Battle of Oriskany and Siege of Fort Stanwix

Summer, 1777 – all along New York’s pristine Mohawk River Valley, a cauldron of simmering violence that flamed in sporadic brutality erupted in savage warfare. On August 6^th, an American militia of settlers and Oneida warriors, over 800 men ages 16 to 60, from throughout Tryon County, New York, answered the call to arms. With zealot recklessness, they rushed headlong into ambush and suffered the highest percentage of both dead and wounded of the entire Revolution.  It was a bloodbath – five hours of vicious, one-on-one, man to man death struggles using knives, tomahawks and bare hands. Pent up hatred exploded. Neighbor fought neighbor. Brother killed brother.  Local patriots and loyalists fought alongside Native Americans who also took sides to attack their fellow tribesmen.  Among the casualties were nearly every officer and local leader of the American cause, including many major Iroquois Nation chiefs. Afterwards, throughout upper New York, rare was the homestead or Indian village not stricken with grief from the loss of loved ones. Fathers, sons, uncles; hundreds were gone or disfigured for life.

Like so many paths emerging in a conflict that was proving to be a Civil War of attrition and staunch determination, Americans would continue a pattern of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.  You cannot separate the Battle of Oriskany from the Siege of Fort Stanwix [renamed Fort Schuyler in late 1776].  Like tilting dominoes, the near annihilation of the American militia rushing to relieve the besieged Fort Stanwix would, by their sacrifice, play a key role in the fort’s successful defense.  With the failed siege of Fort Stanwix, gone was a pincer movement designed to help crush American resolve.  The retreat of the attacking British force sent through the Mohawk River Valley would be but another cog that left British General ‘Johnny’ Burgoyne’s army without further resources or supplies. The crown’s entire northern campaign, a plan to split the American Colonies in two whereby the rebellion could be defeated in piecemeal, collapsed, leading to the ultimate surrender of Burgoyne’s army. In turn, attributing greatly to the eventual end of England’s claim to the American colonies.

This article used mainly primary and early secondary accounts to examine the events that unfolded in the Mohawk River Valley during the summer of 1777.

Table of Contents – Click to Navigate Directly to any Section

British Plan to Split the Colonies

Mohawk River Valley Importance and Early Alliances

British Lieutenant Colonel St. Leger’s Force

St. Leger’s Advance to Fort Stanwix

Brief History of Mohawk Valley Fortifications

Garrison at Fort Stanwix

Mohawk Valley Patriots and Loyalists

Iroquois Nation

Prelude to Siege and Battle of Oriskany

Siege Begins

Tryon County Militia Marches / St. Leger Sets Ambush

Battle of Oriskany

Fort Stanwix Sortie

Oriskany Casualties Impact

Siege Continues

General Benedict Arnold’s Reinforcement and Ruse

End of Siege and St. Leger’s Retreat

Timeline

Aftermath

Memorial to Battle and Reconstructed Fort Stanwix

Recommended Books for Further Reading

Resources and Endnotes

British Plan to Split the Colonies

On February 28, 1777, General John Burgoyne, having returned from America to England, received approval for a plan he entitled, “Thoughts for Conducting the War from the Side of Canada.”  He detailed an invasion through New York that would have the potential of isolating New England from the rest of the American colonies.  Burgoyne had commanded a brigade during Sir Guy Carleton’s successful 1776 repulse of Americans from Quebec. He also participated in the subsequent British invasion south into New York as far as Fort Ticonderoga before winter forced the army back into Canada. Burgoyne was critical of Carleton’s actions, believing that opportunities were missed. He also believed that if he had commanded the enterprise, far more would have been accomplished.

He devised a plan for the following year’s operation.  A substantial force could trace General Carleton’s route into America by way of Lake Champlain, capture Fort Ticonderoga, and continue southward down the Hudson River to Albany and possibly New York City itself. If successful, New England, the hot blood of rebellion, would be cut off from the mid and southern colonies which had a higher population of loyalists sympathetic to England. And of course, who better to lead this bold stab into the gut of rebellious activists but Burgoyne himself.

General Burgoyne used all his influence to personally champion his proposition to Lord Germaine, British Secretary of State for the Colonies, in December, 1776.  Many were convinced that the impetus behind his bold invasion plan had more to do with the poet general’s ambition and ego than patriotic sentiments.  His proposal was approved and, to the playwright’s great satisfaction, ‘Johnny’ Burgoyne was put in overall command of the invasion over General Guy Carleton who was to remain in Quebec City.  The plan called for:

• A main force of approximately 8,000 British troops would invade New York along Lake Champlain, capture Fort Ticonderoga, follow the Hudson River where he would battle and disperse rebel forces, and carry on to occupy Albany, New York.
• A second force of approximately 2,000 mainly Native American and Tory forces with about 250 British regulars, later under the command of Lt. Colonel Barry St. Leger, would proceed from Lake Ontario, east through the Mohawk River Valley, where they would disperse resistance while capturing all fortifications.  They would join Burgoyne’s troops at Albany.
• At Albany, Burgoyne’s northern force would link up with Supreme Commander General William’s Howe’s forces that were to proceed up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. This last and third aspect of the plan would sever New England from the middle and southern colonies.

Germaine wrote to General Guy Carleton on March 26, 1777, informing him of his decision to invade:  “…it was his Majesty’s pleasure that you should return to Quebec, and take with you such part of your army as in your judgement…sufficient for the defense of the province; that you should detach Lieutenant-General Burgoyne…with the remainder of the troops, and direct the officer so detached to proceed with all possible expedition to join General Howe, and to put himself under his command…With a view of quelling the rebellion as soon as possible, it is become highly necessary that the most speedy junction of the two armies should be effected…it is the King’s determination to leave about 3,000 men under your command, for the defense of that province [Quebec], and to employ the remainder of your army upon two expeditions, the one under the command of Lt-General Burgoyne, who is to force his way to Albany, and the other under the command of Lt-Colonel St. Leger[1] who is to make a diversion on the Mohawk River.[2]

The operation hinged on the cooperation of General William Howe in New York City, commander of British forces in America.  Howe’s ultimate lack of support would prove lethal to Burgoyne’s campaign.  General Howe first wrote to Germaine in November, 1776, suggesting that next year, he would move ten thousand men up the Hudson River to Albany, thereby cutting off New England.  After that success, Howe would then advance on Philadelphia in the fall of 1777.  By the beginning of 1777, Howe changed his mind and decided that Philadelphia would be his main focus. He wrote Germaine to that effect.  Germain received Howe’s letter on Feb. 23^rd which did not include a link at Albany, NY between his men and a northern invading army from Canada. Yet a few days later, Germaine agreed to Burgoyne’s plan which necessitated this joining for success.  Did Germaine inform Burgoyne that Howe’s priority was to capture Philadelphia and not isolate New England? Most scholars believe he did. But the overconfident Burgoyne might have brushed the possibility aside. He may have convinced himself that Howe would easily sweep aside Washington’s hapless army while crossing New Jersey. It was only a week’s march and once Philadelphia was in Howe’s hands, his commander would turn his attention north to Burgoyne’s forces as they converge towards Albany. Burgoyne, a renowned gambler at cards, took the bull by the horns and decided to embrace his commission to plow ahead, allowing fate to reap her rewards upon what would prove to misplaced confidence; with a spice of bullheadedness.

Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger, of the 34^th Regiment of Foot and chosen to lead the expedition through the Mohawk Valley, was the nephew of an Irish viscount. At the time of his command, he was forty and had already seen twenty years of service, many in America. He was at the siege of Louisbourg, distinguished himself at Wolfe’s capture of Quebec, and had been with General Carleton in Canada in 1776.  Though some American prisoners described him as a brutal drunkard and Carleton referred to him being somewhat of a slack disciplinarian, St. Leger was a zealous solder with ability and, like many British officers, he thoroughly despised the rebels.

Lieutenant Colonel St. Leger’s incursion into New York from the west, besides supporting Lt. General Burgoyne’s advance towards Albany from the north, was also an attempt to wrest control of a region that had become essential to the Continental cause. The Mohawk Valley had traditionally provided food and resources for the Hudson Valley. It also served as a transportation route connecting the Hudson Valley with the Great Lakes region. As England and colonial relations deteriorated, rebellious leaders nourished relations with the valley’s Euro-American farmers, Dutch and German immigrants, and Native American Oneidas.  St. Leger was to disrupt these alliances and promote Loyalist and British control over the valley resulting in a severed and limited Continental government.[3]  The outcome, success or failure of St. Leger’s mission, depended upon the staunchness of the Native Americans, the activity of local Tories, and the degree of patriot resistance.

Mohawk River Valley Importance and Early Alliances

The Mohawk Valley, fertile forests and settled farmland, from the Hudson River to Oswego, on Lake Ontario, had been named the “Key to a Continent” and of all the routes of travel in the interior of America, the military importance of this portage was second only to the one at Niagara. In times of war, when European nations battled for colonial dominance, border armies hurried along its passage.  For centuries Native Americans and later voyageurs and traders, explorers, settlers, and missionaries, all passed to and fro on their errands and conquests. Fortunes were made, empires built, and in times of peace, when tensions between nations and Native Americans moved further west, long streams of immigrates flowed along its route to the rich promised lands of the Ohio Valley and beyond.^[4]  Along this route, about one hundred and ten miles west of present-day Albany, is the headwaters of the Mohawk River.  It flows eastward until it joins the Hudson River just north of Albany which empties into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City.  Just north and slightly west is Wood Creek, which with the Fish Kill (Creek), Lake Oneida, Oneida River, Oswego River, and Lake Ontario, forms a passage to the Great Lakes. One had only to carry his canoe over the nearly level land between the two water systems, anywhere from one mile to six, depending on the seasonal water flow and size of boat, to travel by ocean to the far reaches of the Great Lakes; a highway of 1,500 interior miles, nearly half the distance into a vast new continent.

The area from the upper Hudson to Lake Erie was the land of the Native American confederacy known as the Iroquois Confederacy by the French and Six Nations by the English.  The proper name for what is considered one of the oldest democratic confederations in the world is Haudenoaunee, meaning ‘People of the Long House’. Accordingly, the confederacy was founded by the prophet known as the Peacemaker with the help of Aionwatha, more commonly known as Hiawatha.  The nations that composed this confederation are the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. In spite of their limited numbers, the Iroquois were the strongest native power in eighteenth century North America; and they were the generally consistent foes of the French and their Indian allies, Algonquins and Hurons, supporting first the Dutch and then later the English in their colonial wars.  The French had made enemies of the Iroquois through a series of blunders. 

First, Governor General of France’s Canadian colony, Louis de Buade, comte de Frontenac, decided to aggressively pursue the fur trade over agricultural settlements. He constructed Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario where it drains into the St. Lawrence River, present day Kingston, Ontario. This was Iroquois hunting land. The Second event occurred in 1687.  General Denonville, under orders from colonial Governor Jacques-Rene de Brisay, gathered a 3,000-man army and invaded the Iroquois region. He defeated the Seneca in battle, burned four villages, including torching all the crops he could before retreating back into Canada before a large force of the Iroquois Confederacy could retaliate. This sealed the animosity between France and the Iroquois Nation for the next seventy-six years.

British Lieutenant Colonel St. Leger’s Force

Burgoyne was convinced that only a small detachment of British Regulars were needed for St. Leger’s Expedition.  When Burgoyne returned to Canada, he met with members of the exiled Johnson family in Canada.  Sir William Johnson, who had amassed a fortune in trading with Native Americans, had recently died.  However, his family remained a powerful influence over much of the Iroquois nation and Tory settlers of the Mohawk Valley. Remaining loyal to the Crown, their massive land holdings were lost when they had to flee to Canada to avoid a 1776 arrest warrant by Major General Philip Schuyler – commander of Northern American Forces.  Members of the Johnson family and friends saw the Burgoyne expedition as a way to reclaim their lands and their positions within the colonial government.

They would shape Burgoyne’s design for St. Leger’s command. They said a strong contingent of Loyalists remained in the Mohawk Valley and the Johnson family’s ties with the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), specifically the Mohawk, would ensure their loyalty with Britain. Sir John Johnson, son of William Johnson, had formed a Loyalist force in the Mohawk Valley and their trek across the Adirondacks to Canada supported the idea of loyalist determination in the area. Burgoyne was reassured that those loyal to the Crown and Native Americans would rise up to support a small British contingent marching along the Mohawk Valley. This would allow Burgoyne to use the main body of British troops to invade south along Lake Champlain and the Hudson Valley.  It is with that in mind that only 200 British regular troops, 40 artillerymen, and about 80 German Jaeger would be part of St. Leger’s expedition; the rest of the near 1,900 force being Loyalists and Native Americans.

In a letter dated March 23^rd, 1777, Lord Germaine ordered the exact number of British, German, and Loyalist troops designated for the northern campaign in the summer of 1777:

• Those under Lt. General Burgoyne:                         7, 173
• Those under Lt. Colonel St. Leger                               675
• Those remaining in Canada under Gen. Carleton      3,770^[5]

Lord Germain was familiar with the situation in the Mohawk Valley for John Butler, loyalist, Indian Agent fluent in Native American languages, and with close ties to the deceased Sir William Johnson, had traveled to England the previous year.  He promoted an invasion through the Mohawk Valley region and was influential with many in Parliament, recommending who should be given command of such an enterprise.

With that in mind, the same letter penned by Lord Germaine also designated those troops to be assembled for St. Leger’s incursion.  Germain wrote; “It is the King’s further pleasure that you put under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel St. Leger:^[6] 

• Detachment from the 8^th regiment……………………… 100
• Detachment from the 34^th regiment……………………. 100
• Sir John Johnson’s Regiment of New York [loyalists] …. 133
• Hanau Chasseurs [German Mercenaries] ………………. 342
• TOTAL    675

The rest of the 8^th regiment (460 men) and the 34^th regiment which St. St. Leger commanded (348 soldiers) were ordered to remain in Canada under Sir Guy Carleton’s command.

By the time both Burgoyne’s and St. Leger’s forces came together there were some slight changes from Germaine’s original order.  The flank companies, Grenadier and Light Infantry of the 34^th Foot, St. Leger’s regiment, accompanied Burgoyne to Saratoga and would later surrender with the army.  The 8^th Regiment would remain in Canada for the duration of the war.

• Added to Burgoyne’s force:  150 French Canadians, 100 Loyalists, 400 Native Americans.
• St. Leger’s force would be composed of:  100 detached from the 34^th Foot, 100 detached from the 8^th Foot, 40 artillerymen, 80 Jaeger Riflemen (St. Leger did not wait for the rest of the German auxiliaries to arrive and left them in Canada), approx. 350 Loyalists, approx. 200 Canadian axe-men and ‘pioneers’, and around 1,000 Native Americans.
• This brought the number of St. Leger’s force to just under 1,900 men.

British Officers:

• Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger – Expedition Commander
• Lieutenant Henry Bird – 8^th Regiment.

Tory Leaders – All had held roles in the Tryon County Militia prior to the war:

• Sir John Johnson – son of Sir William Johnson – Commander of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York or “Johnson’s Greens”.
• Guy Johnson – William Johnson’s son-in-law
• Daniel Claus, Colonel – William Johnson’s son-in-law. Superintendent of Indians, commanded a contingency of Native Americans with Joseph Brant.
• John Butler. Lt. Colonel – friend and close ally of William Johnson, Indian Agent – he commanded about 20 backwoodsmen who would later in the year form the basis for his Butler’s Rangers’ – loyalist regiment which would terrorize the New York/Pennsylvania wilderness for the remaining of the war.
• Captain Watts – Sir John’s Greens and Johnson’s son-in-law.

Native American Leaders

• Mohawk Chief Captain Joseph Brant or Thayendanegea – son-in-law to Sir William Johnson, commanded approximately 600 Native Americans – Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga.
• John Butler – also led about 400 Native Americans he brought from the Fort Niagara Region where he had fled the previous year.
• Seneca War Chiefs:  Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter.

Troops and cannon assembled at Montreal.  St. Leger gathered his regulars, artillerymen and cannon, plus some of the loyalist troops in Montreal.  Artillery included two six-pounders, two three-pounders, and four small 4.4-inch mortars known as ‘Royals’ or Coehorns.^[7]  Because St. Leger was led to believe Fort Stanwix was in a dilapidated state and could be captured with small arms, he decided to travel with light field pieces instead of heavier siege cannon that would slow his progress through the wilderness. The German corps of 80 Jaeger of Hesse-Hanau were present at the time St. Leger was ready to depart.

This Jaeger corps was a rifle company, clad in green uniforms were regularly employed in scouting, flanking movements, and intelligence gathering. They were commonly recruited from among village woodsmen and huntsmen, familiar with stalking and the use of grove bored rifles. These were the only German troops to participate as St. Leger decided not to wait for the others to arrive. A number of John Johnson’s Loyalists were present in Montreal as the rest of the 350 or so men would be gathered as the expedition boated up the St. Lawrence Islands on their way to Lake Ontario. So too was Daniel Claus in Montreal, Superintendent of the expedition’s Native Americans.

Additional forces to join at Oswego, New York on Lake Ontario.  At Fort Oswego, twenty Tories accompanied Indian Agent John Butler from Niagara.  They were a mixture of backwoodsmen clad in ‘Indian garb’ who were proficient in wilderness warfare – several having fought in the previous French and Indian War.  Many texts state that they were Butler’s Rangers.  This is not true.  General Carleton would not commission John Butler as Lieutenant Colonel of a newly formed Loyalist Ranger Regiment until September, 1777, a month after the Battle of Oriskany and St. Leger’s eventual retreat back to Canada. It was Butler’s apt and brutal use of loyalist recruits during St. Leger’s incursion, many wearing buckskins who ‘fought the Indian way’, that convinced Carleton to establish a unique unit of loyalists that would be entitled Butler’s Rangers. Butler would also add a contingency of about 400 Native Americans, mostly Seneca, many from the Fort Niagara region, along with Mohawk Chief and William Johnson’s son-in-law Joseph Brant, Thayendanegea, who supplied about 600 Native Americans for a total of about 1,000 warriors.

