The magic of June faded from the forests, smothered under the magnificent and deeper glory of July’s golden green; the early summer ripened into August, finding us still afoot in the Kingsland district gathering in the loyal, warning the rash, comforting the down-cast, threatening the suspected. Twice, by expresses bound for Saratoga, I sent full reports to Schuyler, but received no further orders. I wondered whether he was displeased at my failure to arrest Walter Butler; and we redoubled our efforts to gain news of him. Three times we heard of his presence in or near the Kingsland district: once at Tribes Hill, once at Fort Plain, and once it was said he was living quietly in a farm-house near Johnstown, which he had the effrontery to enter in broad daylight. But we failed to come up with him, and to this day I do not know whether any of this information we received was indeed correct. It was the first day of August when we heard of Butler’s presence near Johnstown; we had been lying at a tavern called “The Brick House,” a two-story inn standing where the Albany and Schenectady roads fork near Fox Creek, and there had been great fear of McDonald’s renegades that week, and I had advised the despatch of an express to Albany asking for troops to protect the valley when I chanced to overhear a woman say that firing had been heard in the direction of Stanwix.
The woman, a slattern, who was known by the unpleasant name of Rya’s Pup, declared that Walter Butler had gone to Johnstown to join St. Leger before Stanwix, and that the Tories would give the rebels such a drubbing that we would all be crawling on our bellies yelling for quarter this day week. As the wench was drunk, I made little of her babble; but the next day Murphy and Elerson, having been in touch with Gansevoort’s outposts, returned to me with a note from Colonel Willett:
“FORT SCHUYLER (STANWIX),
“August 2d,
“DEAR SIR, — I transmit to you the contents of a letter from Colonel Gansevoort, dated July 28th:
“‘ Yesterday, at three o’clock in the afternoon, our garrison was alarmed with the firing of four guns. A party of men was instantly despatched to the place where the guns were fired, which was in the edge of the woods, about five hundred yards from the fort; but they were too late. The villains were fled, after having shot three young girls who were out picking raspberries, two of whom were lying scalped and tomahawked; one dead and the other expiring, who died in about half an hour after she was brought home. The third had a bullet through her face, and crawled away, lying hid until we arrived. It was pitiful. The child may live, but has lost her mind.
“‘This was accomplished by a scout of sixteen Tories of Colonel John Butler’s command and two savages, Mohawks, all under direction of Captain Walter Butler.’
“This, sir, is a revised copy of Colonel Gansevoort’s letter to Colonel Van Schaick. Permit me to add, with the full approval of Colonel Gansevoort, that the scout under your command warns the militia at Whitestown of the instant approach of Colonel Barry St. Leger’s regular troops, reinforced by Sir John Johnson’s regiment of Royal Greens, Colonel Butler’s Rangers, McCraw’s outlaws, and seven hundred Mohawk, Seneca, and Cayuga warriors under Brant and Walter Butler. I will add, sir, that we shall hold this fort to the end. Respectfully,
“MARINUS WlLLETT,
Lieutenant-Colonel.”
Standing knee-deep in the thick undergrowth, I read this letter aloud to my riflemen, amid a shocked silence; then folded it for transmission to General Schuyler when opportunity might offer, and signed Murphy to lead forward.
So Rya’s Pup was right. Walter Butler had made his first mark on the red Oswego trail!
We marched in absolute silence, Murphy leading, every nerve on edge, straining eye and ear for a sign of the enemy’s scouts, now doubtless swarming forward and to cover the British advance.
But the wilderness is vast, and two armies might pass each other scarcely out of hail and never know.
Towards sundown I caught my first glimpse of a hostile Iroquois war-party. We had halted behind some rocks on a heavily timbered slope, and Mount was scrutinizing the trail below, where a little brook crossed it, flowing between mossy stones; when, without warning, a naked Mohawk stalked into the trail, sprang from rock to rock, traversing the bed of the brook like a panther, then leaped lightly into the trail again and moved on. After him, in file, followed some thirty warriors, naked save for the clout, all oiled and painted, and armed with rifles. One or two glanced up along our slope while passing, but a gesture from the leader hastened their steps, and more quickly than I can write it they had disappeared among the darkening shadows of the towering timber.
