Oghwaga and the Mohawk went the Iro- quois, and for all the years that the war lasted it was now Indians and now white men who burned vil- lages, destroyed cattle and food, captured prisoners and killed men and women. We have been taught to hold the red man's deeds in horror as unpro- voked atrocities, but as this narrative goes forward it will be an act of justice to remember the remarks of Stone and Campbell that no son of the forest has ever written a history of the Border Wars. In all Stone's stately octavos is no more impressive passage than the one in which he cites Æsop's fable of the lion and the forester standing before a piece of sculpture representing a man triumphant over a lion. With a lion for sculptor the relative positions of man and beast would certainly have been re- versed. And so with a Mohawk Indian for his- torian of the Border Wars. We should have had different chronicles.
In this warfare personal revenge prompted the red man, but not the British. The Rangers of Colonel Butler, the Royal Greens of Sir John Johnson, the regulars, Yägers, and Tories who co-
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operated with Brant in laying desolate the valleys of four rivers were deliberate and component parts of the campaigns waged in America to uphold the headstrong policy of a king gone wrong. Few facts are clearer than that these frontier campaigns had direct relation to the great conflict going on in more settled parts. Their purpose was to make harass- ing attacks where Washington could not wisely re- pel them, for to repel them would have been to weaken himself in localities where he ought to re- main strong.
Washington's skill as a commander has impressed students most by the masterful way in which he made use of small resources. It is the chief marvel in his career that a nation which had won success on the Continent in a titanic war only half a generation before, and which, a generation later, was to wage war successfully against Napoleon, failed to subdue the armies of Washington in America. He well under- stood his own weakness-the inferiority of his troops, alike in their numbers and in their military expe- rience-but he perceived, with the faultless eye of a war genius, that to England success might be pos- sible on the seaboard, but difficult in the interior ; for to that territory retreat lay always open to him.
Hence, his campaigns were defensive. He was never aggressive, except when, as happened at Tren- ton and Princeton, at Monmouth and Yorktown, he found the enemy at complete disadvantage. Well might Cornwallis call him " an old fox " whom he had run down one day on the Delaware and vainly believed he could bag the next morning- a morning which, instead, brought to Washington the splendid victory of Trenton, followed soon afterward by that masterful triumph at Princeton
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MONUMENT ON THE HILL-SIDE OVERLOOKING THE RAVINE AT ORISKANY
THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY
which moved the aged Frederic the Great to send him a sword.
In this frontier warfare, as in the campaign of Burgoyne, the British sought to weaken Washing- ton from the rear. With the Indians for allies after Oriskany, their aim each summer thenceforth was to attract away from the Hudson Valley forces sta- tioned for its defence. In that lay the purpose of the expeditions to Wyoming and Cherry Valley, the forces sent out to meet General Sullivan and the campaigns that, in the last year but one of the war lighted conflagrations throughout the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys, and struck terror to the hearts of their defenceless people.
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PART V
Overthrow of the Frontier 1777-1778
I
Alarm Among the Settlements
1777-1778
S CARCELY had the noise of battle died away from Oriskany and Fort Schuyler, when fresh invasions from Indians and Tories occurred. Bands of them speedily returned to the Susque- hanna Valley, invaded the Delaware settlements from Oghwaga and made depredations in Schoharie. Late in August a committee complained from Scho- harie to the Council of Safety, that while they had long foreseen the storm, and made repeated requests for aid, they had "received nothing in return but false epistles, neglect and contempt." The troops promised, had been "sent another way," and they had been " mocked with inconsistent letters, request- ing us to defend ourselves, at a time when almost all the neighboring settlements and the greater part of our own inhabitants were actually in arms against us."