John Butler actively recruited Native Americans for the British.  Earlier in July, Colonel Butler had held a weeklong council at Irondequoit[8] with Seneca warriors. Butler offered rum, supplies, and after a few days of revelry, asked the Seneca to side with the British in war against the Americans. The Seneca hesitated at first as they had promised the Americans to remain neutral. Butler was determined to sway them and painted a glowing description of England’s power. Mary Jemison, a Seneca who later recounted the council: “…the king was rich and powerful, both in money and subjects; that his rum was as plenty as the water in lake Ontario; that his men were as numerous as the sands upon the lake shore; and the Indians, if they would assist in the war, and persevere in their friendship to the king till it was closed, should never want for money or goods.”[9]  The Seneca considered Butler’s persuasive arguments and after much discussion, entered into war on the British side. Two war chiefs were appointed Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter.

St. Leger’s Advance to Fort Stanwix

Burgoyne’s plan called for St. Leger to depart Montreal and up the St. Lawrence simultaneously with his forces heading south to Lake Champlain. To reach Fort Stanwix from Montreal required a vast circuit of more than three hundred miles. To traverse the St. Lawrence, it required one hundred and eighty miles to the opening of Lake Ontario. Fifty miles of open water sailing along the New York coastline ended at Fort Oswego. Another eighty miles of river and lake routes that included wilderness roads brought the palisades of Fort Stanwix within sight, located on what was called the ‘Oneida Carry’.  Just beyond anywhere from one mile to six miles, depending on the flow of water at Woods Creek and the size of transport – canoe or large bateaux – Mohawk River flowed east to the Hudson River and Albany, about a hundred and twenty miles distant.

St. Leger’s expedition departs.  On June 23, 1777, the expedition left the port of Lachine, south of Montreal. St. Leger would leave the next day and as mentioned, without waiting for the rest of his allotted German troops. Crowded into a fleet of bateaus were British regulars, French-Canadian axe men and ‘pioneers’, Hesse-Hanau Jaegers, a contingency of Mississauga and Iroquois warriors, light artillery, and a number of Johnson’s Tories, the rest to be gathered among the islands of St. Lawrence along the way.

First signs that information on Fort Stanwix is wrong.  In route, St. Leger got his first warning sign that the information he had on Fort Stanwix was outdated and grossly inaccurate. Earlier reports from Colonel John Butler informed St. Leger that the fort was in extreme disrepair and contained a picket of only sixty men. Prior to the expeditions departure from Montreal, Colonel Claus had sent Indian officer John Hare and Mohawk chief John Odiserundy to conduct reconnaissance of Fort Stanwix.  They returned with five prisoners, including one officer, and observed improvements to the fort’s structure. The prisoners were interrogated separately and revealed that the fort had been reinforced with about five hundred and fifty Continental troops, putting the fort’s strength at over six hundred men who were alerted to an attack.

Colonel Claus wrote that he urged St. Leger to send word for heavier artillery that could be effective against the repaired fort. He also recommended that they delay their advance to wait for the rest of the Germans to join them. Claus reported that, in true contempt for colonials considered ‘provincials’, St. Leger preferred to discount the prisoners’ story.  He refused to improve his artillery or stall his advance to wait for the rest of his Germans.[10]

July 8^th, arrive 160 miles from Montreal at Buck Island.  The island [now Carleton Island] became a major supply depot during the war.  In 1778, Fort Haldimand was built as a stepping off point for major raids into America by Tory and British forces. Here they remained for about ten days to allow the forces to regroup and resupply. While on the island, Colonel Daniel Claus received his appointment to the position of Commander of the incursion’s Native Americans.  Supplies that Lt. Colonel John Butler procured for the Native Americans was also received by Claus. On July 19^th, all was ready for the next leg and the expedition started its crossing of Lake Ontario towards Fort Oswego, fifty miles distant.

Original invasion plan changes when Native Americans at Oswego lose interest. While on Lake Ontario, St. Leger divided his forces. The original plan was to send Col. Claus with Col. Johnson’s Tories to Fort Oswego[11] and meet with the rest of the expedition, including Col. John Butler and Capt. Joseph Brant’s Mohawks. Those forces would proceed along the Oswego River to Three Rivers (thirty miles distant) where the Oneida and Seneca Rivers form the Oswego River. From there, they would travel eighteen miles up the Oneida River to Lake Oneida. Cross the lake, about twenty miles from west to east, and then travel up Wood’s Creek, about another eighteen miles to the Oneida Carry and Fort Stanwix.  Meanwhile St. Leger, with his force of regulars and a smaller contingency of Native Americans, would land at the mouth of Salmon River, (Gahenwega or the French ‘la Famine Riviere’) about twenty-five miles north of Oswego, and head up the river about ten miles to present day Altmar. There they would travel overland about thirty-five miles through the woods to surprise Fort Stanwix. St. Leger was still convinced that the Fort was in a dilapidated state with a small defending garrison. He would take the fort quickly with his British regular troops and German Jaeger and open up the Mohawk River to the invasion force.

While St. Leger put in at Salmon River, Colonel Claus and Sir John Johnson’s Tories carried onto Oswego, arriving on July 23^rd.  There they met Captain Joseph Brant with his large contingency of Native Americans.  The next day, July 24^th, St. Leger sent orders for Claus to join him on his advance.  Claus sent word back to St. Leger that he had encountered a diplomatic disaster at Oswego. To help encourage the warriors gathering at Oswego to join the British, St. Leger had rationed a quart of rum per person. While the Indian forces were waiting at Oswego for the main expedition to arrive, Claus wrote that they had overindulged on rum and ‘developed a level of disinterest in the expedition’. In other words, they were about to abandon the enterprise. Joseph Brant asked Claus to remain and help him keep the Native Americans engaged. Claus informed St. Leger of the situation and in response, St. Leger abandoned his march along the Salmon River, did an about face, and arrived at Oswego on July 25^th.

Once joined, regulars, Tories, and Native Americans were soon ready and set out along the Oswego River as one force.[12]   They made excellent progress, covering just over ten miles a day which brought them before Fort Stanwix within a week’s time.  General Burgoyne had already taken Fort Ticonderoga on July 6^th.  When St. Leger was about halfway to his goal, on July 29^th, General Burgoyne had reached the Hudson River at Fort Edward, only fifty-two miles from his destination, Albany, New York.

Army’s Formation during March to Stanwix.  Once St. Leger left the water, the advance of the main body was as follows: Native Americans marched in five columns; single files, at large distances from each other and four hundred and sixty paces in front of the line.  From the Native American columns, files were stretched at a distance of ten paces from each other, forming a line of communication with the advanced guard of the line, one hundred paces in front of the column.

The right and left flanks were covered by Indians at one hundred paces, forming likewise lines of communication with the main body.[13]  The King’s regiment [presumed the King’s Royal Regiment of Loyalist ‘Greens’] moved from the left by Indian [single] file while the 34^th moved in the same order from the right.  The rear guard was formed of regular troops [assuming the 8^th and perhaps German Jaegers]; while the advance guard, composed of sixty marksmen, detached from Sir John Johnson’s regiment of royal Greens, was led by Sir John’s brother-in-law, Captain Watts. Each corps was likewise directed to have ten chosen marksmen in different parts of its line, in case of attack, to be pushed forward to any given point as circumstances might require.[14] It is assumed the small contingency of artillery and supply wagons advanced among the regular troops in column.

John Butler, fluent in language and newly appointed Indian Superintendent, holds council, deceiving Native Americans to believe that they would remain neutral and just be observers in the coming fight.  When St. Leger arrived at Fort Oswego, John Butler had recently received his status as Superintendent of the expedition’s Indians, July 8th. While at Oswego, Butler and Claus fought over their positions as Claus outranked Butler, much to Butler’s surprise. A further riff intensified when Claus also took most of Butler’s stores for Brant’s warriors, leaving the Seneca and other warriors under supplied. The expedition continued up the Oswego River to Three Rivers, about thirty miles distant, where additional Native Americans of the region joined them. While the main force continued, Butler remained at Three Rivers where he held a council with Native American leaders, seeking to strengthen their resolve to press on. 

As at the Irondequoit Council, Butler created a false sense of expectations for the warriors. He indicated that they would only be observers when in fact, Burgoyne and St. Leger expected them to fight.[15]  Mary Jemison, who was present at the Irondequoit Council earlier in the month offered insight into Butler’s council: “Previous to the Battle at Fort Stanwix, the British sent for the Indians to see them come and whip the rebels; and at the same time stated that they did not wish to have them fight, but wanted to have them just sit down, smoke their pipes, and look on. Our Indians went, to a man; but contrary to their expectation, instead of smoking and looking on, they were obliged to fight for their lives.”[16]  Once more, Butler was successful is swaying his Native American legions and due to the delay at Three Rivers, arrived outside Fort Stanwix three days after St. Leger’s main body.

Bateaux and Bateaux-men.   The batteaux was a flat-bottomed boat with a sharp prow at each end. It was paddled, rowed, poled, sailed or towed by two, three, four, five, six or eight men — depending on the size of the boat. According to the number of men running the vessel, the batteaux were called three-handed or four-handed boats, etc. These boats varied from about sixteen to twenty feet or more in length and carried up to several tons of cargo. Cleated boards ran along each side of these batteaux on which men stood with faces toward the stern and set poles in the river bottom. Then they walked along the cleats and thus pushed the boat along.   This was the method in shallow water. In deep water the boats were rowed and in a good breeze they were sometimes sailed. They were also towed and they were towed or pushed over the rapids or riffs.  The batteaux men became in time a numerous class of rough, powerful fellows.  They would, over the years, channel the rougher sections of the river passages by removing boulders and other obstacles.[17] 

St. Leger orders an advance party to the fort.  At Three Rivers, Lieutenant Henry Bird of the British 8th Regiment was sent forward with a small party, approximately fifteen regulars with a small number of Native Americans, quickly covering the approximate eighteen-mile distance to Oneida Lake. They went by boat to Nine Mile Point on the north shore of the lake and camped.  Another fifteen-mile march to Wood Creek and they halted, blocked by the Continental Army’s defenses.[18]   

St. Leger’s advance slowed by American obstacles.  The Fort is Reached.   To slow the British advance, Colonel Gansevoort ordered the obstruction of Wood Creek by cutting trees into the river bed.  This strategy had been in place since 1776 when on July 18, 1776, Maj. Gen. Schuyler ordered Colonel Elias Dayton that “upon the receipt of … intelligence of the approach of an enemy thro Lake Ontario that you should cause the Timber on the banks of Wood Creek to be felled into it.” Schuyler also ordered Dayton to make any roads able to carry artillery impassable. The Continental Army cut timber into the creek for approximately twenty-five miles. The obstruction worked, blocking the advance of troops, artillery, and supplies along Wood Creek.  St. Leger slowly pressed his men past the obstacles, bringing his army up to the fort piece-meal.  But to advance his artillery and stores, one hundred and ten of his Canadian axe men and regulars worked feverishly for the next nine days to construct a road twenty-five miles long from Fish Creek to the Oneida Carrying Place.[19]

Lieutenant Bird’s small advance column was the first to reach Stanwix.  He immediately sent word back to St. Leger, asking if he wished him to invest the fort writing: “…those with the scout of fifteen I had the honor to mention to you in my last, are sufficient to invest Fort Stanwix if you honor me so far as not to order the contrary…” St Leger wrote back that he did not doubt Bird’s ability to take the fort, however he cautioned Bird to wait for additional regular troops – if only to control the Native American’s inherent sense for barbarity once the fort capitulated: “I have detached Joseph [Thayendanegea] and his corps of Indians to reinforce you. You will observe that I will have nothing but an investiture made; and in case the enemy…should offer to capitulate, you are to tell them that you are sure I am well disposed to listen to them… this is not to take any glory or honor out of a young soldier’s hands, but by the presence of the troops to prevent the barbarity and carnage which will ever obtain where Indians make so superior a part of a detachment.

One may find it amusing that St. Leger would even considered the possibility that a small detachment of his soldiers might force Fort Stanwix’s surrender, a garrison of nearly seven hundred Continental Soldiers behind a strong fortification, however St. Leger shared two common attitudes of his British contemporaries: a disdain for provincial arms and their fighting abilities, and a humane fear of what Native Americans might do to surrendered persons in the absence of a large number of regular troops.  He naturally assumed that a mere show of force would persuade the Americans to surrender.  Also, he had been advised by Indian scouts that additional American supplies and men had been sent to reinforce the fort and were hurrying to arrive.  He pushed what men he could past the barricades in hope of reaching the fort in time to intercept those supplies, however the obstacles proved their worth.  Brant’s Indians arrived to assist Lt. Bird just as the last of the much-needed ammunition, men, and supplies were hurried into the fort. A short skirmish by the boats resulted in a couple of wounded and prisoners taken. As the rest of St. Leger’s troops gradually made their way towards the fort, the siege of Fort Stanwix had begun on August 2^nd, 1777.  

Brief History of Mohawk Valley Fortifications

Fort Stanwix was built at the small stretch of dry land between the two main river systems of the Mohawk River Valley that spanned the water route from New York City to the Great Lakes.  This all important and strategic point along the passage was called the Great Carrying Place.  Later, between 1700 and 1724, it was titled the Oneida Carrying Place (or Point).  To the Iroquois, it was known as De-O-Wain-Sta, or ‘Place of setting the boat down.’  Depending on the seasonal flow of water and the size of boat, the area between the Mohawk River, southeast of the carry, that flowed east to the Hudson River and north to Wood Creek, that flowed west to Lake Oneida and eventually Lake Ontario, was anywhere from one mile to six miles across.  It was about one hundred and ten miles from this carry along the Mohawk River to Albany. West, from Wood Creek and Fish Creek, the passage emptied into Lake Oneida, which flowed into the Oneida River to converge with the Seneca River forming the Oswego river that emptied into Lake Ontario.  This portion of the passage was approximately seventy-five miles in length.

The first fort system along the Mohawk Valley at Oneida Carry.  Two nations of the Iroquois Confederation (Haudenosaunee Confederation), the Oneida, along with the Mohawks, occupied the region of the Oneida Carry. They at first resisted the construction of a fort system that would ensure the transport of supplies from the Hudson Valley to Oswego and control of Lake Ontario. However, with increased French threats upon their villages, they submitted to the construction. In 1755, during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), British General William Shirley, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was occupied with repairing Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario for his planned excursion to Fort Niagara. This gained more importance after the death of British General Edward Braddock, Commander-in-Chief of all British Forces in America, on July 9, 1755.

Stockades were erected all along the Mohawk Valley. They often enclosed homes and churches like Fort Herkimer; built in 1756, it was thirty miles east of the Oneida Carry and south of the Mohawk River at German Flatts. The stockade enclosed a church and the second stone house of Johan Jost Herkimer, father of General Nicholas Herkimer who would die there from his wounds at the Battle of Oriskany.

Governor Shirley saw the need to protect the strategic portage at Oneida Carry and ordered two forts built. The stronger, Fort Williams, was constructed nearer the Mohawk River at the southern terminus of the carry.  It was a log stockade in a pinwheel shape with four half-bastions, each mounting a cannon, and two blockhouses on opposing sides with one internal storehouse. It could house approximately 150 soldiers.  The other fort, Fort Bull, north of the carry and on a road to Wood Creek, was smaller and weaker of the two. It was star shaped and surrounded by a ditch with a double row of palisades, the outer one 15 to 18 feet high and the interior one about the height of a man. It mounted no cannon and could only accommodate approximately thirty soldiers.

On March 27, 1756, during the French and Indian War (1754-1763) France’s Lieutenant Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Lery attacked the Oneida Carry and Fort Bull.  During the fight, the magazine blew up destroying much of the fort.  All those in Fort Bull were massacred with a small number of women and children taken prisoner.  Fort Williams garrison sallied to attack the French, but they withdrew beforehand.  After this action, the British were determined to strengthen the area further.  Additional forts were built that included Fort Wood Creek (near the ruins of For Bull), Fort Craven (south of Fort Williams), Fort Newport (along Wood Creek, which was never garrisoned), and Fort Rickey (at the confluence of Wood Creek and Canada Creek).

Forts Destroyed.  These forts were short-lived.  On August 14, 1756, French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm captured Fort Oswego.  He destroyed the fort and returned to Quebec in triumph with 1,700 prisoners. At the Oneida Carry, British Brigadier General Daniel Webb, who was subordinate to Lord Loudoun who had replaced General Shirley as Commander-in-Chief, learned of Oswego’s destruction and assumed that the French would advance through the Mohawk Valley.  Without confirmation and as to any possible size of such a supposed attack, he ordered the destruction of all the Oneida Carry forts. General Webb, the following year, had refused to reinforce Fort William Henry on Lake George, resulting in the fort’s capture and massacre of much of the garrison. British Indian agent, the renowned Sir William Johnson later wrote that Webb was “the only Englishman I ever knew who was a coward.”  Two years later, the British would return and construct Fort Stanwix as an outpost guarding the carry for the duration of the war.[20]

Massacre stressed need to restore British Forts at the Oneida Carry.  When Webb destroyed the forts and moved his forces further east, he left the settlers in the region exposed to French threats from the west. These were mainly German Palatine Immigrants who settled the Mohawk Valley earlier in the century in what was called German Flats. At this time, they lived on the western fringe of the providence which was about thirty miles east of the Oneida Carry and eighty miles west of Albany.  Without the British presence, they felt some sense of security after they formed a pact with French authorities to remain neutral in the war.  This proved to be an empty promise for in November, 1757, their community suffered one of the worst massacres in colonial America. Picot de Bellstre and the Sieur de Lorimer, with 300 regulars and an equal number of Canadians and Indian allies, moved eastward to German Flats and Fort Herkimer[21], a fortified home and stockade in town along the Mohawk River.  The fort was garrisoned by 200 men of the 22^nd Regiment under Captain Richard Townshend. He warned the Palatines of the approaching French and urged them to take refuge in the fort. Some heeded his advice, however most trusted their neutrality agreement with the French and declined.