“Bad luck!” breathed Murphy; “’tis a rocky road to Dublin, but a shorter wan to hell! Did you want f’r to shoot, Jack? Look at Dave Elerson an’ th’ thrigger finger av him twitchin’ all a-thremble! Wisha, lad! lave the red omadhouns go. Arre you tired o’ the hair ye wear, Jack Mount? Come on out o’ this, ye crazy divil!”
Circling the crossing-place, we swung east, then south, coming presently to a fringe of trees through which the red sunset glittered, illuminating a great stretch of swamp, river, and cleared land beyond. “Yonder’s the foort,” whispered Murphy— “ould Stanwix — or Schuyler, as they call it now. Step this way, sorr; ye can see it plain across the Mohawk shwamps.”
The red sunshine struck the three-cornered bastions of the rectangular fort; a distant bayonet caught the light and twinkled above the stockaded ditch like a slender point of flame. Outside the works squads of troops moved, relieving the nearer posts; working details, marching to and from the sawmill, were evidently busy with the unfinished abattis; a long, low earth-work, surmounted by a stockade and a block-house, which. Murphy said, guarded the covered way to the creek, swarmed with workmen plying pick and shovel and crowbar, while the sentries walked their beats above, watching the new road which crossed the creek and ran through the swamp to the sawmill.
“It is strange,” said Mount, “that they have not yet finished the fort.”
“It is stranger yet,” said Elerson, “that they should work so close to the forest yonder. Look at that fatigue-party drawing logs within pistol-shot of the woods—”
Before the rifleman could finish, a sentinel on the northwest parapet fired his musket; the entire scene changed in a twinkling; the fatigue-party scattered, dropping chains and logs; the workmen sprang out of ditch and pit, running for the stockade; a man, driving a team of horses along the new road, jumped up in his wagon and lashed his horses to a gallop across the rough meadow; and I saw the wagon swaying and bumping up the slope, followed by a squad of troops on the double. Behind these ran a dozen men driving some frightened cattle; soldiers swarmed out on the bastions, soldiers flung open the water gates, soldiers hung over parapets, gesticulating and pointing westward.
Suddenly from the bastion on the west angle of the fort a shaft of flame leaped; a majestic cloud buried the parapet, and the deep cannon-thunder shook the evening air. Above the writhing smoke, now stained pink in the sunset light, a flag crept jerkily up the halyards of a tall flag-staff, higher, higher, until it caught the evening wind aloft and floated lazily out.
“It’s the new flag,” whispered Elerson, in an awed voice.
We stared at it, fascinated. Never before had the world seen that flag displayed. Blood-red and silver-white the stripes rippled; the stars on the blue field glimmered peacefully. There it floated, serene above the drifting cannon — smoke, the first American flag ever hoisted on earth. A freshening wind caught it, blowing strong out of the flaming west; the cannon-smoke eddied, settled, and curled, floating across its folds. Far away we heard a faint sound from the bastions. They were cheering.
Cap in hand I stood, eyes never leaving the flag; Mount uncovered, Elerson and Murphy drew their deer-skin caps from their heads in silence.
After a little while we caught the glimmer of steel along the forest’s edge; a patch of scarlet glowed in the fading rays of sunset. Then, out into the open walked a red-coated officer bearing a white flag and attended by a drummer in green and scarlet.
Far across the clearing we heard drums beating the parley; and we knew the British were at the gates of Stanwix, and that St. Leger had summoned the garrison to surrender.
We waited; the white flag entered the stockade gate, only to reappear again, quickly, as though the fort’s answer to the summons had been brief and final. Scarcely had the ensign reached the forest than bang! bang! bang! bang! echoed the muskets, and the rifles spat flame into the deepening dusk and the dark woods rang with the war-yell of half a thousand Indians stripped for the last battles that the Long House should ever fight.
