USA > Wyoming > Wyoming; its history, stirring incidents, and romantic adventures > Part 6
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The garrison held out, and a re-enforcement of two hundred militia, on the day following, drove the scat- tering parties of Indians and Tories from the neigh- borhood. They kept their position until the next sum- mer, when they joined General Clinton in his march into the Indian country with General Sullivan.
Cherry Valley was a scene of desolation, and exhib- ited every where the saddest mementoes of heartless cruelty. Mr. Campbell says: "The mangled remains of those who had been killed were brought in, and re- ceived as decent an interment as circumstances would permit. The most wanton acts of cruelty had been committed, but the detail is too horrible, and I will not pursue it further. The whole settlement exhibited an aspect of entire and complete desolation. The cocks crew from the tops of the forest trees, and the dogs howled through the fields and woods. The inhab- itants who escaped, with the prisoners who were set at liberty, abandoned the settlement."
Some of those scenes we often heard described in our childhood by those who witnessed them. We were raised in old Tryon County, in Middlefield, equidistant from Cherry Valley and Cooperstown. The settlement
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in Middlefield, then called "Newtown Martin," was de- stroyed, and the people scattered. Some of them lived to return and spend the remainder of their lives on the soil which had been stained with the blood of their rel- atives and neighbors. Old Mrs. Writer-who used to be called " Aunt Recter"-once related to our excel- lent mother, while we sat by her side, the story of her captivity and sufferings. She was stripped of all her clothing except her chemise and under-skirt. There was a most beautiful girl of her acquaintance who was the admiration of all. As Mrs. Writer- then Miss Cook-was hurried along by her captors, she saw a stout Indian cut the throat of the beautiful girl refer- red to a few steps before her. As she passed she saw her in her death-struggle. Her nose, her ears, her eye- lids, and her breasts were cut off, and her rosy cheeks were deeply gashed. All this barbarous mangling of the poor girl was inflicted while she was alive, as a matter of sport and derision. Could fiends have de- vised deeds of such abominable atrocity ?
When the company encamped a large belt of scalps was brought to her, and she was ordered to dress them, being instructed by the squaws. The process consist- ed in stretching them - spatting them between her hands, and then laying them out to dry. Every scalp, as she took it up, reminded her of some friend or ac- quaintance. She finally took up one which she thought was her mother's. It was the scalp of a female, and she almost knew to a certainty that it was covered with the very hair which she had so often combed and dressed. She wept; but the lifted tomahawk, and ma- nipulations which indicated that her own scalp would soon come off, dried up her tears. Her mother, how- ever, had not been killed. She lived to a great age,
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and died near the head of Otsego Lake. She was call- ed " Aunt Molly M'Allum," and Mrs. Writer was half sister to Daniel M'Allum, the captive boy of whom we have elsewhere spoken.
Colonel Campbell, whose wife and children were made prisoners by Butler and Brant, in our childhood we often saw on horseback, on his way to and from Cooperstown, or upon a visit to his sons, two of whom, William and Samuel, lived in Middlefield; and one thing we remember, especially, attracted our attention: when we doffed our hat and made our best bow to the colonel as he passed, he always made a graceful bow in return. His son, Dr. William Campbell, was a most estimable man and a polished gentleman. He was the uncle of Honorable William W. Campbell, the historian of Tryon County. This brief paragraph of personal matters we hope will be excused, as it may not be considered wholly out of place.
In 1779 we find Colonel Butler and Brant opposing General Sullivan, and decently whipped on the Che- mung. The Tory and the Indian chief fled to Niagara to get out of harm's way for that time, and to prepare for another marauding expedition when occasion might offer. The massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley were amply avenged. The Indians who were collect- ed about Niagara in the winter of 1779-80, having lost all their crops in the lake country, and having none but salt provisions, a thing to which they were not ac- customed, died of scurvy in great numbers.
In August, 1781, Major Ross and Walter Butler came down from Canada into the Mohawk Valley with six hundred and seven Tories and Indians. Colo- nels Willett and Harper met them near Johnstown with about five hundred militia, and put them to rout. The
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retreating Indian and Tory army fled to the northwest. Ross, with a portion of his men, escaped, but Butler was not so fortunate. He was pursued by a company of Oneida Indians, and on coming to West Canada Creek, about fifteen miles from the village of Herki- mer, he swam his horse, and, upon reaching the shore, he turned his back upon his pursuers, who had just come up to the creek, and defiantly and insultingly slapped his hip, when one of the party took deliberate aim, and brought the vaunting Tory to the ground.