On November 12, 1757, at 3 AM, the French force ignored the stockade and attacked the village and surrounding settlements. The British troops remained safely within the fortification while the French and Indians slaughtered the residents and livestock, burning homes and barns. Fifty scalped bodies were found, many hacked beyond recognition. It was later reported that 150 captives were taken. Those who escaped the carnage were left homeless to face the winter without shelter or food.  Afterwards, pressure was heaped upon British authorities to return to the region in force and reconstruct fortified outposts.

Fort Stanwix Built in 1758 on the Oneida Carry at present day Rome, New York. A total of three thousand men were occupied in the construction of the fort; however, there were never more than 1,100 present at any one time and of those, usually only about 400 or so were well enough to report to work.  The overall cost to the British government was over 60,000 pounds sterling which was staggering at the time. Nearly square in shape, bastions 335 feet were spaced from each other projecting out from the four corners.  The fort proved larger than Fort William Henry on Lake George and Fort Edward on the Hudson.[22]

Sometime in the late spring or early summer of 1758, Major General James Abercrombie (also spelt Abercromby), Commander-in-Chief of America, while preparing for his assault against the strongly held French fortress of Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) on Lake Champlain, decided to repossess and fortify the Oneida Carrying Place. He had been second in command to Lord Loudoun and assumed control in December, 1757, when Loudoun departed for England. He ordered Brigadier General John Stanwix (1690-1766) to occupy the portage with four New York Independent Companies (colonial militiamen), numbering 1,400 Provincials plus a company of Rangers – those among the famed ‘Rogers’ Rangers’, frontiersmen skilled in wilderness warfare. By August, 1758, work on the fort was well underway, being built on the right bank of the Mohawk to cover the carrying point between the Mohawk and Woods Creek.

Sir William Johnson (1715-July 11, 1774) Warraghiyagey ‘He who does much business’.  While Stanwix was busy with the planning and laying out the new fort, Sir William Johnson had been negotiating with the Oneida Indians to obtain their consent for the construction of the new fort. Johnson’s huge political and economic influence over the Mohawk Valley is worth a brief overview.  He was an Irish official of the British Government who in 1738, settled amongst the Mohawk of the Iroquois Nation to manage an estate purchased by his uncle, Admiral Peter Warren. He was very resourceful and managed to gain control of the fur trade throughout the New York Province, trading with both Native Americans and the Palatine Germans who settled the lands twenty-five years earlier.

Over the years, Johnson established a fiefdom of social and economic control over all aspects of Tryon County’s government. His influence and power magnified in his control over much of the Mohawk Valley’s official governing positions.  He owned the jails, courthouse, Anglican Church, and determined the outcome of elections; in short, his firm hand could be used to favor his supporters and attack his opponents during the rise of hostilities between the English, loyalist, patriot, and Indians.

He sought power among the Native American population, particularly the Iroquois Nation, as well as a leader of provincial militias.  He learned the Mohawk language and customs and in 1756, after having lead British forces the previous year during the Battle of Lake George, where he was rewarded a Barony and built Fort William Henry, he was granted the title of sole British agent and Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the northern provinces. His empire throughout New York was vast. One of the largest slaveholders in the north, his extended family would play a key role throughout the Revolutionary War – losing all their land afterwards and immigrating to Canada. By the time of his death in 1774 of a stroke, he had landholdings in and around his trading post at Johnstown of over 170,000 acres, establishing Johnson and his relatives wealth and vast powers.

As to his immediate family and siblings; many myths and manufactured legends of Sir William’s prowess in fathering many illegitimate children and multiple concubines and common-law-wives emerged over the years. A few early accounts that have been accepted as fact by many scholarly studies remain suspect:  Jeptha R. Simms’ 1808 published reminiscences of Mrs. Anne Grant’s experiences in the 1750’s, and a text by Augustus Buell (1903) and Max Reid (1901).   The accepted view is that he had three wives; Catherine (or Katharine) Weissenberg, Caroline Peters (niece of Mohawk King Hendrick,), and his ‘housekeeper’, Mohawk Native Molly Brant.

Though documentation indicates there was a Catherine Weissenberg, there are no primary sources that Caroline Peters ever existed: fabricated first by Reid and later supported by Buell who attributed the children William, Charlotte, and Caroline to this myth. He then writes that Sir William’s later wife, Molly Brant (Kanyen’kehà:ka – ‘Someone lends her a flower’), adopted these three children after Caroline had died.  According to Sir William’s early biographer William Stone, Catherine had three children born in 1739, 1740, and 1742 and that that by 1745, she had died, however evidence points strongly to her death in 1759.[23]  Sir William’s second wife, Molly Brant first appears in the Johnson papers in 1759 and it is the year that her son Peter is born.  She would have a total of eight surviving ‘natural’ children. Sir William himself signified those children born with Catherine were his legitimate children and those of Molly his natural children.

It is reasonably safe to say that his children with Catherine was a son John, and two daughters, Nancy and Mary.  With Molly, eight children survived to adulthood two sons and six daughters; Peter was the eldest. Others included Elizabeth, Magdalene, Susan, Anne, Margaret, Mary, and George. Among those related through marriage who would play an important role during the Revolution included Sir William’s nephew and son-in-law Guy Johnson, along with his son-in-law, Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant, brother to Molly, and son-in-law Colonel Daniel Claus.

Johnson made two promises to the Oneida; that the fort would be demolished at the end of the war, and that there would be ‘plentiful and cheap trade.’ With the Oneida Nation’s acquiescence assured, the British began construction.  Lt. Colonel James Montressor, not to confused with his son John Montressor who was also active throughout the war and later in designing fortifications in New York City prior to the American Revolution, drew up a proposal for the fort whose plans included:

• A Good Post to be made at the Oneida Carrying Place capable of Lodging 200 Men, in the Winter, and for 3 or 400 Men in the Summer, for its Defense; with Logs—A Parapet of such a thickness, as the Engineer shall think necessary, according to the Situation [situation]
• A Ditch to be made, to serve to thicken the Parapet—Barracks to be made underneath the Rampart, with the Flues of the Chimneys, to come thr’o the Top.
• The Square will be the Cheapest Form, to be made use of for this Work—
• The Bastions in like manner, can be made use of, for Storehouses [sic] or Magazines.
• In the Square may be made, Lodgings for the Officers, and the rest of the Quadrangle clear—The whole for be Loged [sic].
• And opposite to the Officers’ Barrack may be made a Storehouse for the Deposit of Indian Goods.[24]

Brigadier General Stanwix ordered his engineer, Captain William Green to review Montressor’s initial plan. Green commented at length, specifying the exact lengths and heights of bastions and parapets including thickness of walls and necessary ditching. Montressor and he continued a conversation on the plan before a more final version was submitted to Stanwix. General Abercrombie had intended that the new fortification at Oneida Carry would be a modest undertaking, far less extensive than a permanent fort. Both Montressor and Green projected a more ambitious undertaking including curtains, bastions, ramparts, barracks, magazine, and storehouses. In spite of his doubt as to this authority to construct a more permanent ‘fort’, Abercrombie accepted the engineers’ more elaborate proposals.

Construction of the Fort Begins mid-summer 1758.  Captain William Green, the engineer detailed to build the fort, soon became too ill to see to the daily needs of overseeing its construction. Montressor’s plan was handed over to Lieutenant John Williams. While Montressor remained at Fort Edward on the Hudson River, the newly assigned engineer joined Stanwix on August 14th and immediately began work on the site marked out within entrenchments laid out by Major Eyres.  Abercrombie’s assistant engineer would remain at Abercrombie’s headquarters on Lake George, allowing others to oversee his plans. Also assisting with the work was Horatio Gates, the future hero of Saratoga, who as brigade major, was responsible for the administrative details of Stanwix’s force at the Oneida Carry. The flat ground of the Oneida Carry isthmus between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek rose slightly as it neared the Mohawk. It was here that the first log for the new fort was laid on August 26, 1758.  For the next three months, in spite of the limited number of men available, the fort rose rapidly to Stanwix’s gratification.  By November 18^th, the major works on the fort was done. It was ready for 400 men and secure against small arms by December 1^st with the remaining finishing touches to be scheduled for the spring. At that time Stanwix moved his headquarters to Albany.

Appointed Engineer John Williams’ plan for the fort shows a bastioned fort with the points forming a square 335 feet to the side. The walls were constructed of logs laid crib fashion to a height of nine feet on the outside and eleven feet on the inside of the curtains[25]. Their thickness at the base was slightly more than 20 feet and at the top 18 feet. The southeast bastion, under which the magazine was located, was nine feet on the outside and 15 ½ on the inside. The other three bastions may have had higher ramparts than the curtains, but this is not reflected in the plan. The bastions were 120 feet deep, with two sides 38 feet long and two 90 feet. The curtains measured 140 feet. The sally-port[26], about ten feet wide, was located in the center of the south curtain. Another, narrower gateway about five feet wide in the east curtain gave access to the covered way to the creek.  Nineteen huts were in the parade – mainly officers’ quarters with a couple of kitchens.  The magazine was located beneath the southeast bastion. It was considered bombproof at 69 feet by 19 feet wide[27]

The fort was finished in the summer of 1759.  By the end of the war, it was a strong post with massive log and earthen walls built up so that all the bastions and curtains were capped by embrasured parapets[28]. The ditch on the eastern side had been filled in with a stockade extended along that face. Two ravelins[29], one covering the sally-port and a smaller one for the gate leading to the stream, were constructed between 1759 and 1764. The officers’ huts were replaced by two buildings measuring 120 by 20 feet and one measuring 35 by 20 feet.

Cannon.  The original plan called for 50 cannon and mortars. Each of the four bastions was to carry eight cannon; the remainder were to grace the curtains and other sections of the fort. The type and size of guns to be employed were as follows, note all were iron cannon:  6 eighteen-pound, 12 twelve-pound, 12 nine-pound, 10 six-pound, 2 eight-inch Howitzers, 2 eight-inch mortars, 2 thirteen-inch mortars, 4 four and three-fifths coehorns or ‘royals’ (small mortars).  This plan to arm the fort with 50 guns was never realized. General Horatio Gage, who was superintending construction, was responsible for arming several other fortifications in the northern region. He had a very limited number of cannon to draw from.  One traveler through North America in 1765 noted that while Fort Stanwix was “calculated” for a good many guns, it had only 18 mounted.[30]  

Though the Treaty of Paris ended the French and Indian War in 1763, more settlers died that year than 1759, the peak of the conflict.  In the spring of 1763, the western frontier erupted into hostilities along a thousand-mile front. One after another, the posts in the formerly French territory fell, until only Fort Pitt, Detroit, and Niagara stood fast. Settlements on the fringe of the wilderness were ravaged by marauding French and their Native American allies in what became known as Pontiac’s War. Thousands perished, including British regulars, settlers, and Native Americans. Not until July, 1766, the year the stamp act was revoked, did bloodshed finally end along the frontier. Sir William Johnson met the hostiles in a council at Oswego with acknowledgement of British sovereignty and Pontiac’s pardon[31].

After the Treaty and the elimination of the French Army threat, there was no need to provide for an imperial presence in the Iroquois country, particularly among the Oneidas. The fort fell into rapid decay.  Instead of destroying Fort Stanwix as promised the Oneidas, attention was directed toward its repair. In 1764, Engineer Lt. George Demler inspected it and found the fortification in a surprisingly bad state. The southeast bastion, which covered the magazine and cellar, was in an especially dilapidated condition, with its “whole Face fallen down.” The western half of the south curtain and the southwest bastion were “so rotten that they cannot stand over this winter.” The casemates[32] were uninhabitable and beyond repair.  The lieutenant began repairing the fort on July 1, 1764, which carried on by civilian artificers and laborers in 1767. These included:

• The southeast and southwest bastions and the curtains were repaired and made en barbette[33].
• The casemates were rebuilt, and chimneys installed in the officers barracks.
• The northwest and northeast bastions were rebuilt with their embrasured parapets.
• A covered passageway from the east gate to the small ravelin was built of wood and earth.
• The escarpment[34] and covered way (glacis)[35] were sodded and a small parapet was installed on the covered way.[36] 

Yet, after these attempts to restore the rotting timber and fort’s effectiveness, on May 27, 1767, British Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage recommended to the Secretary of State, the Earl of Shelburne, that Stanwix be abandoned “in order to lessen expenses.” The fort was in ruins and not important enough to merit repairs necessary to make it tenable. He proposed to withdraw the small garrison and leave the fort in the care of an “old half-pay officer” on the condition that he should return everything to the Crown when “required for the King’s service.”  The next year, John Lees, a Quebec merchant, wrote in his Journal, describing the fort as a “neat little fortification built of wood & fit to garrison 3 Regiments’ but it [is] now falling all to ruins. There is a half pay officer with a Corporal & his men that keep Possession of it, intended chiefly for forwarding Expresses to the Officers at the upper Forts: the country is entirely unsettled round this Fort.”[37]

Fort Stanwix was the scene of an important event during this lull between wars. In 1768, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix – whereby the boundary of the Six Nations was set among England – was signed within its crumbling structures.  Over three thousand Native Americans and England government representatives met to hammer out a line of demarcation between the Native American country and that open to English colonization.  By 1774, Six years after the negotiation of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, Governor William Tryon of New York reported that Fort Stanwix had been dismantled.

Garrison at Fort Stanwix

Though in near ruins by 1777, the fort still had ‘good bones’. According to Lt. Colonel Marinus Willett: “it was a square fort with four bastions, surrounded by a ditch of considerable width and depth, with a covert way, and glacis [gentle sloping away from the fort to expose attackers] around three of its angles; the other being sufficiently secured by low, marshy ground. In front of the gate there had been a drawbridge, covered by a salient angle [an angle in a fortification that point outward toward the enemy allowing defenders to fire upon the flanks of an attacking force], raised in front of it on the glacis. In the center of the ditch, a row of perpendicular pickets [wooden beams driven into the ground – often pointed – similar to a large fence] had been erected, with rows of horizontal pickets fixed around the ramparts under the embrasures. However, by the time Continental forces were sent to the fort to enable repairs, the pickets had rotted and fallen down as were much of the parapets and ramparts, the buildings were in ruins, and the ditch was filled up.”[38]

American concern for the security of the valley was not confined to local or provincial action. Maj. Gen. Philip John Schuyler, commanding general of the Northern Department, was aware of the region’s economic potential and its political and military significance. On June 8, 1776, he wrote to the President of the Continental Congress recommending that troops be posted at the site of Fort Stanwix and that the Indians be advised of the Continentals’ intentions. He did not wait for an answer from Congress before preparing to carry his suggestion into effect. Three days later, he informed General Washington that he was “preparing everything I can with utmost secrecy for taking post at Fort Stanwix, which I propose to do immediately after the conference with the Indians.”  Congress did not delay considering the general’s recommendation and on Friday, June 14, 1776, resolved, “That General Schuyler and the other commissioners for Indian affairs in the northern department be directed immediately to hold a conference with Six Nations; to engage them in our interest upon the best terms that can be procured, and treat with them on the principles and in the decisive manner mentioned in his June 8th letter:”  So too, General Washington approved and gave Schuyler directions for carrying out improvements to the Oneida Carry region.[39]

Although the planned negotiations between General Schuyler and Native Americans was postponed, General Schuyler pushed preparations for occupying the Carrying Place. He ordered Col. Elias Dayton of the 3d New Jersey Regiment of the Continental Line to take post at Fort Stanwix with 500 men of his regiment, 150 of Colonel Cornelius Wynkoop’s 4th New York Continental Regiment, 75 Tryon County Militia “intended for Canada,” plus an additional 200 of the county militia.[40]

On June 26, 1776 General Schuyler gave orders for the shipment of supplies and artillery by bateaus to be commanded by Captains Lansing and Wolcott. Strict secrecy was enjoined, and the batteau men were not to be informed of their destination. Preparations proceeded rapidly, and on July 1^st, the supplies began to move westward from Albany.  However, the first cannon would not arrive until January of 1777.  Colonel Dayton’s troops assembled and reached their new post on July 23^rd. In the meantime, Schuyler moved to German Flats to meet with the Indian delegations, in compliance with the Congress’s June 14^th resolution; and he reported that the occupation of the Carrying Place had not given umbrage to the Indians.^[41]

Cannon.  While the fort was undergoing reconstruction in 1776, an effort was made to supply it with the necessary guns, but the attempt was not any more successful than in 1758.  As mentioned, it wasn’t until January, 1777 that a company of artillery was dispatched to Fort Stanwix. For the next five months, other guns, including related equipment and ammunition, were being shipped from the Schenectady quartermaster depot. In spite of this, a report issued in June noted that the fort had only six ‘small’ cannon and two field pieces for defense. Schuyler would complain to Washington that the fort was poorly supplied with cannon.  At the end of the siege, one member of the garrison reported in his journal that Fort Stanwix had 13 cannon on hand.  A clue as to the type and number of guns Colonel Gansevoort may have had at his disposal to defend the fort against St. Leger’s force can be found in General George Clinton’s monthly return of the state of the garrison Fort Schuyler, May 1, 1778.  It recorded that there were 3 nine pounders, 4 six-pounders, 4 three-pounders, plus 4 four and two fifths ‘royal’ mortars for a total of 15 guns. It is very likely that the above cannon were at least the same type of guns, if not the same ones, used during the siege.[42]

Colonel Elias Dayton reconstructs a stockade north of Herkimer which he named Fort Dayton. During Pontiac’s War, in 1760, Colonel Dayton served as a commander in the Detroit region.  Between wars, Dayton returned to Elizabethtown, New Jersey where he was a merchant and colonial official. Dayton allied himself with the local revolutionary movement and when the state turned against Royal Governor William Franklin (son of Benjamin Franklin), in 1775, the New Jersey Provincial Congress chose Dayton to lead the 3^rd New Jersey Regiment ‘Grays’. Dayton arrived in the Mohawk Valley in mid-May, 1776 and over the next several months, the Gray garrisoned Johnstown and German Flatts. He oversaw the rebuilding and modifications to Fort Stanwix, but also resurrected a ruined French and Indian War stockade on the north side of the Mohawk River at West Canada Creek. This area, called Stone Ridge, was in Herkimer, 30 miles east of Fort Stanwix along the Mohawk River.  Fort Dayton is not be confused with Fort Herkimer which was south of the Mohawk River in nearby German Flatts. On October 12, 1776, the 3rd New Jersey were ordered to garrison Fort Ticonderoga, New York, arriving on November 1st in time to see British General Guy Carleton’s fleet return to Canada. They spent a very cold, harsh winter on Lake Champlain and on March 2, 1777, began their march back to Morristown, New Jersey. The regiment’s commission ran out and reenlistments, along with new recruits, formed the Jersey ‘Blues.’ They were active in the Battles of Springfield, Germantown, Monmouth, Brandywine, and Yorktown. At Germantown, Colonel Dayton had a horse shot out from under him.