They had not received one man for assistance, "except a small party of the light-horse, which Colonel Harper procured at the risk of his life, and six Frenchmen, raised at his own expense." When Colonel Harper went out to enlist men for service, he found they had been so intimidated by the Tories that he was unable to enlist any considerable body. At Harpersfield the people had fallen into the hands of a Tory named McDonald, "who
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swore them not to take up arms against the king." They declared that " one-half of this valuable settle- ment of Schoharie lies in ruins and desolation, our houses plundered, our cattle destroyed, and our well- affected inhabitants taken prisoners and sworn not to discover the enemies' plots or proceedings." The committee added that Indians and Tories were lurking in the woods, waiting for another reinforce- ment, while the harvest, " the best in the memory of man," was "lying rotting in the fields," and they saw nothing but utter destruction before them .*
On September 10th, a militia force of 500 men was promised, but it seems not to have done any service. In October it was known that Oswego had become a rendezvous for Indians, under Brant, and for Tories and regulars under Colonel Butler, and Colonel Guy Carleton. Later reports said their numbers were rapidly increasing. Finally it was asserted that 6,000 men had been assembled there. New attacks were anticipated, and pathetic appeals were again made.
Not a patriot now remained in Unadilla. Indians were fortifying the place. Eastward along the Sus- quehanna, the whole country was deserted, except that Harpersfield had become a recognized settle- ment of Tories. To Unadilla meanwhile went deserters from the American army, and runaway negroes. By the middle of November, Unadilla had become a haunt of some of the worst elements brought into activity by the Border Wars.
The size of the force of white men and Indians at Oswego indicated the energy with which was to be renewed the campaign St. Leger had lost. As St. Leger had been expected to weaken the Ameri-
* Clinton Papers, vol. ii.
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ALARM AMONG SETTLEMENTS
can forces opposing Burgoyne, so now was Colonel Butler * to attract away from the Hudson the men needed for its defence. Sir Henry Clinton, Howe's successor in the British command, abandoned Phila- delphia in the spring and started for New York. Washington followed him, turning defeat into vic- tory at Monmouth, and then made his way north- ward to the Highlands of the Hudson. While Washington held Clinton in check, Tories and Indians were to harass the frontier. All through the summer of 1778, this work went on successfully, meeting with no effective opposition. Cobleskill, Springfield, and Wyoming, tell the story of the summer's work. It ended in November with the crowning tragedy of the New York frontier- - the massacre of Cherry Valley.
But we must first recall certain earlier events. When the winter of 1777-78 came on, the main body of Indians and Tories had retired from Oswe- go to Niagara, but a considerable number of Indians remained to spend that season in Unadilla and Oghwaga. William Johnston, Jr., went down from Cherry Valley in January as a spy, and learned that the Indian chiefs had received from Niagara letters of instruction, and that another messenger had gone with letters to the English in New York. Thus was established close connection with the central enterprise of the war-the capture of the Hudson
* Butler commanded a body of irregular troops known as Butler's Rangers, recruited from Tories and others who sought refuge at Oswego. Butler's Rangers played a conspicuous part in all the Border Wars. In 1778 barracks were erected for them opposite Fort Niagara, where has since grown up the small village known as Niagara-on-the- Lake. On the outskirts of this village, still stands the guard-house of Butler's Rangers. A mile distant, is the farm Butler lived on, after the war, and in the soil of which he lies buried. On the walls of the village church (St. Mark's) a laudatory tablet has been raised to Butler's memory.
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Valley. Colonel Butler, during the winter, entered into a new treaty with the Indians, making presents, " and in particular 300 of Burgoyne's silver medals to their young warriors."
Early in this period, after the Rev. William John- ston had in vain asked for troops to be sent to Cherry Valley, a petition, signed by about sixty citi- zens of that place, was sent to Governor Clinton as follows :
We have repeated information, and doubt not but it's good authority, of the preparations Tories and Indians are making at Yunadilla and Augquaga, where they have re- course to the whole Old England District for their sup- porters. Brant and his warriors are preparing to pay us a visit, which we fear will be shortly, as it is but about forty miles march for them. Some families are leaving their farms and moving down into the country, and we have great reason to fear it will be the case with us or fall a prey to their savage barbarities.
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