The Indian dropped his rifle and blanket and swam the creek, and on coming up to Butler he found him wounded. He now craved the mercy which he had so often denied to helpless women and children-he most piteously begged for his life; but the Indian war- rior sprang upon him like a tiger, and with his lifted tomahawk, shouted out, "Sherry Valley-remember Sherry Valley !" and he buried his tomahawk in his brains, and tore his scalp from his head while his death- struggle was upon him. The miserable man might well have died with the words of Adonibezeck in his mouth, " As I have done, so hath God requited me." He had no burial, but his body was left to rot above ground, or to be devoured by wild beasts. The place where he crossed the creek is called " Butler's Ford" to this day. This was the last incursion made into Tryon County, and it had a very appropriate winding up in the death, by the hand of an Indian, of one of the most cruel of the class of white men who stimu- lated the Indians to the diabolical cruelties perpetra- ted on the frontier.
Colonel Stone, in his " Border Wars," has preserved a letter from Walter Butler vindicating himself, and his father, and the Indians too-why did he not in-
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clude the Tories ?- from the charge of "cruelties." The letter is directed to General Clinton, and is dated "Ni- agara, February 18, 1779." In this letter Captain But- ler says, "We deny any cruelties to have been com- mitted at Wyoming, either by whites or Indians." He rests his vindication upon the fact that "not a man, woman, or child was hurt after the capitulation, or a woman or child before it, and none taken into captiv- ity." Now what does all this prove, more than that the " cruelties" attending the Wyoming massacre might have been greater than they were? How many men were cruelly tortured the day before " the capitulation ?" The apology seems to proceed upon the ground that the cold-blooded torture of " men in arms" is not cruel, especially if it took place before "the capitulation." What was the reason that none were tortured " after the capitulation ?" Simply because there were none left, or next to none, to torture. Captain Butler avoids the points of complaint. These are, 1. That the pris- oners taken upon the battle-field were tortured by the Indians, or barbarously murdered, in cold blood, by the Tories. 2. That the defenseless people in the fort, women and children not excepted, were plundered of their food and clothing, and left to perish with hunger and exposure. And, finally, that the articles of capitu- lation were wholly and cruelly disregarded before Colo- nel Butler had left the ground.
Next, Captain Butler proceeds to vindicate himself and the Indians from the charge of " cruelties" at " Cherry Valley ;" and his principal justification is- for here he does not deny the facts-that "Colonel Denison and his people appeared again in arms, with Colonel Hartley, after a solemn capitulation and en- gagement not to bear arms during the war." Here
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the vindication wholly ignores the fact that the capit- ulation was made a nullity by Colonel Butler, and, of course, was not obligatory on the other party.
We shall not farther tax the reader's time and pa- tience with refutations of the sophisms of this famous letter. Colonel Stone, in the largeness of his charity, calls it a "straightforward, manly letter." We regard it as a "straightforward" evasion, with nothing "man- ly" about it. The bad temper and barefaced falsehoods of the letter constitute another illustration, in addition to the many which the histories record, of the coward- ly cruelty and meanness of Walter N. Butler, one of the Tory leaders in the border wars. Brant, although bad enough-ay, quite too bad for endurance-was almost a saint when compared with the younger But- ler. Thanks to his imprisonment in Albany that the Wyoming massacre was not aggravated by manifold more horrors than it has been our painful task to record.
WAS BRANT AT THE WYOMING MASSACRE?
The question of Brant's presence at the battle of Wyoming has been much discussed and differently de- cided. An impression that Brant was at the head of the Indians on that occasion has long been strong and quite general among the people of Wyoming-the im- pression originating from the old settlers and actors in that fatal and ill-advised encounter. Mr. Chapman, the first historian of Wyoming, in accordance with the popular tradition, asserts Brant's presence and lead on the occasion. Mr. Campbell, the historian of Tryon County, takes the same view of the question; while Thomas Campbell, the poet, with our own poets, Hal- leck and Whittier, poetize in the same direction. The able biographer of Brant-Colonel Stone-takes the
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other side of the question; while Mr. Miner presents reasons pro and con, and leaves his readers to judge of their force for themselves.