Repair Fort Stanwix or build another?  Colonel Dayton was accompanied by engineer Nathaniel Hubbell, who found the fort dismantled and ruinous. Their task was to secure the vicinity, serve as a center for patrols, and either rebuild the fort or construct a new one. General Schuyler left to Dayton’s discretion the selection of the two alternatives, telling him: “As I never was at Fort Stanwix, I cannot positively recommend any particular place for erecting a Fortification, but from the best Information I have been able to procure, I am led to believe the Spot on which the old Fort stood, the most Eligible, of this you must be the Judge.”[43]  They arrived at Stanwix in the middle of July, 1776, and faced the problem of building a fort that could be occupied by winter.  Although Dayton had over 900 men at his command, only a portion could be employed at any given time for construction.  If the fort could be repaired, as opposed to being razed and rebuilt, or constructed elsewhere, it would save much needed time and money.  Evidence proves that the fort was repaired, not rebuilt.  A map and another sketch by Francois de Fleury entitled “A Sketch of the Siege of Fort Schuyler,” and “Plan of Fort Stanwix” were presented to Colonel Gansevoort (fort commander in 1777), which shows that Dayton reconstructed the fort on the original site.

Two weeks after Dayton’s troops arrived at the fort, engineer Hubbell wrote to General Schuyler praising the soldier’s work and predicting that the fort would be tenable by August 15, 1776. A letter to Schuyler to Washington confirms the old fort was being repaired, “Fort Stanwix is repairing and is already so far advanced as to be defensible against light artillery.” So too Dayton wrote that “the Fort here which at present is very defensible against almost any number of small arms we had this day…had the pleasure to name Fort Schuyler.”[44] Though Dayton changed the name of the fort to Schuyler, it would never take hold; the fortification almost universally being referred to as Fort Stanwix.  Fears of invasion were surfacing. General Guy Carleton, who had just repulsed American forces from Canada, would follow his success and invade from the north. In doing so, he would detach forces to invade the Mohawk Valley.  Schuyler wrote to General Horatio Gates. Yesterday I received information that the enemy intended to possess themselves of Oswego, and to march a body of troops to destroy the settlements on the river. I can hardly imagine that they will venture to leave Fort Stanwix in the rear, which is already in such a condition as to be tenable against small-arms, and even light artillery.”

By the end of August, scarcely six weeks after beginning the work, Colonel Dayton was able to tell his commanding general that, “Unless the Enemy visit us by the first of October, I imagine they will not disturb Fort Schuyler this season.” Thus, within two months, the fort was strong enough to persuade the local commander and his superior, who had spent most of the summer engaging in talks with the Indians at German Flats, that it could withstand any force the enemy was likely to bring against it that year.

The lack of barracks in the fort limited the number of men who could be stationed during the winter months of 1776 – 1777 to about 200. Colonel Dayton’s men’s time would expire at the end of the year, and he wrote General Schuyler suggesting relief: “…the ensuing winter as I suppose that number sufficient and not more than 200 can be properly accommodated. On this account I fear a Separation of my Regiment unless you Sir, should think it fit to order us to a more active and important station, and send a part of Colonel Elmore’s Battalion which I understand is equal to mine in point of numbers, to relieve us at this Post.”  General Schuyler complied with Dayton’s request and on October 9, 1776, ordered Col. Samuel Elmore’s Connecticut troops to leave German Flats and occupy Fort Schuyler [Stanwix], which they did on the 17th. Because not all the barracks had been completed, a part of Elmore’s command returned to German Flats to winter there at nearby Burnet’s Field.[45]

The winter of 1776-77 was a period of quiet on the northern frontier, but it was not one of complacency. Sir Guy Carleton’s aborted 1776 invasion confirmed American fears that the British intended carrying the war into the interior; and although Carleton ran out of time before winter set in and had withdrawn to Canada, there was ample evidence that the invasion was deferred, not abandoned. Shortages of every form of material hounded the commanders in the Northern Department. Illness and desertion ate into the effective man-power. Sectional and personal loyalties divided men and units, a condition that was reflected in the shifts of command between Philip Schuyler and Horatio Gates. Crown Point and Ticonderoga at the northern terminus of the Champlain line were still American, but every problem that plagued the Americans seemed to focus and compound there. Fort Stanwix was unfinished and while defensible against small arms and light artillery, it was vulnerable to a determined attack supported by heavier field pieces.

French Engineer proposes to build a whole new fort.  In late February or early March, 1777, a French officer, Captain B. De La Marquise, like so many foreign agents arriving America with questionable credentials, managed to impress Congress to be assigned to the Northern Department. He convinced General Schuyler of his boasted abilities who tasked him to submit a plan for rebuilding Stanwix.  Schuyler accepted Marquise’s proposal and dispatched him to the Oneida Carry.  At the end of March, while preparing to leave for Philadelphia, General Schuyler ordered Col. Peter Gansevoort of the 3d New York Regiment of the Continental Line to Fort Stanwix to replace Elmore’s men of the Connecticut Line.  After Gansevoort arrived, Marquise wrote General Gates, who just replaced General Schuyler, proposing to build a new fort rather than repairing the existing one, writing: “I have received orders from General Schuyler to repair this fort in the same way form it was last war. It is absolutely necessary that I make it entirely new. Barracks, Ramparts, Parapet, Fosse and covered way, Fraise[46] and Cheveaux de fiese;[47] all is destroyed. If there is no more troops to come than Col. Gansevoort’s Regiment, I cannot absolutely repair this Fort so soon as I would wish it and necessity requires. I wish you would send a reinforcement as soon as it is possible…” 

The first detachment of the new garrison, the 3^rd New York Regiment, minus their commanding officer reached the fort on April 17, 1777. A company under Major Badlam remained at Fort Dayton in Herkimer. On May 3^rd, Colonel Gansevoort arrived and took command. A week later, Elmore’s men, who had spent the winter on the frontier, marched out of the fort on their way to Albany. The remainder of Gansevoort’s regiment, under the command of Lt. Col. Marinus Willett, arrived on May 28th.  Notwithstanding the labors of Colonel Dayton, in repairing the works the preceding year, Colonel Gansevoort found them in such a state of dilapidation, that they were not only indefensible, but untenable. With the growing possibility of British forces invading the Mohawk Valley from the west, a brisk correspondence ensued between Gansevoort and General Schuyler. Gansevoort’s situation was deplorable. He commanded a fort in ruins with a small number of men (many too ill to work), stretched thin in both repairing and protecting the region from numerous Native American attacks.[48]

Commander Gansevoort and his second, Lt. Colonel Willett.  Colonel Peter Gansevoort was a Dutchman from Albany who served at the capture of Havana in the Seven Years’ War. Though he was young with minimal military experience, he stood over six feet tall and was a tactful and persuasive leader. That and his influential family connections garnered him a commission with the Albany County militia. At the start of the American Revolution, General Schuyler commissioned him a Major on June 30, 1775 with the 2^nd New York Continental Regiment. He served under General Richard Montgomery. He spent the winter of 1775-1776 in Montreal and commanded a portion of the American retreat from Canada in 1776. In June 1776, he was given command of Fort George. In November, 1776, at age 27, he was promoted to Colonel and given command of the 3^rd New York Regiment which he recruited and trained in early 1777.

Colonel Gansevoort was seconded by Lt. Colonel Marinus Willett, from New York City.  Aged 37, at 18 he had been with De Lancey’s Regiment at the disastrous 1758 Fort Ticonderoga siege and was with Bradstreet in his successful expedition against Fort Frontenac. A patriot militant with the New York City Sons of Liberty, he participated in every protest leading up to the eruption of hostilities.  He accepted a captain’s command in the 5^th New York under Colonel McDougal. Was with Montgomery in the Northern campaign of 1775-1776. In the spring of 1777, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the 3^rd New York under Colonel Gansevoort and dispatched to command Fort Constitution on the Hudson River. When Gansevoort was ordered to Fort Stanwix, Willett’s detached regiment left Fort constitution on May 18 aboard three sloops. They arrived Albany on May 21^st and departed for Stanwix by bateau, arriving the fort on May 28^th.[49]

French Engineer Marquise would prove grossly incompetent.  Marquise soon demonstrated he had little if any skills in fortification engineering. Add to that, his poor attitude to officers and a tendency to enrich himself at every opportunity, and he was soon considered a ‘rascal’ by the garrison.  Lt. Colonel wished him to be dismissed, however Gansevoort, aware of politics, did not want to upset those in command who were still conned into thinking Marquise was competent. He kept him in charge of repairs and blunders continued.  New pickets placed outside the fort proved far too long and poorly placed. Buildings in the parade were poorly constructed. A large barrack was constructed outside the fort beyond the foot of the glacis that would be of no use if the fort was invested. [St. Leger would fire this building with the wind dangerously blowing ambers into the fort]. After additional pickets were erected that made the salient angle completely useless, Gansevoort was forced to arrest Marquise and ship him back to Albany.[50]

Native American Raiding parties and American reinforcements arrive.  From late June through July, St. Leger’s forces began to organize and send out scouting and raiding parties, hostile Native Americans buzzed about, killing, scalping, occasionally taking prisoners, and becoming bolder and more numerous as July progressed. Nevertheless, before August, Fort Stanwix was in what its officers considered a state of defense.[51]  Reinforcements trickled in; Captain Thomas De Witt, who had been left at Fort Dayton (thirty miles east village of Herkimer), by Lt. Colonel Willett, arrived on the 13^th of July with about fifty men of Gansevoort’s regiment. Major Ezra Badlam brought in an additional one hundred and fifty men of Colonel James Wesson’s 9^th Massachusetts. Fort Dayton’s commissary, a man named Hanson, arrived the same day with word that seven batteaux, loaded with much needed provisions and ammunition were on their way up stream.

By the first of August, the command of Colonel Gansevoort consisted of just over 600 men, considered inadequate to fend off a protracted siege by the 2,000 British and Native Americans that scouts reported were fast approaching. To compound this, they were critically lacking in supplies and ammunition. With the British approaching, Gansevoort attempted to make final preparations for a siege. Gansevoort demanded an increase in supplies noting spoiled meat, loss of food as gifts to the Native Americans, inferior artillery, lack of gun powder, and “… a great number of the gun bullets do not suit the firelocks, some bullet molds, for casting others of different sizes would be of great advantage to us”[52]  It became critical that the batteaux that commissary Hanson had reported in route would arrive before the British.  The timing could not have been more critical.  On August 2^nd, the very same day the advance force of St. Leger’s army under Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) and Lieutenant Bird arrived before the walls of Fort Stanwix, the batteaux miraculously appeared. American Lt. William Colbrath described the scene.

“Four bateaus arrived being those the Party went to meet having a Guard of 100 Men of Colonel Weston’s Regiment [Wesson’s 9^th Massachusetts Regiment – Brigadier General Ebenezer Learned Brigade] from Fort Dayton under the Command of Lieut-Col. Millen [James Mellen] of that Regiment The Lading being brought safe into the Fort the Guard marched in when our Sentinels on the SW Bastion discovered the Enemys fires in the woods near Fort Newport, upon which the Troops ran to their Respective Alarm posts in this Time we discovered some Men Running from the Landing towards the Garrison On their coming they Informed us, that the Batteau Men who had stayed behind when the Guard marched into the Fort had been Fired on by the Enemy at the Landing that two of them were wounded, the Master of the Bateaus taken prisoner and one Man Missing. A party of 30 Men with a field piece was sent out in the Evening to set Fire to two Barns standing a Little distance from the Fort, Two cannon from the SW Bastion loaded with Grape Shott, were first Fired at the Barnes to drive of [f] the Enemys Indians that might have been Sculking about them when the party having Effected their Design Return’d”[53]

Gansevoort had ordered two hundred of his men to help carry the supplies to the fort. While transporting the last load, Lt. Bird’s party of British soldiers and Native Americans attacked the lower landing. The bateau men abandoned the boats and raced to the fort, however two were injured, one was missing, and the British took the boat captain prisoner. The following day, a party from the fort found the missing boatman, but not the captain [captured surgeon Moses Younglove, in his testimony some years later, stated that a Captain Martin, master boatman, had been taken prisoner and brought to Fort Oswego after the battle – it is assumed this to be the same man]. The man had been shot in the head, scalped, and stabbed in the chest. They brought him back to the fort where he soon died.[54]  Lt. Colonel Willett wrote, “This reinforcement increased the number of the garrison to about seven hundred and fifty men, including officers and artificers. Upon examination, it appeared that they had provisions sufficient to support the garrison six weeks; but the ammunition was so scanty as to allow, for six weeks, only nine cannon to be fired per day. It was therefore necessary to use the cannon as little as possible. Of musket cartridges they had a sufficient quantity. By evening of that day, August 2, 1777, St. Leger and his men began to arrive in force. The Siege of Fort Stanwix had begun.

Mohawk Valley Patriots and Loyalists

Most of the militiamen who rushed to support the garrison at Fort Stanwix and who were subsequently ambushed by St. Leger’s Tory and Native American allies at the Battle of Oriskany were German-Palatines. They were descendants of the first major exodus of German immigrants from the Hudson River Valley some sixty-five years earlier in the fall of 1712.  In 1661, the Dutch had expanded thirty miles to the west of the Hudson and settled in the Schenectady, New York area. The region west of there, along the Mohawk river, to the Oneida Carrying Place in present day Rome covered another ninety miles. These fertile flats along the Schoharie and Mohawk Valleys were populated by nearly two thirds Palatines, a third Dutch, and a sprinkling of Irish, Scotch, English, Welsh, and French.  In 1772, this wide swath of land north of the Mohawk in the uplands called ‘Stone Arabia’ and south to the Pennsylvania frontier, was labeled Tryon County after the newly appointed 39^th governor of New York, William Tryon. After decades of intermarriages, what became known as ‘Mohawk Dutch’ was divided into five districts: Mohawk, Canajoharie, Kingsland, Palatine, and German Flats (which encompassed the Oneida Carry.

The Palatines who settled the Mohawk Valley were a body of German Lutherans who had emigrated from the Rhenish district known as the Palatine; a region in southwestern Germany that occupies the southernmost quarter of the present German Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate, covering an area of approximately 5,500 square kilometers. To aid in developing the Hudson River Valley, England transported nearly 3,000 German Palatines in ten ships to New York in 1710. Most were assigned to work camps along the Hudson River to work off the cost of their passage. Close to 850 families settled along the Hudson primarily in present day Germantown and Saugerties, New York.  These Germans had no great love for kings. Their homeland in Europe had been devastated during the Thirty Years War, 1618 – 1648, where up to 60% of the German population perished, mainly to disease and starvation.  Add to that French King Louis XIV’s invasion of the Rhineland during the Nine Years War in 1688-1697, and one can see why most Palatines embraced the brewing rebellion to break from England to follow the patriot cause.[55]

Much of the western part of the valley continued to be Iroquois country. By the 1770’s, the Confederacy of Six Nations had lost much of its early strength; and its people, especially the Mohawks, Onandagas, and Oneidas, who resided in the region, were becoming more “civilized” and dependent on the white settlers. The Mohawk Valley was thus a region where the races met in frequent contact.[56]  On the eve of the Revolution, the settler population of the county was estimated at 10,000. The available militia for the patriot cause was about 2,500 men. The Indian population along the Mohawk had been reduced to approximately 1,000 or less due to the ravages of disease.[57]

Divided Loyalties and brewing Civil War.  The people of the county entered the era of Revolution with divided loyalties. Communities and families split as some members aligned themselves with the rebellious colonists while others remained loyal to England and its provincial administration or hoped to remain aloof from the war. For many the choice was agonizing as men found themselves forced to choose from among conflicting interests. For the Germans, with no sentimental ties to England, the natural choice would seem to have been to cast their lot with the rebels—as many did. However, as they had tried to do during the Seven Years’ War, some sought neutrality in a quarrel that they felt was not their concern. For others, remembering shabby usage by New York patricians like the powerful Schuylers, who were leaders in the resistance to British authority, and believing that they were more likely to receive fair treatment from a royal governor than a native oligarchy, the choice was to be loyal to the Crown. Among them, the Johnson influence may have been a factor. Sir William’s common-law wife, Sir John’s mother, was a German, and the Palatines had found the baronet fair and sympathetic. The Scottish Highlanders among them were divided as some had served in the British Army; these remained true to their old allegiance. The English and Dutch settlers, mostly native-born, probably included more dedicated members of the ‘patriot’ party than did the other elements of the population. Thus, to the people of the Mohawk country, the Revolution had many of the characteristics of a civil war.[58]

Loyalists in the Mohawk Valley:  Leadership of the Loyalists centered on the paternal and military figurehead, Sir William Johnson, and those of his family who propagated his power over the valley’s inhabitants and Native American population.  Though Sir William died of a stroke on July 11, 1774, his political heirs continued their ascendancy over the region and loyalty to the British Crown. They included: Sir John Johnson, his son of William’s first common-law wife; Guy Johnson, his nephew and son-in-law and successor to the super intendency of Indian Affairs; Daniel Claus, another son-in-law and military leader; and John Butler, who had been Sir William’s prodigy and deputy. Closely associated with them was Joseph Brant (Thayendanega), full blooded Mohawk and Sir William’s brother-in-law and secretary, who had been educated at what is now Dartmouth College. Brant was the brother of Molly Brant, Sir William’s Mohawk common-law wife who regularly welded her influence among the Iroquois Nation.  Most of the family’s males were members and leaders of the county’s militia: Sir William Johnson had been the Colonial General of all militia forces, Guy Johnson was a colonel in the militia and diplomat who traveled to England to lobby loyalist support in the Mohawk Valley, John Butler held the rank of Lt. Colonel, and Sir John, William’s only son, from the age of thirteen, accompanied his father on all his military operations and Native American Councils.

