Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/233

A.D.1778.] to the danger that threatened them. But early in July they were roused by the incursion of a body of eight hundred men, partly in the disguise of Indians, and partly real Indians. They were said to be led on by colonel John Butler, the same who had offered his troop of Indians four years before to general Carleton, for service in Canada, and by Brandt, a half-caste Mohawk, said to be as cruel as he was brave. That Brandt was the cruel man described, or that he was at Wyoming on this occasion, his son afterwards denied to Campbell the poet, in England; but, on the other hand, Marshall, the biographer of Washington, who took great pains to collect authentic information concerning the massacre of Wyoming, asserts that he was there. However this may be, colonel Butler led on his infuriated royalist fugitives and his Indians, and attacked and destroyed one of the forts called Wintermoots, which they burned. The militia, and all the inhabitants capable of bearing arms, assembled at Forty Fort, on the west side of the Susquehanna, and about four miles from the camp of the invaders. They were headed by colonel Dennison, and amounted to about three hundred men. Besides these, there were only about sixty regulars in the district, commanded by colonel Zebulon Butler, said to be of the same family as the invading colonel Butler.

Washington was sending a body of troops to encounter the invaders, but Zebulon Butler rashly determined to attack them with his insufficient force of regulars and militia. He found the American-Indian army strongly encamped in a pine wood; and, as he was leading up his miscellaneous troops, he was fired at from behind the trees and bushes at once, in flank and rear. His militia gave way and fled in complete rout, pursued by the Indians with their tomahawks, who knocked them on the head, regardless of their cries for quarter, most of the soldiers, militia, and regulars, were massacred, but Butler escaped with a few of the latter; and Dennison, seeing that the inhabitants were paralysed with terror, capitulated on condition that the people should be spared. The inhabitants, however, did not wait to experience the mercy of those whom they had themselves ruthlessly expelled, and of their Indian allies: they voluntarily abandoned their homes and property, and became, in their turn, ruined outcasts.



The invaders, hearing of the approach of Washington's detachment, collected the property and live stock, burned the houses, destroyed the forts, and retreated again into the woods with their associates, the Indians, who carried back many scalps and much booty. Sad as the tale of Wyoming was, party rage and imagination exaggerated the real terrors, and made them unexampled and incredible.

Wyoming was soon reoccupied by the troops sent by Washington. A regiment of Pennsylvanian continentals, stationed at Schoharie, also pursued the plunderers of Wyoming; penetrated to the neighbouring branches of the Upper Susquehanna, and destroyed the settlement of Unadilla, occupied by Indians and refugees. The Indians and loyalists soon took their revenge, by surprising Cherry Valley. The fort, which had a continental garrison, held out; but colonel Alden, who lodged in the town, was killed, the lieutenant-colonel was made prisoner, and the settlement suffered almost the fate of Wyoming.

The feeling against the tories was still further excited by the conduct of Arnold, who was appointed the military commander at Philadelphia, where he ingratiated himself with the rich tories, and married from amongst them a young, beautiful, and accomplished second wife. His leaning to this faction was keenly canvassed, and brought him into collision with Reed, who was now the president of the assembly. In the south, captain Welling made an expedition against the English settlers in Florida; seized an English vessel at Manchac, and proceeded to Baton Rouge and Natchez, burning houses, abducting slaves, and committing other ravages on the English planters. A British force sent out against Welling took him prisoner; and this force built forts at Baton Rouge and Natchez, for the defence of the settlers.

Indications of Indian hostilities appearing on the western frontiers, congress sent commissioners to Pittsburg to investigate the subject. These commissioners reported that the Western Indians were stimulated to hostilities by Hamilton, the British commandant at Detroit; and they determined to send a force against that fort. Another expedition was undertaken by George Rogers Clarke, a backwoodsman of Kentucky. Furnished with men, money, and supplies for three months, by the state of Virginia, Clarke sailed from Pittsburgh to the falls of the Ohio, where he was joined by a body of Kentuckians, and descended the river to near its junction with the Mississippi. Thence they marched by land to Kaskaskia, an old French settlement. On arriving at that town, the adventurers were on the point of starvation; but the inhabitants being taken by surprise, submitted. Cahokia and two other neighbouring forts were also seized, and the commandant at