Colonel Stone rests the cause upon the denial of Brant, and the credibility of Indian and Tory witnesses. It seems rather strange that the ingenious author did not address himself to the task of proving an alibi, a thing which it may be supposed was very possible at the time he collected his materials. John Franklin once said in relation to Colonel Stone's witnesses, "You won't make such witnesses believed in old Wy- oming: people there would take their lives, but never the words of Indians and Tories." The argument of the too partial biographer of Brant was also questioned A by others besides the people of "old Wyoming." review of "The Life of Brant" in the Democratic Re- view, supposed to have been written by the Hon. Caleb Cushing, controverts the author's positions, and shows their inconclusiveness. In 1846, in an article in the Methodist Quarterly, we took the same ground.
It is reasonable to ask where Brant was on the 3d of July, 1778, if he was not, as usual, at Colonel John Butler's elbow. He was with him the previous year at the battle of Oriskany, and the year following on the Chemung, when General Sullivan marched into the lake country. They were often united in border warfare, Butler commanding the Tories, and Brant the Indians. These questions are entitled to fair consid- eration and a satisfactory answer, and we shall now look at them with candor.
After much examination of the subject, we have reached the conclusion that during the entire summer of 1778 Brant was in the Valley of the Mohawk and on the head waters of the Susquehanna-at his head-
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quarters at Ocquaga or Unadilla, and, consequently, that he was not in the Valley of Wyoming at the time of the battle. In June the historians tell us that Brant and his Indians burned the settlement at Springfield, near the head of Otsego Lake.
Taking another step in advance, we certainly find Brant at Unadilla on the 9th of July, from an authen- tic letter of his published by Mr. Campbell, which we have copied above. This letter relates to supplies for his men, and acknowledges the receipt of corn from a Mr. Smith. We will now connect this fact with an- other. C. L. Ward, Esq., in an address delivered at the Pioneer Festival held in Owego on the 22d of February, 1855, asserted that the younger Brant had shown him "a receipt, in the handwriting of his fa- ther, for money paid for corn and other provisions, dated on the 5th day of July, 1778, two days after the battle, and while the British forces were in Wyoming." This receipt harmonizes exactly with the letter to Pur- sifer Carr, dated the 9th, which refers to transactions of the same class. It may farther be observed that Unadilla is the only locality where Brant would be likely to purchase supplies for his men at the date of the receipt. There he had his head-quarters, and when he visited other places he plundered provisions in abundance, and was under no necessity of purchas- ing of Tories. The chief could not have come from Wyoming after the battle on the 3d in time to be in negotiation for supplies in Unadilla on the 5th. The facts above established quite conclusively prove the alibi.
We next refer to a dispatch from Colonel Guy Johnson to Lord George Germaine, dated New York, 10th September, 1778. The following is the por-
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tion of the dispatch which relates to the question in hand :
"Your lordship will have heard before this can reach you of the successful incursions of the Indians and Loyalists from the northward. In conformity to the instructions I conveyed to my officers, they assem- bled their force early in May, and one division, under one of my deputies (Mr. Butler), proceeded down the Susquehanna, destroying the forts and settlements at Wyoming, augmenting their number with many Loy- alists, and alarming all the country, while another di- vision, under Mr. Brant, the Indian chief, cut off 294 men near Schoharie, and destroyed the adjacent set- tlements, with several magazines from whence the reb- els had derived great resources, thereby affording en- couragement and opportunity to many friends of gov- ernment to join them."-Documents relating to the Colo- nial History of the State of New York, vol. viii., p. 752.
This dispatch shows clearly that Brant led the In- dians in the incursions upon the settlements in the Mo- hawk Valley and on the head waters of the Susque- hanna, while Butler made his raid upon Wyoming. Brant must consequently be identified with the hostile movements of the Indians and Tories which we have sketched above. There was, indeed, so far as we have yet been able to ascertain, no one engagement in which that "chief cut off 294 men" during the space of time embraced in Colonel Johnson's dispatch. The colo- nel must embrace all the persons killed in the small actions which occurred in the Mohawk Valley, and all the murders of the savages committed through the va- rious settlements during the months of June, July, and August. The colonel's dispatch was probably based upon a report from Brant of the number of scalps
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taken during the summer: if this is not the explana- tion of the matter, we are at present unable to give any that would be likely to be satisfactory.