Joseph Brant Slideshow. Mohawk chief who infatuated colonial American and Europe artists and scholars. Brother-in-law to Sir William Johnson, he was educated at the Indian School in Hanover, New Hampshire, later Dartmouth College. He traveled to Europe before leading his Native American nation in a brutal wilderness warfare.

When Sir William Johnson died, his son Sir John attempted to assume his father’s powerful position in local government. However, with the loss of Sir William’s influence, British control over the Mohawk Valley left a power vacuum that Johnson’s family and friends were not able to fill in the face of local uprisings and patriotic fervor. With the outbreak of war, the Johnson family and many of those considered loyalists were removed from the county’s militias. Guy Johnson and Daniel Clause, along with other loyalists, gave up their homes and fled the patriot threat and fled to Canada. The tide was turning against the Johnsons. The Committee of Tryon County, on September 7, 1775, reported to the Provincial Congress of New York that: “There is a great number of proved enemies in and about Johnstown under Sir John Johnson, being Highlanders amounting to two hundred men.”[59] General Schuyler took this report at its word and organized a force of around three hundred toward Johnstown.  Sir William sent a delegation to meet with Schuyler that included Mohawk representatives and headed by his loyal Highlander, Captain John MacDonell.  They denied that the Scottish Highlanders in and around Johnstown were organizing against the patriot forces.

By mid-January, 1776, Schuyler and Johnson signed an agreement that “The Scotch inhabitants shall… immediately deliver up all arms in their possession and they shall solemnly promise that they will not at any time hereafter, during the continuance of this unhappy contest, take up arms without the permission of the Continental Congress…”[60]  On Saturday, January 20, 1776, “the Highlanders, between two and three hundred, marched to the front where they grounded their arms.” The whole number disarmed was six hundred.[61]  Five hostages of the McDonell clan were taken by Schuyler and removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  They were:  Captain Allan McDonell, (spelling from source), his son Alexander McDonell, Ronald McDonell, Archibald McDonell, and John McDonell.[62]

Schuyler paroled Sir John Johnson, however by May of that year, Johnson heard that Schuyler signed an order for his and his supporters’ arrest. They and their families were to be taken to Albany under armed guard. On May 14, 1776, Schuyler sent Colonel Elias Dayton to effect the arrest and movement of Johnson’s family and Highlanders to Albany.  On May 18^th, the exodus of Johnstown began.  One hundred and thirty Highlanders and near one hundred and twenty other inhabitants left their homes for good, totaling around three hundred   They were accompanied by a small detachment of the British 42^nd Highlanders under the command of Lt. James Gray.[63] They were ill prepared for the journey into Canada and suffered terribly – some living off their dogs and what could be gathered in the woods to survive. On land allotted to them, they settled in Glengarry, Canada (some of their descendants yet remain).  Among the others who left were a small contingency of Protestant Highlanders who had immigrated from North Carolina and a small number of Germans, including the brother of the Rebel commander of Tryon County militia, General…On May 19^th, Colonel Dayton was informed that Johnson and the Highlanders had departed for Canada.  Note on the five hostages taken to Pennsylvania:  In March, 1777, Alexander McDonell and John McDonell (son of Allan McDonell) applied to Schuyler and received permission to visit their families in New York.  They were still under parole and expected to return. When they got to the Johnstown region, they fled for Canada with an additional number of local loyalists.  The two would join Sir John’s regiment as Captain Alexander McDonell and Captain-Lieutenant John McDonell. They would join in the siege of Fort Stanwix. As to the other three hostages, there is no record that they suffered any action from their clan having fled to Canada.[64]

Those who were also driven out of the valley included many Highlander Catholics (from Glengarry, Scotland who had settled near Johnstown)[65] and Protestant Highlanders who had immigrated from North Carolina (who claimed to keep their oath to never bear arms again against Great Britain)[66] along with some loyalist Germans who left their homes for Canada.  The Catholic Highlanders were the victim of Protestant bigotry towards Catholics, led by the illustrious and vehement patriot, New York’s John Jay, who would play a lead role in the writing of a new nation’s constitution. Many of these Catholics were part of the McDonnell clan and were led by Captain Allan McDonnell. They included: 

While in Montreal, Sir John Johnson organized a regiment of loyalist exiles from the Mohawk Valley into what would become the King’s Royal Regiment or ‘Greens’. Among them was General Herkimer’s brother-in-law and brother who became a captain in Sir John’s ‘Greens’ and whose name would be brought up in a heated discussion of General Herkimer and his captains, leading to the general’s decision for a hasty march to Fort Stanwix. John Butler traveled west to Fort Niagara and took the office of British Acting Indian Supervisor. From there he worked tirelessly to sway Native Americans to support the British war against the Americans. The departure of those loyal to the Crown left control of the Mohawk Valley to the Continental Army and mainly Palatine German militiamen.  By 1777, while the Mohawks, Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga of the Six Nations threw in their lot with the British, General Schuyler and Samuel Kirkland, protestant missionary to the Oneida, were able to benefit from the Oneida and Tuscarora’s intense dislike of Johnson and British authority to gain their neutrality and ultimate American support. In July, 1777, the two loyalist forces under Sir John Johnson and John Butler, along with their Native American allies, would join the 250 British regulars and 80 German Jaeger Riflemen under Lt. Colonel St. Leger’s command to invade the Mohawk Valley.

Tryon County Patriot Militiamen.  By 1776, the militia through the Mohawk Valley was dominated by German Palatine settlers who supported rebellion against British rule. Among them was a large faction of Dutch and smaller numbers from the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish farmsteads. They were divided among four regiments: The 1st (Canajoharie) Regiment under Col. Ebenezer Cox, the 2nd (Palatine) Regiment under Col. Jacob Klock, the 3rd (Mohawk) Regiment under Col. Fredrick Visscher, and the 4th (Kingsland-German Flatts) Regiment under Col. Peter Bellinger, son-in-law to the Nikolaus Herkimer (Herscheimer), Brigadier General of the Tryon county Militia.

General Nikolaus Herkimer.  Little is known of General Herkimer who was chosen to lead the county’s militia. Nathaniel Benton, 1856 author of History of Herkimer County, wrote that he had no children and his papers had been scattered, lost, or destroyed.  Most accounts on the internet state he was in his sixties in 1777, however evidence shows this is incorrect. The date of Nikolaus’ birth seems to center around 1727 and 1728.  This would put his age at around fifty when he died ten days after wounds received at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, 1777.  His father, Johan Jost Herkimer operated a trading post at Fort Herkimer which was next to the stone house the senior Herkimer built in the 1730’s. During the French and Indian War, a stockade was built around the house. Named Fort Herkimer in the town of Herkimer, it sat along the Mohawk River, about eighty miles west from Albany and thirty-three miles from Fort Stanwix at the Oneida Carry. Johan Jost and Catherine (Petrie) Herkimer had thirteen children who survived to adulthood. All lived within the German Flats region and prospered as farmers and merchants. Nikolaus was the older of three other brothers who fought at the Battle of Oriskany; George (however some accounts state he was not there), Hendrick who was wounded (his two sons Abraham and George also fought) and Johan Jost, the ‘black sheep’ of the family who remained loyal to the Crown and fought alongside Colonel John Butler under St. Leger as a Captain and master of Bateau.

Nikolaus was described as a ‘large, square-built Dutchman,[67] however other accounts state that he was short, slender with black hair and bright eyes.  There remains several various accounts as to his marriage. Most state he was married twice, Maria Dygert Herkimer and Lany Dygert Herkimer. Some combine the two women as one; Lany (Maria) Dygert Herkimer. While others mix up who was the first wife and who the second – we know that after Nickolas’ death, Maria Dygert Herkimer married Johann Jost Crouse with whom she had two children; this would indicate that she was the second wife.  During the French and Indian War, Herkimer was commissioned a lieutenant in the Schenectady militia on January 5, 1758 and was in command of Fort Herkimer that year when the fort was attacked.

After the French and Indian war, Herkimer was a leading citizen in the German Flats community. He was good friends with Joseph Brant, the leader of the Iroquois Native Americans who were part of St. Leger’s force.  In July of 1775, Nikolaus Herkimer would head the Tryon County Committee of Safety and become colonel of the district militia. After the split in which Loyalist militia members were forced out of the militia, he was commissioned a brigadier general of the Tryon County militia on September 5, 1776.  Besides his three brothers who were present at the Battle of Oriskany, were two brothers-in-law: Cordelia’s husband Colonel Peter Bellinger; and Anna’s husband, Peter B. Ten Broeck.

Iroquois Nation

The Original Five Nations of the Iroquois of the northeast refer to themselves by the name Haudenosaunee, meaning ‘people of the longhouse.’ They comprised a confederation that included the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca. After 1722, the Tuscarora Nation to the southeast was added to the confederacy, thereafter they were referred to as the Six Nations. As discussed earlier in this article, the French became lasting enemies after they attacked several villages in 1687. The Iroquois allied themselves to the English and would do so during the American Revolution except for the Oneidas who lived among the German Palatines at German Flats and at the Oneida Carry.

With the arrival of European traders, so were goods desired by the Native Americans; muskets, alcohol, metal blades, kettles, cooking utensils, and textiles. What the Europeans wanted for such items were furs – mainly beaver. The Haudenosaunee hunted beaver seasonally and then only occasionally.  However, they soon developed a need for what the Europeans had to offer and the beaver hunt became a full-time endeavor. This altered their social structure giving more power to hunters and warriors and less authority to sachems or chiefs. With more time in the woods procuring hides, it left less time for agriculture and hunting for food. This in turn developed a reliance on the Europeans to provide the necessities for their survival; influence that traders, like Sir William Johnson and provincial governments were keen to pursue.

When the French and English came to blows throughout America, the Iroquois were drawn in and forced to take sides. During the French and Indian war, the Mohawks, who lived closest to English settlements and trade centers, sided with the British. The Seneca were more economically connected to the French while the other nations attempted to remain neutral. Only after the British seemed assured of victory, did the other nations come into the war on the side of the British.  After the war, the British worked to secure the Iroquois alliance. However, other factors came into play to split up the Iroquois alliance. One, what became known as the Klock dispute, was a land acquisition that split the Oneida from the nearby Mohawks. In the 1760’s, the Mohawk gave Willima Johnson a tract of 80,000 acres, however George Klock, a German farmer, had previously claimed this land. Klock and Johnson spent the next fourteen years fighting over this dispute. The Mohawks, who lived close to Johnson, and whose leader, Joseph Brant, was a brother-in-law to Johnson, saw this as a land grab by Klock. Many of the Oneida, such as Tehawenkaragwen (Hanyery), supported Klock.  This led to a personal dispute between Brant and Hanyery that erupted in later warfare.

The support by the Oneida for Klock could have been a reaction to Johnson’s power-grabbing tendencies. So too, when the British coerced the Oneidas into ceding a section of their territory, including lands encompassing Oriska, in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, the villagers were incensed. For whatever reason, when tensions between the rebellious patriots and British government exploded in hostilities, the Oneida would first claim neutrality.  As St. Leger’s British force neared the Oneida Carry, the Oneida decided to fight with Americans.  Seneca warriors and Mohawk who had escaped to Canada would battle their brother Oneida at the Battle of Oriskany. And later that year, the Oneida sent warriors to help Washington’s army in and around Philadelphia to fight General William Howe’s forces in the city.

Efforts to win and hold the favor and support of Native Americans continued through the whole war until 1783; but by the eve of 1777 the major portion of them had cast their lot with the English. From the start, the successes of the Regulars and the unorganized efforts and failures of the colonists did much to attach them to the royal cause. Treaties previously made with the rebels were quickly forgotten when the victorious red-coats prepared to fall upon the center of the colonies in conjunction with the drives from the North and South. The tribes were called together and issued weapons and ammunition with orders to pillage and scourge the scattered settlements while the Regulars concentrated on the forts and other strongholds. Supplies were meted out to them at the start while they acted as a branch of the ar.my in their home territory, but once aroused to the heat of battle, to plunder, and to carnage, they continued their terror in surrounding districts after the Regulars moved on to the next objective.[68]

Oneida Chief Hanyery Tewahangarahken. “He Who Takes Up the Snow Shoe,” was born in 1724 and would eventually ascend to the position of chief warrior of the Oneidas and the Wolf Clan. At Oriska, Hanyery, and his wife Two Kettles along with their family thrived on a large farm, selling their produce to travelers stopping off at the Oneida Carrying Place and the inhabitants of Fort Stanwix. By the time he fought in the Revolutionary War, Hanyery (also Han Yerry) was in his fifties. He was recalled by one observer as an “ordinary sized” man and “quite a gentleman in his demeanor.” His Oneida friend Hendrick Smith said of him, “Han Yerry was too old for the Service, yet used to go fearlessly into the fights.” Bravery’s age is limitless.

In September, 1777, following the Battle of Oriskany, other Haudenosaunee, who had sided with the British, burnt the village of Oriska to the ground in retribution for the Oneidas’ choice. Hanyery’s home and all his possessions were also destroyed in the tumult. He would rebuild his home and live among the settlers, dying in 1794. Two Kettles, his wife, was beside her husband during the Battle of Oriskany along with her son Cornelius. After a musket ball struck Hanyery in the wrist, it was reported that she helped him reload and afterwards, rode to bring word of the battle to settlers. Cognizant of a conflict that pitted brother against brother, along with reaching out to heal wounds, Molly Brant, Joseph Brant’s brother and Hanyery’s chosen enemy, gave Hanyery’s family a place to live among her former husband’s estates until they were able to rebuild their life.

Prelude to Siege and Battle of Oriskany

Militiamen were slow to respond. British General Burgoyne’s slow, but determined advance along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River towards Albany consumed most of Major General Phillip Schuyler’s attention. He drew in as many troops available and called upon local militia to rally with his men to stop Burgoyne’s advance. Throughout, he remained cognizant of a possible enemy stab at his flank from the west. He kept a cautious eye on the Mohawk fortifications, dispatching troops and supplies as best he could, including requiring militiamen for active duty. The settlers responded, but more and more resisted.  Historian Charles Dawson wrote: alarming reports of various descriptions were continually in circulation, and the inhabitants were harassed beyond measure by the necessity of performing frequent tours of military duty— acting as scouts and reconnoitering parties; and standing, some of them, as sentinels around their fields, while others did the labor. No neighborhood felt secure, and all were apprehensive that the whole country would be ravaged by the Indians.^[69] The militiamen believed they could not abandon their homes and families in the face of an encroaching enemy. According to Dawson, St. Leger’s approach also had an adverse effect. He wrote instead of arousing the inhabitants to a sense of their danger, and to the employment of means of defense, it appeared to paralyze them, while those who were inclined to favor the King became more openly his supporters.^[70]

The fall of Fort Ticonderoga to Burgoyne on July 6^th with little resistance from Continental troops disheartened the valley’s defenders.  The shocking news brought even more distress to those of Tyron County and the garrison at Fort Stanwix.  So too the Oneida, who had thrown in their lot with the Americans and had a stake in the Continental Army’s success, demanded they make more of a stand at Fort Stanwix than Fort Ticonderoga. They had kept a watch on the progress of the St. Leger expedition’s march towards Fort Stanwix and shared information with the Continentals as to councils between British agents and Native groups, calling upon the militia in the Mohawk Valley to remain strong against St. Leger’s advance.

In July, when General Schuyler ordered two hundred militiamen to reinforce the garrison at Fort Stanwix, the militia would have none of it.[71] Once more we turn to Dawson: at the very moment when they were called upon to reinforce Fort Schuyler [Fort Stanwix], the Committees [Committees of Correspondence & Safety] both of Palatine and Schoharie, feeling that they were not strong enough even for self-defense, were calling upon the Council of Safety at Albany to send additional forces for their protection. Mr. Paris [Committee member and militiaman] wrote [to General Schuyler]. “We are entirely open to the Indians and Tories, whom we expect every hour to come upon us. Part of our militia are at Fort Edward [on the Hudson River]; and of the few that arc here, many are unwilling to take up arms to defend themselves, as they are unable to stand against so many enemies. Therefore, if your honors do not grant us immediate relief to the amount of about five hundred men, we must either fall a prey to the enemy, or take protection also.”[72]  Schuyler had no more men to send. He expressed his frustrations at Fort Edward on the 21^st of July in a letter to the Hon. Pierre Van Courtland:[73] “I am exceedingly chagrined at the pusillanimous spirit which prevails in the County of Tryon.”[74] By mid-July, Brigadier Nikolaus Herkimer, commander of Tryon County militia would issue a proclamation to assure his fellow settlers were called out to defend the region.