About ten o’clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the Johnstown road, marching noisily north towards Whitestown, and learned that General Herkimer’s brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet called Oriska, only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix, and a little to the east of Oriskany creek. An officer named Van Slyck also informed me that an Oneida interpreter had just come in, reporting St. Leger’s arrival before Stanwix, and warning Herkimer that an ambuscade had been prepared for him should he advance to raise the siege of the beleaguered fort.
Learning that we also had seen the enemy at Stanwix, this officer begged us to accompany him to Oriska, where our information might prove valuable to General Herkimer. So I and my three riflemen fell in as the troops tramped past; and I, for one, was astonished to hear their drums beating so loudly in the enemy’s country, and to observe the careless indiscipline in the ranks, where men talked loudly and their reckless laughter often sounded above the steady rolling of the drums.
“Are there no officers here to cuff their ears!” muttered Mount, in disgust.
“Bah!” sneered Elerson; “officers can’t teach militia — only a thrashing does ’em any good. After all, our people are like the British, full o’ contempt for untried enemies. Do you recall how the red-coats went swaggering about that matter o’ Bunker Hill? They make no more frontal attacks now, but lay ambuscades, and thank their stars for the opportunity.”
A soldier, driving an ox-team behind us, began to sing that melancholy ballad called “St. Clair’s Defeat.” The entire company joined in the chorus, bewailing the late disaster at Ticonderoga, till Jack Mount, nigh frantic with disgust, leaped up into the cart and bawled out:
“If you must sing, damn you, I’ll give something that rings!”
And he lifted his deep, full-throated voice, sounding the marching song of “Morgan’s Men.”
“The Lord He is our rampart and our buckler and our shield!
We must aid Him cleanse His temple; we must follow Him afield.
To His wrath we leave the guilty, for their punishment is sure;
To His justice the downtrodden, for His mercy shall endure!”
And out of the darkness the ringing chorus rose, sweeping the column from end to end, and the echoing drums crashed amen!
Yet there is a time for all things — even for praising God.
XVIII
ORISKANY
It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which, after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.
So, as I do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of that sad and unnecessary tragedy.
For three days we had been camped near the clearing called Oriska, which is on the south bank of the Mohawk. Here the volunteers and militia of Tryon County were concentrating from Fort Dayton in the utmost disorder, their camps so foolishly pitched, so slovenly in those matters pertaining to cleanliness and health, so inadequately guarded, that I saw no reason why our twin enemies, St. Leger and disease, should not make an end of us ere we sighted the ramparts of Stanwix.
All night long the volunteer soldiery had been in-subordinate and riotous in the hamlet of Oriska, thronging the roads, shouting, singing, disputing, clamoring to be led against the enemy. Popular officers were cheered, unpopular officers jeered at, angry voices raised outside headquarters, demanding to know why old Honikol Herkimer delayed the advance. Even officers shouted, “Forward! forward! Wake up Honikol!” And spoke of the old General derisively, even injuriously, to their own lasting disgrace.
Towards dawn, when I lay down on the floor of a barn to sleep, the uproar had died out in a measure; but lights still flickered in the camp where soldiers were smoking their pipes and playing cards by the flare of splinter-wood torches. As for the pickets, they paid not the slightest attention to their duties, continually leaving their posts to hobnob with neighbors; and the indiscipline alarmed me, for what could one expect to find in men who roamed about where it pleased them, howling their dissatisfaction with their commander, and addressing their officers by their first names?
At eight o’clock on that oppressive August morning, while writing a letter to my cousin Dorothy, which an Oneida had promised to deliver, he being about to start with a message to Governor Clinton, I was interrupted by Jack Mount, who came into the barn, saying that a company of officers were quarrelling in front of the sugar-shack occupied as headquarters.
I folded my letter, sealed it with a bit of blue balsam gum, and bade Mount deliver it to the Oneida runner, while I stepped up the road.