This document clearly proves that Brant was in the Valley of the Mohawk while Butler was in the Valley of Wyoming.
Another fact we have to adduce is that of a certifi- cate of protection, given to one of the settlers, dated " Westmoreland, July 5th, 1778," and signed by "John Butler" and " Kayenguaurton." Colonel Butler varies the orthography of this name, probably from mere care- lessness, and we have followed him. Colonel Stone and Mr. Lossing give us the name of this chief thus- "Gi-en-gwa-toh, which signifies, He who goes in the smoke." Butler styles himself "Superintendent of the Six Nations," and his associate is called " the Chief of the Seneca Nation." The name of the chief is evident- ly written by Colonel Butler, but the outlines of a tur- tle- -at the left of the name, signifying that the chief belonged to the turtle tribe of the Seneca nation, was probably executed by the chief himself.
This document has every internal evidence of au- thenticity. We have examined it with great care, and have no doubt of its having been written by Colonel Butler at the date which it bears, and signed, so far as he was able to sign it, by the chief who led on the In- dians in the battle. It is in the hands of a literary friend, who kindly allowed us to examine it. No one will doubt that if Joseph Brant had been the leader of the Indians on the occasion of the battle, his name would have been attached to the document in his own handwriting.
Finally, we adduce the report of Colonel John But-
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ler to Colonel Bolton, never before published, as in it- self absolutely conclusive. In this report he says the Indians were led on by a Seneca chief by the name of Gucingeracton.
For these reasons, each of which alone is sufficient to satisfy any unprejudiced mind, we hope it will be considered as settled that Brant had no part in the Wyoming massacre.
The historians generally, both English and Amer- ican, set down "the famous Mohawk chief Brant" as the ferocious leader of the Indians at the Wyoming massacre, and, so far as appears, Brant took no pains to correct the general impression. Thomas Campbell, the poet, in his Gertrude, in the lines at the head of this sketch, assumes the truth of the tale, and calls the chief " the monster Brant." After the war had closed, Brant settled in Canada, and died there. In 1822, his son, "John Brant, Esq., of Grand River," visited En- gland, and made it a point to convince the poet that his father was not at Wyoming at all, and that, instead of being a "monster," he was a humane, brave, and a magnanimous foe. The first point he doubtless estab- lished, and the second the poet conceded, albeit, after yielding to the proof, he proceeds to refute it. Mr. Campbell, the historian, publishes the letter of Mr. Campbell, the poet, to John Brant, Esq., in his Appen- dix. We would copy this letter if it were not that its length and the irrelevancy of the greater portion of it make it inexpedient. The letter is dated "London, January, 1822." It acknowledges the receipt of cer- tain "documents" forwarded by Mr. John Brant, and proceeds in an apologetic strain, of which the follow- ing brief paragraph may be considered as an expres- sion of the spirit, and as an exponent of the sense :
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"In short, I imbibed my conception of your father from accounts of him that were published when I was scarcely out of my cradle. And if there were any public, direct, and specific challenge to those accounts in England ten years ago, I am yet to learn where they existed."
Now we yield the point of Brant's immediate con- nection with the Wyoming massacre, but we are sorry not to be able as fully to yield to the claim made for him in certain quarters to more than common human- ity and magnanimity. Little more evidence is needed to put those claims into doubt than the facts presented in Colonel Stone's apologetic life of the great Mohawk chief. The "cruelties" perpetrated in the Mohawk Valley during the years 1777 and 1778, where Brant was continually present, and where he was the presid- ing genius, are, if possible, more revolting than those perpetrated at Wyoming. In Wyoming the women and children were not murdered after the capitulation of the fort, but in Cherry Valley no sex or age was spared. We are aware that it is said that Walter But- ler had command on that occasion. Yes, and Walter Butler says that " the Indians" perpetrated the " cruel- ties" at Cherry Valley, for the reason that, " being charged by their enemies with what they never had done, and threatened by them, they had determined to convince you that it was not fear which had prevent- ed them." Now, as each party accuses the other, and no one doubts but both had a part in those " cruelties," it is but historical justice to divide the responsibili- ties between them. In fact, the steps of Brant, wher- ever he went, were red with the blood, not only of men, but of " women and children." He sometimes did spare. them, but at other times he did not; and,
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indeed, the former was the exception, and the latter the rule.