Brigadier General Herkimer’s Proclamation. A crisis was fast approaching which necessity obliged the settlers in the valley to meet. With many of his fellow German and Irish colleagues ignoring the need to assemble, he issued strong orders to pull his militia companies together. On the seventeenth of July, General Herkimer’s proclamation informed the inhabitants of the gathering of the enemy’s forces at Oswego; two thousand ‘Christians and Savages.”  He called upon all, between the ages of sixteen and sixty years, to hold themselves in readiness to repair to the field, while the invalids, and those over sixty years of age, were directed to arm for the defense of the women and children. The disaffected, and all who refused to obey the call, were ordered to be arrested and disarmed, and the members of the popular ” Committee,” and all who had held commissions in former wars, were invited to rendezvous in the common cause.[75]  General Schuyler and Colonel Gansevoort would soon call upon the militia who responded to Herkimer’s demands to help block the approach of St. Leger’s forces.

Blocking Wood’s Creek. In an attempt to slow the British advance, Colonel Gansevoort ordered the obstruction of Wood Creek by cutting trees into the creek.  As discusses earlier, the strategy had been in place since 1776 when on July 18^th of that year, Maj. Gen. Schuyler ordered Colonel Elias Dayton that “upon the receipt of … intelligence of the approach of an enemy thro Lake Ontario that you should cause the Timber on the banks of Wood Creek to be felled into it”. Schuyler also ordered Dayton to make any roads able to carry artillery impassable. Militiamen responded to Gansevoort’s appeal for help to block St. Leger’s advance. They cut timber into Wood Creek for approximately twenty-five miles.

The people at the fort became increasingly conscious of the dangers of the hour as work parties of militia labored under the protection of Continentals to obstruct Wood Creek, as the reports of scouts brought news of the approaching enemy, and as hostile Indians prowled the woods trying to way lay members of the garrison and local inhabitants. The obstruction worked, blocking the creek so thoroughly that while St. Leger invested the fort, he would detach over a hundred men over nine days to construct a twenty-five-mile road around the obstacles; from Fish Creek to the Carrying Place to allow for the transportation of troops, artillery, and supplies.[76]

Native American Attacks around Fort Stanwix and German Flats escalate.  Bounty offered for scalps.  The Continental soldiers at Fort Stanwix were aware of the approaching enemy not only from the Oneida’s information, but also from the numerous attacks on the Oneida Carry. British allied Native Americans were already in the area of Fort Stanwix during June and July 1777. They made their presence known in the form of numerous ambushes and assaults.[77] The first was on June 25^th with the attack on Captain Gregg and Corporal Madison. Both men were in the woods surrounding Fort Stanwix hunting pigeons when they were ambushed.[78] The British allied scouts killed Corporal Madison and scalped Cpt. Gregg, but he survived. A second attack occurred on July 3^rd against Ensign Spoor and seven men who were collecting sod for the reconstruction of the fort. British scouts killed one soldier, injured another, and took the other five prisoner.

A third attack was made outside the fort on July 27^th, at the foot of the glacis, about 200 yards distant. Three girls (teenaged) were picking berries when a party of Indians fired on them. A sentinel ran towards the fort with one of the girls alongside who had been shot in the shoulder. When Lt. Colonel Willett went to the spot, he found the other two girls dead and scalped. One of the girls’ father had served many years with the British artillery before settling in the German Flats area. These attacks had put the fort on alert for an impending attack. The day after the two girls were killed, Colonel Gansevoort called in the Wood Creek parties that had been cutting trees and laying obstacles along land and water routes. He also sent away ‘those women which belonged to the garrison, including sick in the hospital.[79]  In a letter Colonel Gansevoort wrote General Schuyler dated July 29^th, he confirms that St. Leger had offered twenty dollars for every American scalp.[80]

Some Continental Reinforcement arrive at Fort Stanwix.  By mid-July, Schuyler was thoroughly occupied in trying to pull as many troops and militia as he could find into an army strong enough to counter the nearly ten thousand mainly British and German forces descending the Hudson River towards Albany. He did not lend a deaf ear to the pleas of German settlers along the Mohawk. Though pressuring General Herkimer to do more to strengthen his militia (which the general would do on the 17^th through his proclamation), Schuyler found some additional troops.  One, the rest of the 3^rd New York, fifty troopers under Captain Thomas De Witt, who had been garrisoned at Fort Dayton in Herkimer, New York, thirty some miles east, was ordered to Fort Stanwix, arriving on the 19^th.  The other was more substantial. Sent from Fort Edmond, one hundred and fifty Continental troops of Colonel James Wesson’s’ 9^th Massachusetts under Major Ezra Badlam, (who had fought at Lexington) arrived on July 19^th.

Oneida warrior and Sachem [chief] Thomas Spencer informs Americans of St. Leger’s Force.   Spencer had been an Oneida envoy to Canada earlier that year where he was present at a Grand Council recently held at the Native American village of Cassessenny. Colonel Daniel Claus had presided – Sir John Johnson’s brother-in-law and former Indian Superintendent in Canada (the title Guy Johnson assumed for the expedition). Spencer arrived at German Flats on July 15^th and informed the settlers that Sir John Johnson and Colonel Claus were at that time at Oswego with their families along with 700 Indians and 400 Regular Troops.  Also 600 Tories were on the islands above the Oswegatchie preparing to join them.  Plus, Colonel John Butler was to arrive at Oswego on the 14^th of July from Niagara and expected to be accompanied by a large Native American force.^[81]

Spencer sent a letter to the Tryon County Committee of Safety on July 29^th which arrived on the 30^th who informed General Schuyler.  “At a meeting of the chief, they tell me that there is but four days remaining of the time set for the king’s troops to come to Fort Schuyler, and they think it likely they will be here sooner. The chiefs desire the commanding officers at Fort Schuyler not to make a Ticonderoga of it; but they hope you will be courageous. They desire General Schuyler may have this with speed, and send a good army here; Tomorrow we are a-going to the Three Rivers t to the treaty. We expect to meet the warriors, and when we come there and declare we are for peace, we expect to be used with indifference and sent away.  Let all the troops that come to Fort Schuyler take care on their march, as there is a party of Indians to stop the road below the fort, about 80 or 100. We hear they are to bring their cannon up Fish Creek. We hear there is 1000 going to meet the enemy. We advise not — the army is too large for so few men to defend the Fort — we send a belt of 8 rows to confirm the truth of what we say.”[82]

General Schuyler immediately informed Colonel Gansevoort writing, “A report prevails that Sir John Johnson intends to attack your post. You will therefore put yourself in the best posture of defense . . . I have written General Herkimer to support you with the militia, in case you should be attacked. Give him therefore the earliest intelligence if any enemy should approach you.”[83]

Fort Stanwix’s repairs were nearly completed by August 1^st.   The wall around the whole of fort was repaired.  The parapets were nearly raised [small wall at the outer and top edge of a defensive wall from which sheltered defenders can move, stand, and fight behind].  Embrasures [small opening in a parapet so to fire out towards an attacking enemy] made on three of the bastions [or bulwark that project out the curtain wall – usually at corners]. Horizontal pickets fixed around the walls. Perpendicular pickets around the covertway [located at the crest of the glacis before the ditch allowing a position beyond the ditch and the fort’s walls or outworks – it also allows troops to assemble called a ‘place of arms’.]  Lastly, the gate and bridge were made secure.  They had just finished laying the horizontal pickets at night when the enemy invested the fort the next day.   However, the parapets were still in need of repair and would be finished during the initial attack on the fort. In doing so, they were left open to enemy’s rifles in which several defenders were killed.[84]

On the night of August 2nd, the British advance party of Lt. Colonel St. Leger and Native American warriors arrived at the Oneida Carry. Lt. William Colbrath’s journal records that those in the fort could see the enemy’s fires near Fort Newport suggesting the presence of camps. In preparations for an assault, two barns just outside the fort were burned as they might have allowed coverage for attacking forces.  Colbrath does not state who owned the barns, but five families were in residence around the fort in 1777 and the barns probably belonged to one of these families. The barns might have allowed coverage for any attacking forces. With both sides making final preparations, the Siege of Fort Stanwix had begun.[85]  Lt. Colonel Willett, in his memoirs, contradicts Colbrath by one day as to the burning of the barns writing that “On the night of the 4th, details went out and brought in 27 stacks of hay for the cattle that were impounded in the fort’s ditch and to burn a house and barn that obstructed the field of fire.”[86]

Siege Begins

Oneida tradition romantically marks the start of the siege with an exchange between Captain Joseph Brant and a young Oneida warrior. British allied warriors, including Brant, discovered a seventeen-year-old Oneida scout, Paul Powless (Paulus), in the woods far from Fort Stanwix. As Powless started to retreat, Joseph Brant called him to stop, assuring Powless that Brant’s warriors would not attack him. As both sides aimed guns at the other, Brant attempted to convince Powless to join him and the British with promises of rewards. Rejection of the British in favor of the rebels, Brant promised, would result in the destruction of the Oneida. Powless, continuing to aim his rifle at Brant, responded that the Oneida were allied with the Continentals and as a result would share in any “good or ill [that] might come.”  Unable to change Powless’ mind, Brant rewarded the youth’s bravery and loyalty by allowing Powless to live and race back to Fort Stanwix. In repeating what may or may not have happened, Powless’ stand was a definitive statement of the Oneida’s increased alliance with the Continentals during the siege and the rest of the war.[87]

St. Leger camps and display of British force. The evening of August 2^nd, St. Leger placed his main camp upstream from the fort where the ground rose a little.  Here were most of his British regulars and the artillery when it arrived. A small detachment of regulars, together with the greater part of the Tories and Indians were encamped south of the fort, covering the lower landing. West and a little north of the fort was a Tory post on Wood Creek. Though St. Leger was short of artillery munitions, he had a good supply of small arms and food for six weeks.[88]  Over the years, several historians stated that St. Leger paraded his forces before Fort Stanwix to impress the garrison – in hopes for a quick surrender. Hoffman Nickerson wrote, “From their palisaded earthworks, Gansevoort and his men could see the white breeches and scarlet coats of the British infantry, the blue coats of the British artillerymen, the green faced with red of the German chasseurs, and the green faced with white which gave Sir John Johnson’s regiment the name of the Royal Greens. The sight of the Indians with their feathers, their warpaint, tomahawks, and scalping knives, the sound of their war whoop, showed the garrison vividly enough what would be their own fate should their resistance fail and what would happen to the settlements behind them.”[89] Only problem – this did not occur.

Display of British force is not supported by Primary Sources. There is not a single eye witness account that verifies St. Leger engaged in a show of British power at the start of the siege. The only hint we have of any British display comes from Lt. Colbrath. His journal for August 3^rd states that “about three o’clock this after the enemy showed themselves to the garrison on all sides, carried off some hay from a field near the garrison.” Hardly a grand display that falls far short of Nickerson and Ward’s descriptions. Colbrath describes what would be more like an enemy organizing their camps and gathering in feed and foraging supplies from the nearby settlements while setting up for a possible siege. Another reason that such a display was not possible, is that on the 3^rd, most of St. Leger’s forces were still trying to get by the obstacles in Wood Creek, which would take days. As such, only the small royals could be brought into play to harass the fort during the opening days of the siege.

The Loyalists and Canadian axe men under the command of boat master Captain Hon Jost Herkimer (General Herkimer’s brother) and Jean Babtiste Melchoir were assigned to clear the creek. Meanwhile, Sir John Johnson’s ‘Greens’ worked to construct a new twenty-five-mile road to bypass Wood Creek. Most of the Native American warriors were still in route to the Oneida Carry following the council at Three Rivers and would not arrive until August 5^th, the day before the Battle of Oriskany.  And the main British regular force with supplies and heavier artillery would not arrive until after August 6^th, why at the Battle of Oriskany, only Loyalist and Native Americans, along with some Hessian rifle would be dispatched to deal with the approaching Tryon County militia.[90]

Fort Summoned to Surrender on August 4th.  Lt. Colbrath wrote that at 3 PM, St. Leger sent Captain Tice under a flag to demand the fort’s surrender and offered protection to the garrison. Captain Gilbert Tice was a loyalist officer in the Niagara Indian Department under Colonel John Butler. He was a close friend to Joseph Brant, having traveled with him to England as his ‘guide’. He was wounded along the Richelieu River in 1775 in action against General Montgomery’s Continentals invading Canada.  There are many glowing accounts as to what St. Leger wrote in his proposal as well as Colonel Gansevoort’s colorful answer to Captain Tice. However, we turn to Lt. Colbrath again when he records only that ‘the demand and promise were rejected with disdain.”[91]  Historian Charles Dawson wrote that “a flag was sent to the fort, and left copies of a pompous proclamation which had been issued by Colonel St. Leger, in which, much after the manner of General Burgoyne, he dealt liberally in threats of vengeance of those who refused to recognize the King and submit to his authority.[92]

August 4^th Day after St. Leger Arrives.  Rather than simply wait for the bulk of his forces to clear the obstacles, St. Leger engaged the fort with what men he had. Allied Native warriors and Hesse-Hanau Jaegers fired small arms and rifles from the fort’s garden, using crops of potatoes, bushes, weeds and stumps of trees as cover.  The Americans responded in kind while work crews continued to strengthen the fort in expectation of St. Leger bringing up his cannon. The enemy’s marksmen killed one American guard in the northeast bastion of the fort and wounded six others.[93] That night, the Americans sallied out from the fort to burn down a house and barn owned by a Mr. Roof that was close to the fort and had been used to conceal marksmen to fire upon the fort. According to Lt. Colbrath, they also brought in twenty-seven bales of hay.[94]

August 5^th.  The 5th was spent in much the same manner as the fourth. Enemy marksmen poured in shot which would kill another defender and wound several others. St. Leger was able to bring up some of his small mortars, five inch ‘royals’ (cohorns), which lobbed shot within the fort, some in the barracks. The barracks that the incompetent engineer Marquise had erected outside the fort was burned by the British late that afternoon. That same afternoon, St. Leger first received word from the late Sir William Johnson’s wife Molly Brant that a relief column was on its way to the fort and would be within ten or twelve miles of the British camp by that night. St. Leger was faced with a serious tactical problem; he had to sustain the siege, wait for the rest of his force to arrive, and by necessity, destroy the relief column before it could reach the fort. That night, most of the rest of St. Leger’s Native American force arrived from Three Rivers and were detailed to harass the garrison. It was reported that “a thousand Indians completely encircled the fort, and commenced a terrible yelling, which was continued at intervals the greater part of the night.”[95]

St. Leger sends word to General Burgoyne. As St. Leger faced the obstacles along Wood’s Creek, he sent a report to General Burgoyne who was having his own problems advancing.  The Americans had continued their slow, dogged retreat before Burgoyne’s main army. At about the same time Fort Stanwix’s Continental troops and local militia were felling trees to block Wood’s Creek, General Schuyler, on July 25^th, ordered troops to delay the Burgonyne’s advance. They felled trees, destroyed bridges, and damned creeks to flood roads. This tactic was most effective. By early August, Burgoyne’s men were fatigued, supplies were short – having to be sent down from Ticonderoga which had been shipped from Canada, much needed horses were not arriving from the north, and with only four days of rations left, a deluge of rain continued to ruin the roads.

However, once learning of St. Leger’s successful approach, Burgoyne considered a rapid advance south. He also sought to replenish his supplies by foraging the countryside. He set into motion a stab by Hessian forces towards the New Hampshire Grants which would, on August 16^th, end in disaster; the attempt thwarted by General John Stark’s militia and Green Mountain Boys under Colonel Seth Warner. When St. Leger began his siege of Fort Stanwix on August 4^th, ninety miles to the east, General Schuyler fell back from Stillwater to the confluence of the Hudson and the Mohawk. This continued his skillful retreat before Burgoyne as the Dutch General took up his headquarters on Van Schaick’s Island, nine miles north of Albany. He would have to go no further for events would continue to unfold that would doom Burgoyne’s plan and St. Leger’s ultimate failure would play a key role.[96]

Tryon County Militia Marches / St. Leger Sets Ambush

News of the Siege Spreads.  Colonel Gansevoort’s garrison was surrounded and unable to send word of the siege.  However, some of the Oneida escaped detection to spread the alarm. Two Kettles, the wife of the Oneida chief Hanyery, left Fort Stanwix on August 3rd and passed the British lines. She travelled east across the Mohawk Valley stopping in Oriska (Oriskany) and continuing to Fort Dayton, and then further down the valley.  The seventeen-year-old who stood against Brant at the start of the siege, Paul Powless (Paulus), also slipped out of the fort and made it to Schenectady to request help from Continental leadership.  Major General Schuyler was notified, however with General Burgoyne approaching Albany, the northern commander had few resources to provide to Fort Stanwix. It became the responsibility of the Tryon Militia to help relieve the siege at Fort Stanwix.[97]

Militia Responds.  The Tryon County commander of militia, Brigadier General Nickolas Herkimer, received word on July 30^th from the Oneida that the invasion was real and approaching. The general called for the militia to organize at Fort Dayton and used all his influence to assure he had a force strong enough to punch through the British to relieve the fort. Prior to this, Herkimer had been dealing with the settler’s paralysis to assemble.  Many feared for their homes and family’s wellbeing if left alone while the male members reported for militia duty.  Herkimer’s July 17^th Proclamation attempted to address some of their concerns, ordering all males between the ages of sixteen and sixty to organize, yet also detailing those over sixty, invalids, and occasional exceptions to remain behind to protect family and property from enemy raids. Herkimer used pride, vengeance, and fear to push militia members into joining the march. He spread the details from Colonel Gansevoort’s letter describing the British attack on the three girls picking berries outside of Fort Stanwix. He also reiterated the story of Jane McCrea, fiancée of a British officer, had been killed and scalped by some of General Burgoyne’s Native Americans on July 27^th.