Of all unseemly sights that I have ever had the misfortune to witness, what I now saw was the most shameful. I pushed and shouldered my way through a riotous mob of soldiers and teamsters which choked the highway; loud, angry voices raised in reproach or dispute assailed my ears. A group of militia officers were shouting, shoving, and gesticulating in front of the tent where, rigid in his arm-chair, the General sat, grim, narrow-eyed, silent, smoking a short clay pipe. Bolt upright, behind him, stood his chief scout and interpreter, a superb Oneida, in all the splendor of full war-paint, blazing with scarlet.
Colonel Cox, a swaggering, intrusive, loud-voiced, and smartly uniformed officer, made a sign for silence and began haranguing the old man, evidently as spokesman for the party of impudent malcontents grouped about him. I heard him demand that his men be led against the British without further delay. I heard him condemn delay as unreasonable and unwarrantable, and the terms of speech he used were unbecoming to an officer.
“We call on you, sir, in the name of Tryon County, to order us forward!” he said, loudly. “We are ready. For God’s sake give the order, sir! There is no time to waste, I tell you!”
The old General removed the pipe from his teeth and leaned a little forward in his chair.
“Colonel Cox,” he said, “I haff Adam Helmer to Stanvix sent, mit der opject of inviting Colonel Gansevoort to addack py de rear ven ve addack py dot left flank.
“So soon as Helmer comes dot fort py, Gansevoort he fire cannon; und so soon I hear cannon, I march! Not pefore, sir; not pefore!”
“How do we know that Helmer and his men will ever reach Stanwix?” shouted Colonel Paris, impatiently.
“Ve vait, und py un’ py ve know,” replied Herkimer, undisturbed.
“He may be dead and scalped by now,” sneered Colonel Visscher.
“Look you, Visscher,” said the old General; “it iss I who am here to answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!”
He waved his short pipe.
“For vy am I an ass to march me py dot ambuscade? Such a foolishness iss dot talk! I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear.”
A storm of insolent protest from the mob of soldiers greeted his decision; the officers gesticulated and shouted insultingly, shoving forward to the edge of the porch. Fists were shaken at him, cries of impatience and contempt rose everywhere. Colonel Paris flung his sword on the ground. Colonel Cox, crimso
n with anger, roared: “If you delay another moment the blood of Gansevoort’s men be on your head!”
Then, in the tumult, a voice called out: “He’s a Tory! We are betrayed!” And Colonel Cox shouted: “He dares not march! He is a coward!”
White to the lips, the old man sprang from his chair, narrow eyes ablaze, hands trembling. Colonel Bellinger and Major Frey caught him by the arm, begging him to remain firm in his decision.
“Py Gott, no!” he thundered, drawing his sword. “If you vill haff it so, your blood be on your heads! Vorwärts!”
It is not for me to blame him in his wrath, when, beside himself with righteous fury, he gave the bellowing yokels their heads and swept on with them to destruction. The mutinous fools who had called him coward and traitor fell back as their outraged commander strode silently through the disordered ranks, noticing neither the proffered apologies of Colonel Paris nor the stammered excuses of Colonel Cox. Behind him stalked the tall Oneida, silent, stern, small eyes flashing. And now began the immense uproar of departure; confused officers ran about cursing and shouting;
the smashing roll of the drums broke out, beating the assembly; teamsters rushed to harness horses; dismayed soldiers pushed and struggled through the mass, searching for their regiments and companies.
Mounted on a gaunt, gray horse, the General rode through the disorder, quietly directing the incompetent militia officers in their tasks of collecting their men; and behind him, splendidly horsed and caparisoned, cantered the tall Oneida, known as Thomas Spencer the Interpreter, calm, composed, inscrutable eyes fixed on his beloved leader and friend.
The drums of the Canajoharie regiment were beating as the drummers swung past me, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sweat pouring down their sunburned faces; then came Herkimer, all alone, sitting his saddle like a rock, the flush of anger still staining his weather-ravaged visage, his small, wrathful eyes fixed on the north.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 159