What, then, is gained by the friends of the chief when they have proved that he was not at the Wy- oming massacre ? Absolutely nothing; for his Mo- hawks and Tories were engaged in the same, and even greater "cruelties," in the valley of the Mohawk, and upon the head waters of the Susquehanna and the Del- aware at the same time, and during the remainder of the war.
It will not be unfair now to direct the attention of the reader to a few instances of Brant's " cruelties."
The first instance we would refer to is the murder of his former friend, Lieutenant Wormwood, an ac- count of which we have given.
Another instance is related by Mr. Campbell, as fol- lows : "He often said that, during the war, he had killed but one man in cool blood, and that act he ever after regretted. He said he had taken a man prisoner, and was examining him; the prisoner hesitated, and, as he thought, equivocated. Enraged at what he con- sidered obstinacy, he struck him down. It turned out that the man's apparent obstinacy arose from a natural hesitancy of speech." This case is distinctly described and specially marked.
Still another instance is clearly distinguished from the foregoing. It is related by Mr. Weld, a European traveler. In a skirmish with a body of American troops Brant was wounded in the heel, but the Americans, in the end, were defeated, and an officer taken prisoner. The officer, after having delivered up his sword, en- tered into conversation with Sir John Johnson, when Brant stole slyly behind them and laid the officer low with a blow of his hatchet. Sir John was indignant,
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and he resented the treachery in the warmest terms. Brant listened to him without concern, and, when he had concluded, told him that he was sorry for his dis- pleasure, but that his heel was exceedingly painful at the moment, but, since he had avenged himself upon the only chief of the party which they had taken, it was much less painful than it had been before .- See Border Warfare, p. 249, 250.
Mr. Campbell had heard another version of this story, in which "it was stated that an officer was killed to prevent his being retaken by the Americans, who were in pursuit of the Indians." This story which the his- torian had heard may have been another instance still of Brant's cruelty, for it differs from either of the pre- ceding relations. Indeed, the three descriptions above given can not be different versions of the same fact. The reasons for the murder are unlike each other, and are wholly incompatible, and the circumstances are equally various and inconsistent with the idea of their having occurred in the self-same case. It is in vain to try to
" Wash the Ethiop white."
One cold-blooded, unprovoked murder is enough to characterize a moral "monster"-many acts of the same class certainly do not relieve the case. We may judge the conduct of the chief too severely. Of this the reader will make up his mind in view of all the facts. All we aim at is historical justice; and this, at all hazards, we shall labor to secure.
Colonel John Butler, when the Revolutionary strug- gle came on, was a government functionary under Sir William Johnson, and after Sir William's death he be- came warmly attached to Sir John and Colonel Guy Johnson. When he fled with the Johnsons to Cana-
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da, his family fell into the hands of the patriots, and were exchanged for the wife and children of Colonel Campbell, of Cherry Valley. He was exceedingly ac- tive in the border conflicts. He commanded a regi- ment of Rangers in conjunction with Brant and his Mo- hawks, and was a fearful scourge to the patriots of Tryon County. He marched at the head of his Rang- ers, and a motley mass of Tories and Indians, upon Wyoming in 1778, and was there implicated in the most savage barbarities. His report of the transactions of that expedition, which we have given to the reader in another place, is a disgrace to civilization and hu- manity. He accompanied Sir John Johnson in his murderous onslaught upon the Mohawk and Schoharie settlements in 1780. His old residence is situated in
THE BUTLER HOUSE.
the Mohawk Valley, near Fonda. His property was confiscated by an act of the New York Legislature, but was amply reimbursed by the British government. He succeeded Guy Johnson as Indian Agent, with a salary of $2000 per annum, and was granted a pension, as a military officer, of $1000 in addition. He lost caste with the high-minded British officers on account
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