These stories fueled the fear that if the British and their allies were attacking women and children. No one was safe. For the militia members who were not inspired by these events, social pressure pushed them to serve. Local patriots would accuse those who did not answer the call of cowardice or treason.  Early author William Stone wrote that [Herkimer] “summoned the militia of his command to the field, for the purpose of marching to the succor of the garrison. Notwithstanding the despondency that had prevailed in the early part of the Summer, the call was nobly responded to, not only by the militia, but by the gentlemen of the County, and most of the members of the Committee, who entered the field either as officers or private volunteers. The fears so generally and so recently indulged seemed all to have vanished with the arrival of the invader.”[98]  On August 4^th, the day St. Leger began his assault, approximately eight hundred militiamen assembled at Fort Dayton, German Flats (present day Herkimer, NY), to start their march to save the Continental Army at Fort Stanwix and the Mohawk Valley from the threat of Native American violence.

Tyron County Militia and Oneida warriors.  General Herkimer’s men were composed mainly of Palatine Germans and Low Dutch.[99]  Also, among the eight hundred or so militia marching to Fort Stanwix were approximately one hundred Oneida warriors under the leadership of Thawengarakwen or Hanyery Doxtater.[100] The militia were organized into four state regiments. A complete roster listing all those who served in Tryon County State Regiments can be found on-line through American Archives: James Roberts, New York in the Revolution as County and State, published in 1898.

• 1^st Regiment (Canajoharie) Colonel Ebenezer Cox, Lt. Colonel Samuel Clyde, and surgeon David Younglove (who wrote a memoir of the battle).
• 2^nd Regiment (Palatine) Colonel Jacob Klock, Lt. Col. Petter Wagoner, Maj. Christopher Fox. George Walter was an enlisted man who wrote an account of the battle as stated by author William Stone. He was wounded and lay alongside General Herkimer during the battle.
• 3^rd Regiment (Mohawk) Colonel Fredrick Visscher (Tory Guy Johnson had commanded this regiment prior to his escape to Canada), Lt. Colonel Vokert Veeder.  Adam Miller was an enlisted man in this regiment. He wrote an eye-witness account as quoted in Stone.
• 4^th Regiment Kingsland-German Flatts) Colonel Peter Bellinger, brother-in-law to Nikolaus Herkimer, Quartermaster Peter Bellinger, Jr.
• A small number of Minutemen was commanded by Colonel Samuel Campbell (they may have marched with the 1^st) as Campbell is also listed as colonel under the 1^st.
• The 5^th State Regiment was not formed until after the Battle of Oriskany. It would be commanded by Colonel John Harper and Major Joseph Harper.[101]

The militia marched along the road towards Fort Stanwix in a column formation. The 1st Regiment under Colonel Ebenezer Cox led the way followed by the 2nd Regiment under Colonel Jacob Klock. Right behind was the 4^th regiment under Colonel Peter Bellinger, and bringing up the rear was the 3^rd regiment along with the wagons; fifteen in all, enough to furnish the garrison at Fort Stanwix with ample supplies to last a sustained siege.[102]

Accounts vary. Some state that the militia rushed forward without taking precautions against attack. Others record there was some order.  Lt. Colonel Willett, second in command at Fort Stanwix, wrote in his memoir some twenty years later that “the militia who were pushing forward as though determined at all hazards to redeem the character of the county. Indeed, their proceedings were by far too impetuous, since they hurried forward in their march without order or precaution, without adequate flanking parties, and without reconnoitering the ground over which they were to pass. They moved from Fort Dayton on the 4th, and on the 5th reached the neighborhood of Oriskany [present day Whitestone] where they encamped.”[103]  Thomas Spencer, Oneida warrior who accompanied the militia, noticed the total disregard of all order as they moved forward. He reported that he insisted on some precautionary measures, such as throwing out flanking parties and reconnoitering their forward motion.

Herkimer and some older officers agreed; however, the junior officers ridiculed the idea and accordingly, Herkimer did not enforce the suggested precautions.[104]  It is a common belief among many scholars that Herkimer did not use the Oneida warriors as scouts or flankers, which may have provided him with a warning of St. Leger’s awaiting ambush. Rather than sending out Native American patrols in advance or to cover the march along its flanks, it appeared that the Oneida mixed with the main body of the militia’s column; Thomas Spencer, an Oneida chief, and his brother Edward, were at the front of the militia’s column.

Other accounts recorded that the militia did have order in their approach to Fort Stanwix. If so, events of the battle indicate that they had no effect to warn the militia.  Early author William Stone in his Life of Joseph Brant lists two primary sources that indicate there was some order in the militia’s march to Fort Stanwix.  Militiamen Adam Miller of the 3^rd regiment and George Walter of the 2^nd regiment state in later memoirs which Stone claimed he had obtained, that some care was taken to throw out flankers and scouts. Stone wrote, “those who were present [Miller and Walter], however, [state] that they marched in double files, preceded by an advanced guard, with flanking parties on either side; yet such precautions appear inconsistent with the character of the attack hours afterward.[105]  George Bancroft wrote that perhaps the Indian scouts reported back that the enemy was present, but were not believed.[106] John Albert Scott’s 1927 publication suggests that Herkimer did use scouts, but they were either killed or unable to get word back to the column of militia due to constrictions of the ravine.[107]

Gavin Watt’s 2002 text asserts that General Herkimer used Oneida warriors as scouts and flankers, but the militia’s biased view of Native Americans led them to distrust any warnings that might have been addressed.[108] A thought that this writer proposes to this discussion merges both possibilities; that the militia obtained an orderly march with flankers and scouts until the morning of August 6^th, the day of battle, when passion got the better part of caution and they rushed forward without maintaining previous cautions.   No matter what occurred prior to the British attack, the militia was ignorant of the dangers that awaited them.

Evening of August 5^th, messengers sent to Fort Stanwix to organize a diversion from the fort to coordinate with the militia’s attack.   On August 4^th, the militia marched from Fort Drayton and followed the north shore of the Mohawk River.  They covered a little over fifteen miles that first day and camped west of Staring (Sterling) Creek. The next day, August 5^th, they crossed the Mohawk River at what is today Utica and carried on to Oriska, a total of sixteen miles where they camped, eight miles from Fort Stanwix. General Herkimer was desirous to let Colonel Gansevoort know that his relief column was nearby. He expected to gain the fort the following day and sought to coordinate the garrison’s aid.  He dispatched three messengers to deliver a letter from Herkimer. Among them was Captain Hans Mark Demuth of Bellinger’s 4th Regiment, John (Hans) Yost Foltz, also of Bellinger’s 4^th Regiment, and Adam Helmer of Klock’s 2nd regiment. Note: many texts and internet list Adam Helmer as a lieutenant, however at the time of Stanwix’s siege in 1777, Helmer was listed on militia rosters as an enlisted man.[109]

As soon as the messengers reached the fort, three cannon were to be fired. Herkimer’s militia would wait until they heard the blast and then immediately rush the fort while Continental troops from the garrison would attack the enemy in the rear as a distraction. Since the militia were within eight miles of the fort, they assumed the cannon would be heard. The purpose was not to defeat St. Leger’s forces, but to open a path for the militia and the much-needed supplies to reach the fort safely.  Having to wade through swamps all night to slip past enemy lines, Captain Demuth and the other two would not reach the fort until 10 AM the next morning, after the Battle of Oriskany had begun.  The cannon were fired, but fell on deafened ears from the tremendous turmoil from the Battle of Oriskany that had already begun.

August 6^th, morning of the Battle of Oriskany.   On the 6^th, Herkimer wanted to remain in camp and wait until the cannon were fired, knowing the planned sortie was to leave the fort in a coordinated attack on the enemy. A wise military tactic that quickly went astray. Junior officers revolted at the idea of waiting – eager to head out without delay.  A consultation was held, in which some of the officers displayed impatience, while the General still urged them to remain where they were until the signal of a sortie should be received from the fort. Accordingly, words ensued during which Colonel Cox and Lieutenant Isaac Paris[110], including many others, denounced their commander to his face as a Tory and coward; one of his brothers having sided with the Loyalists and was among St. Leger’s troops.  Their clamor increased until, stung by the accusal of cowardice and a want of fidelity to the cause, the General abruptly gave the order to march.[111]  If any previous order of march from Fort Dayton to Oriska that observed precautions against attack, as reported by Stone’s primary sources, then once the militia pushed forward toward Fort Stanwix, such preparations were thrown to the wind.  It is safe to conclude that such haste most likely contributed to the chain of events that left the column dangerously exposed to ambush.

St. Leger received information of the approach of General Herkimer’s men on the evening of the fifth.  With most of his troops still clearing Wood Creek and the construction of a supply road, St. Leger could not devote a large number of regular troops to engage the enemy. By his account, he could only afford to send 80 “white men, rangers and troops included, with the whole corps of Indians”^[112]  The white rangers and troops he referred to were most likely Hessian Jaegers and Butler’s frontiersmen. John Butler had recently arrived from Three Rivers with the Seneca and other Native Americans. St. Leger quickly put them into service to face the approaching militia. Leger would remain in camp as conflicting reports also placed Sir Johnson in camp. Lt. Colonel Willett stated that Sir John was not at the battle, while St. Leger’s account places him there. It is believed that Sir John’s ‘Greens’ would be led by Major John Watts, Sir John’s brother-in-law through his wife Mary Watts.^[113] 

The final formation of British forces to meet the militia were not British, but mainly Native American warriors from the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Delaware Nations, as well as Mohawks allied with Captain Joseph Brant. Sir Johnson’s King’s Royal Regiment and Indian Department’s future rangers with Major John Butler made up the next largest contingent. Hesse-Hanau Jaegers were probably the closest to actual British troops sent to meet the militia. Therefore, the upcoming battle would resemble a civil war between patriot and loyalist settlers and the bands of Iroquois warriors, rather than a meeting of British and Continental American forces.[114]

British forces plan to ambush the Tryon County militia. According to Pomroy Jones, mid 1800’s author and resident of Rome, NY, a warrior was sent to observe the approaching militia. He hid in the bushes about a mile outside the village of Oriska (Oriskany – the name comes from the Iroquois meaning ‘nettles’) and counted the troops as they passed.  Afterwards, he rushed back to inform the British.[115]  It is not clear if this occurred when the militia were approaching Oriska to camp, or the next morning when they left for Fort Stanwix. Because the battlefield was about two miles from Oriska, one can assume the warrior saw them the night before.

With most of his British regulars, including some loyalist and Canadian axe men still trying to clear Wood’s Creek to bring up the artillery, St. Leger detailed the attack against the militia to consist mainly of loyalists, Canadian frontiersmen, and Native Americans. Because the Seneca were told by Butler at Three Rivers that they were there as observers, some warriors, such as Red Jacket, chose not to fight.  Others were unprepared to do battle in respect to a lack of firearms; instead, arming themselves with hatchets, knives, spears, or spontoons [half-pike having a long-pointed blade].[116]

Accordingly, Seneca Chief Cornplanter (Gyantwachia – ‘the planter’) advised the plan to ambush the American column. The British would not fully trust Native Americans with devising such a plan. Historians tend to agree that it must have been approved by Sir John or Major Watts.  In a letter dated August 15, 1777, to Sir Guy Carleton, commander of British forces in Canada, John Butler gives credit for the original plan to the Seneca chiefs with loyalist approval. However, St. Leger and Colonel Claus both attribute the proposed ambush to Sir Johnson.[117]   The place of ambush was along the military road the column marched and some accounts reported about halfway between Oriska and Fort Stanwix, or approximately four miles out of Oriska.  Most historians agree with Stone who states the ambush was set two miles out from Oriska and six from the fort.  This seems more accurate as today’s mileage from present Rome, NY, the location of Fort Stanwix, and the Oriskany Battlefield Monument site, is 5.7 miles. Oriskany is just over two miles east of the battlefield monument.

Logistics of Ambush.  The military road ran east to west and was sided by dense woods. The place of ambush was set about two miles west of Oriska, where the road entered a wide ravine that ran north to south. The road crossed the ravine about a mile south of the Mohawk River. The eastern part of the ravine, where the militia entered, descended rather steeply about fifty feet. At the bottom was a wetlands area and small creek in which logs were laid side to side to form a corduroy road. At the western end of the broad ravine, the road slopped upward slightly more gently as it ascended from the cut. On each side of the ravine the ground was nearly level and heavily timbered with thick woods of hemlock, beech, birch, and maple. A dense growth of underwood chocked the forest, particularly where it bound the road on either side.^[118]  The position was perfect for a trap, sided by the ravines’ natural boundaries and heavily forested along both sides of the road that provided cover for the Loyalist soldiers and Native American warriors.

From descriptions, the road was more of a path than a formalized road in the area of the ambuscade. Historical descriptions during 1777 note that the road was cut through thick forest and was more a irregularly maintained path. Lt. Ebenezer Elmer of the 3^rd NJ stated that in the spring of 1777, the road was in such bad condition that it was almost impassable. In the summer of 1777, Maj. Gen. Schuyler had ordered Gen. Herkimer to clear the roads. In his July 17^th correspondence to Maj. Gen. Schuyler, Brig. Gen. Herkimer claimed that the Tryon County Committee of Safety undermined his order for the militia to repair the road prior to his relieving of Fort Stanwix. The result was that the military road was unmaintained with heavy brush on both sides obscuring views of the surrounding landscape from the road. Blacksnake (Thaonawyuthe – Seneca warrior and nephew to Cornplanter) stated that the force’s leaders chose the position of the ambush for pragmatic if not grim reasons; three miles from their tents to avoid the stench of the dead.^[119

Battle of Oriskany

Position of British Forces.  Early on August 6^th, the British loyalists, Jaegers, Canadian frontiersmen and Native Americans arrived at the ravine to set the ambush prior to the settler’s militia.  Many early secondary accounts state that British regulars accompanied Major Watts’ command, however there were no British soldiers present at the battle.  Watts’ forces numbered approximately eight to nine hundred which was similar to General Herkimer’s number of militiamen and Oneida Native Americans.  Major Watts, commanding Sir John’s King’s Royal Regiment of loyalists, as well as the Hesse-Hanau Jaegers, held the western most slope of the ravine. They would intercept and block the militia’s advance.

Lined along both sides of the road, with the greater number on the southern edge, were Butler’s Seneca along with Canadian frontiersmen. [Many accounts state that these frontiersmen were Butler’s Rangers, however Butler would not form his ranger corps until September, 1777, after St. Leger’s failed campaign].  At the eastern portion of the ravine – where the American militia would be allowed to enter unmolested – Joseph Brant positioned his Mohawks and other Iroquois along the road.  The effect was a large semi-circle or horseshoe enclosing the road.

Plan of Attack.  As soon as the vanguard began its assent on the western slope of the ravine and the rear guard, along with fifteen wagons of supplies, began their descent down the eastern slope into the ravine, the trap would be sprung.  Once the loyalists blocked the American column, Butler’s Native Americans and Canadians would press the main attack from the sides. Meanwhile, Brant’s Mohawks would encircle the militia’s rear preventing any retreat.  The plan was designed to completely encircle the settlers and meticulously annihilate them from all sides. Success required patience and adherence to timing, allowing the American column that was marching in single file and stretched out to nearly a mile long, to enter the ravine.  The fact that the militia entered the ravine and crossed it to the far side disclaims some primary accounts that General Herkimer had sent out an advance guard and flankers to scout for the enemy. Had he done so, it is highly likely that these scouts would have detected the enemy’s presence and warned the militia prior to their marching blindly into a trap.

Trap is sprung.  Around 10 AM on the morning of August 6th, the Mohawk Valley militia entered the ravine.[120]  Approximately 800 settlers from the Mohawk Valley along with their Oneida warriors comprised the force marching to Fort Stanwix’s aid. They were aligned in column nearly a mile long. As mentioned, the 1^st regiment led, commanded by the passionate Colonel Ebenezer Cox of the Canajoharie District. They were followed by Colonel Jacob Klock’s 2^nd Regiment from the Palatine District. The 4^th regiment of the Kingsland-German Flats District came next, led by General Herkimer’s brother-in-law Peter Bellinger. Bringing up the rear guard and train of fifteen wagons (much needed food, supplies, and ammunition for the fort), was Colonel Frederick Visscher’s 3^rd regiment from the Mohawk Valley District. Reports varied as to the number of Oneida who accompanied the settlers. Anywhere from sixty to one hundred warriors, led by Hanyery Doxtater (Thawengarakwen) mingled among the settlers.

Colonel Cox’s regiment at the point was ascending the western slope and out of the ravine while the vanguard of the 3^rd regiment reached the wetlands at the bottom; the wagons and much of the rear guard were just descending along the eastern slope.  At that moment, native warriors under Colonel John Butler prematurely opened fire and rushed the column’s center and eastern part of the ravine. They hadn’t waited for Sir Johnson’s loyalists to spring the attack by heading off and blocking the militia’s advance. Also, by attacking too early, many of the last regiment in column, Colonel Visscher’s 3^rd, were not fully within the ravine.

When Captain Joseph Brant’s Mohawks drove forward to enclose and encircle the militia, the wagons and many of the 200 militiamen of the 3^rd regiment were not entrapped. Rather than form and attack to aid their fellow settlers who were surrounded by the enemy, now fighting for their lives, these militia under Colonel Visscher’s command fled in a panic; despite Colonel Visscher’s failed attempts to rally them. Brant’s Mohawk gave chase and cut down several before turning back to deal with those militia caught in the ravine. These settlers of the 3^rd regiment continued their rout, all the way back to Oriskany, leaving over 600 of their comrades and Oneida warriors to their fate.

According to Moses Younglove, 1^st regiment’s surgeon, General Herkimer was near the column’s head when the British allies attacked. He heard the firing from behind and at first thought it was a false alarm.[121] As the firing increased, combined with Native American war-whoops, he turned back to investigate. At that point, the front of the column was fired upon by Seneca and Cayuga allies including Butler’s frontiersmen.  Colonel Cox, leading the 1^st regiment, tried to make a hasty stand in the road. He ordered what men he could to form a line.  As soon as they fired a volley into the trees and began reloading, the British allied warriors streamed out of the woods and attacked the line of settlers with clubs, knives, and hatchets. Loyalists and Native Americans swept around Cox’s men, firing into them and boldly rushing forward to hack them down before they could raise their muskets.

The battle quickly evolved into a disordered hand-to-hand blood fest. It is believed that at this point, many of the 1^st regiment were killed and wounded as Cox’s men attempted to form a defensive position. It is believed that Colonel Cox was struck down while trying to organize his men during these opening minutes of the battle. So too to die were the Spencer brothers; Henry Spencer and Thomas Spencer, Oneida chief, who had attended St. Leger’s Council and warned the settlers in the Mohawk Valley.  He was last seen alive in hand-to-hand combat with William Johnson’s Native American son William of Canajoharie[122]. 

General Herkimer.  The surprise attack had shocked the militia into disorder while officers desperately attempted to maintain a semblance of military organization. General Herkimer rode along the column, trying to reform what troops he could to avert a panic-stricken rout toward the rear.[123]  As the general approached Colonel Klock’s 2^nd regiment, which was next in line, a ball struck his horse. It went through the mount, killing the horse and shattering Herkimer’s leg just below the knee.[124] The horse fell, pinning Herkimer to the ground. Militiamen pulled Herkimer out from under the horse and carried him up a small rise north of the road. There they propped him against a beech tree where he reportedly continued to lead the militia defense.[125]

Opening fight – Every man for Himself.  With fire intensifying at the rear and then front of the column, militiamen’s survival instincts kicked in and they reacted impulsively. According to depositions after the battle by John Garrison, an enlisted man in Jacob Klock’s 2^nd regiment, and Ensign Garred G. Van Brocklin, of Colonel Visscher’s 3^rd Regiment, there was a movement along the column first to the rear and then back towards the front. Van Brocklin also described the British allied warriors as moving down the militia’s column keeping a running fire. This chaotic maneuver, during which militia officers attempted to form men into some semblance of order, continued with the road as the center of the fighting. As loyalists and warriors killed and wounded more and more militia officers, any sense of organization broke down. Stone, from Willett’s memoirs, states that besides Colonel Cox, so too did “Captains Davis and Van Sluyck suffer sever deaths.”[126]  However, there are no captains Davis or Van Sluyck on the militias’ rosters.  According to Roberts, there was a Lt. John Van Sluyck in Colonel Kluck’s 2^nd regiment – second in line of the column, and several Davis’ as enlistment in all the regiments except the 1^st under Cox.[127]

The warriors’ initial attack proved to decimate the militia, resulting in an estimated loss of 50 to 60 percent of the settlers within the first thirty minutes of the battle – approximately three hundred men.[128] With the collapse of leadership and the loss of their comrades, the remaining settlers began to take cover behind trees. Such shelter was limited as warriors and rangers would spot the smoke from a fired gun and quickly attack the position before the musket could be reloaded. This resulted in hand-to-hand combat as many warriors entered the battle without firelocks (muskets), and attacked with hatchets, knives, and clubs. When a settler was killed, often the musket and ammunition was stripped from the dead body by the Native American and turned upon the militia. Out of desperation, the militia piecemealed and began to work together in teams and small groups. When one fired and reloaded, the other readied a defense against attack. This helped the survival of individual units, but the formation on the road had entirely collapsed.[129]

The sixty to a hundred Oneida who had aligned themselves with the militia were in the thick of the fight; many against former friends and relations of Mohawks, Seneca, and Cayuga. Tonyentagoyan (Blatcop) fought armed only with a tomahawk and was as the center of the struggle.[130]  Louis Atayataronghta used a rifle [grove bored firelock – took longer to load but was far more accurate] against his Native American snipers in the woods. Hanyery fought from his horse while his wife, Two Kettles and his son Cornelius Doxtader remained on foot by his side. When a musket ball struck Hanyery’s right wrist, Two Kettles continued to reload his musket. Native American foes continued to attack with clubs and hatchets, both sides gripping each other in a fight to the death. The Oneida slowly began to move off from the road where they established a defensive stance along a rise to the north.  This position would prove to be essential to the militia’s survival for so too, the settlers began to reform on this elevated ground both north and east of the road.[131]

Militia survivors desperately reform on a rise to the north.  This slightly higher ground to the north was where the wounded Herkimer was propped up against a beech tree. From there, the general continued to conduct his men’s response to the attack. He saw this position as their only hope and formalized it as the militia’s key defense by ordering his men to draw in and form a defensive circle. Surgeon Younglove, of Colonel Cox’s regiment at the front of the column, wrote in his memoir of the battle that at this point, when the militia was regrouping off the road and into the woods to the north, Colonel Cox was still alive. He stated that the Colonel ordered his men to reform and threatened to kill anyone who did not do so. According to Younglove, in the heat of battle, the colonel kept his promise by killing a member of the militia.[132] For those militia who survived the ambush’s initial onslaught, order began to return with this established defensive position on the rise.

Sir Johnson’s King’s Royal Regiment under Major Watt’s attacks. Because the attack began earlier than planned and the militia recoiled and began regrouping along the northern fringe of the road, the loyalists and Hessian Jaegers were forced to join the action near the center of the ambush site.  According to author Gavin Watt,[133] as they drew near, the loyalists began firing their muskets and the Jaegers joined in, releasing rifled shots. By then, because of the disorder of hand-to-hand fighting, mainly among the woods and thick shrubbery, these British forces could not fire accurately, accordingly firing directly into the mass of combatants. Seneca warriors would later accuse the Loyalists of friendly fire, killing one of their chiefs.[134] The battle’s had been going on for approximately forty-five minutes when the King’s Royal Regiment of loyalists attempted to break the militia position with a bayonet charge, but by then, the militia’s tight defensive circle held and the loyalists settled into a hot firefight.[135]

Use of Bayonet by Colonists Questionable.  This account of a bayonet charge by loyalists is rather suspect. These loyalists were mainly settlers living along the frontier. Early in the American Revolution, American colonist’s muskets were not equipped to handle bayonets. In fact, discrediting popular belief, most colonists did not even own a musket – why Committees of Safety were so keen on hoarding weapons in cashes such as the one at Concord, Massachusetts, whose confiscation by British forces led to the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Of General Washington’s army in and around New York City in 1776, few regiments were issued muskets with bayonets. Of those who were fortunate to obtain one, mainly British arms that were taken from King’s storage depots at the start of hostilities, their use was sporadic with few companies armed with these deadly seventeen-inch blades.  As to the German Jaegers, they carried grove-bored rifles which could not accommodate a bayonet.

The only way Major Watts could have ordered a bayonet charge is if military officials in Canada gave Sir John’s three hundred or so loyalists who made their way to Canada during the fall and winter of 1775 British muskets.  However, that brings into the equation that only a small portion of Sir John’s loyalist settlers found their way to Montreal where any British storage debt could have additional arms stored. The rest settled along the St. Lawrence Islands from Montreal to Fort Frontenac on Lake Erie. Loyalists could only obtain a British registered musket from the fort, which, as a frontier fort, typically barely had enough workable weapons to supply their own British regulars. It is more likely that Major Watts decided to test the militia’s hastened defensive ring and ordered his men to rush their position using whatever weapons they had; mainly swords, pikes, knives, and tomahawks, which were more commonly in use rather than any official military issued bayonets.

Militia Defense Stiffens and Sudden Torrential Rainstorm.  At this stage in the action, about forty-five minutes into the fight according to Stone, the militia had pulled back into a tight defensive position on the rise to the north of the road. They were encircled by British Native Americans, Butler’s Canadian frontiersmen, and Loyalists with Jaeger riflemen. Out of desperation and under General Herkimer’s direction, the militia began to stiffen their resolve which proved an impasse in the battle. The militia was not strong enough to break through to escape the British onslaught. But so too the British allies could not penetrate the settlers defenses. Both foes continued a hailstorm of lead while occasional individual Native Americans rushed forward when the opportunity arose to club or hack at a militiaman.

This stalemate continued until literally doused by a sudden and drenching rainfall. Both sides immediately ceased fighting and took whatever shelter they could to keep their powder dry. While the thunderstorm unleashed its fury, the surviving militia, approximately forty percent of their original number, improved their defenses. They tightened their circles further and shielded themselves more securely with brush, fallen branches, and downed timber and stumps. Meanwhile, the British allies bided their time just outside the militia’s line, waiting for a break in the storm to renew the assault.

British attempt to crack the stalemate.  The storm lasted about an hour before it subsided and the fight resumed with renewed vigor.  Here, several versions of the fight either leave out events or embellish, some quite colorfully, the desperate battle between mainly loyalist forces and militiamen.  Many of the loyalists were previous neighbors of the militiamen.  This erupted into a hate-filled ‘civil war’ of extreme barbarity.  Often after firing, men had rushed forward and lunged at their enemy with hatchets and knives in deadly hand-to-hand with combat.  Dawson states simply that after the rainstorm, the King’s Royal Regiment was reinforced with a fresh company of Mohawk Valley loyalists.  Militiamen quickly recognized their former neighbors. This resulted in a vindictive clash of arms as militiamen surged forward in hate-filled passion, resulting in over thirty loyalists and several British allied chief warriors slain.

Ploy to Deceive the Militia.  Others, such as Stone, Campbell, Watt, Scott, and Jacobson, describe an elaborate ploy of Loyalists turning their coats inside out to break through the militiamen’s defensive circle.  According to different authors, the scheme had been concocted by either Sir Johnson himself (who primary sources indicated had remained at camp), Colonel John Butler leading Seneca warriors and frontiersmen (future rangers), or Major Watts (commanding the King’s Royal Regiment ‘Greens’ – Campbell spelt his name Maj. Watson).  Dawson makes no mention of this.  Watt explains that Sir John had learned from Butler’s interrogation of prisoners that Herkimer was expecting help from Fort Stanwix.[136]  He ordered a company of his King’s Royal Regiment to turn their coats inside out (they wore hats similar to militiamen), and approach the militia’s defensive circle from the direction of the fort as if they were reinforcements from the fort.  Authors Scott, Stone, and Watt all described what occurred next, that include three militiamen from Colonel Visscher’s 3^rd Regiment.  These men must have been towards the front of the regiment when the British sprung the ambush as they remained with the column while most of their colleagues, caught outside the ambush, fled.   

Accordingly, some of the militiamen welcomed the disguised Loyalists’ approach. Private Sammons was the first to see through the ruse, calling out to Captain Jacob Gardinier. The Captain agreed and warned the militia of the enemy’s approach before rushing forward to intercept the Loyalists. William Stone describes the action in the following colorful words: “While engaged in the struggle, some of his own men called out to Gardinier, ‘for God’s sake, Captain, you are killing your own men!’ He replied ‘they are not our men — they are the enemy — fire away!’ A deadly fire from the Provincials ensued, during which about thirty of the Greens fell slain, and many Indian warriors. 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.”[137]

Jacobson, referencing Watt, Scott and Stone explains what happened next. “While fighting with some of the KRR [King’s Royal regiment], he [Gardinier]fell to the ground. KRR troops bayoneted both of his thighs pinning him to the ground. A KRR soldier moved to bayonet him in the chest. Gardinier grabbed the musket from the soldier and pulled him to the ground to use him as a shield. Militia private Adam Miller aided Gardinier by killing one of the Loyalists pinning Gardinier to the ground. The soldier being used as a shield by Gardinier rose up and attempted to kill Pvt. Miller. Freed by Pvt. Miller’s aid, Gardinier killed the soldier with a spontoon, saving Pvt. Miller. Slowly the militia believed Gardinier’s claim of the enemy’s ruse and attacked the disguised rangers.” [138]  Only after this attempt failed, did the ‘Greens’ attack with renewed strength. Author William Campbell wrote that the battle roared with renewed ferocity of hand-to-hand butchery that raged on for nearly thirty minutes.[139]

Corrections.  Private Adam Miller was also in Colonel Visscher’s regiment and he and Sammons were most likely in Captain Gardinier’s company.  Most reports give credit to a Jacob Sammons as a lieutenant. A study of militia rosters indicates both may be incorrect. There is no Jacob Sammons listed –however in the 3^rd were privates Thomas and Frederick Sammons. Therefore, one can assume the reference is to one of those two men.[140]  Also there is confusion as to the spelling of Gardinier, some list Gardenyer. Referring to William Stone’s 1892 text on the genealogy of the Albany Starin family, Gardinier is the correct spelling listed on the captain’s grave stone.[141]  As mentioned earlier, the use of bayonet by militiamen and loyalists was highly unlikely as few colonists had firelock muskets upon which a bayonet could be mounted. Not until later in the war were Americans and loyalist troops equipped with bayonets.

Courageous Act – Andreas Dillenbeck.  During the loyalist desperate attack on the militia defenses, author William Stone described an act of courageous self-sacrifice that was echoed in earlier and later accounts of the battle: “Which the contending parties were mingled in great confusion, that three of Johnson’s Greens rushed within the circle of the Provincials, and attempted to make prisoner of a Captain Dillenbeck. This officer had declared he would never be taken alive, [all knew the horrid tortures at the hands of Native Americans that could await those captured] and he was not. One of his three assailants seized his gun, but he suddenly wrenched it from him, and felled him with the butt. He shot the second dead, and thrust the third through with his bayonet. But in the moment of his triumph at an exploit of which even the mighty Hector, or either of the sons of Zeruiah might have been proud, a ball laid this brave man low in the dust.”

A brief study of this occurrence revealed that this most likely happened as explained. Andreas Dillenbeck’s death was witnessed by militiaman George Walker (listed in his memoirs as referenced by William Stone). Dillenbeck [spelled also Dillenback or Dillenbach] was a lieutenant in Captain Severines Cook’s company of Colonel Klock’s 2^nd Regiment. He was, however, acting captain of the company at the time of the battle and his death and has since been listed as such.  Walker stated that three of Johnson’s ‘Greens’ set upon Dillenbeck. “One of the assailants seized the captain’s gun, but he suddenly wrenched it from him and felled him with the musket butt. He shot the second dead, and thrust the bayonet through a third. He in the moment of triumph was killed by shot.”[142]  Some accounts state he died from a bullet to the head. Family tradition claims that the shot that killed Andreas was fired by a tory neighbor who had lived on the farm adjoining the Dillenbeck homestead.  Accordingly, he was one with whom Dillenbeck had grown up and into whose family a daughter had married.[143]  Dillenbeck’s body, like nearly all those who died that day, was left on the field of battle. For years afterwards, travelers avoided that stretch of road because of the stench that prevailed until bleached bones rotted beneath the soil.

Another account by the renowned author, Allan W. Eckert, in his wonderful novel, The Frontiersman, ties Dillenbeck’s death to trying to save the wounded Captain Gardinier. Eckert states that he led twenty to thirty militiamen to Gardinier’s aid, attacking the loyalists and allowing Gardinier to return to the defensive circle. In Eckert’s account, the first loyalist was brained by the butt of Dillenbeck’s musket and killed instantly. He further describes the second loyalist as being shot through the throat and the third speared through the chest. While pulling out the blade, Eckert states Dillenbeck was shot in the spine which killed him.[144]

Battle reaches critical point when Fort Stanwix sortie attacks the enemy’s camp.  William Stone wrote: “The Provincials 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 parties in closer contact throttled each other and drew their knives; stabbing, and sometimes literally dying in one another’s embrace.”[145] According to various accounts, either the militiamen prevailed and beat back the loyalists with severe losses, or the battle reached a new pitch at a critical moment when it seems the militiamen’s defense about to collapse.  Jacobson explains: “With the Loyalists entering the militia’s defenses, outright civil war ensued. Loyalist and Patriot Mohawk Valley residents met each other within the circle fighting with bayonets and using muskets as clubs. As the Loyalists fought within the circle, the warriors pushed from outside the circle. This pressure led to a collapse of the militia’s defense. The militia again had lost control. Loyalists and warriors were about to make a final push against the militia when they became aware of fighting near their camps around Fort Stanwix.”[146]

End of Battle.  It is more likely that the staunch defense by the militia now behind a strong, circular defense disheartened the Native American allies who after approximately four hours of action, lost most of their principal chiefs. They began to draw back from the fight. At this same time, shots were heard from the vicinity of the fort. It became obvious that their camps were under attack by Continental soldiers. For their families and belongings, according to Stone, they “now raised the retreating cry of ‘Oonah’ and fled in every direction under the shouts and hurrahs of the Provincials maintaining the fight… the Tories, perceiving that their allies had deserted them, and supposing, from the continued firing, [from the direction of the fort] that their presence was necessary elsewhere, also retreated with precipitation, leaving the victorious Tryon county militia and volunteers masters of the field, at about two o’clock in the afternoon.[147]  Accounts varied as to the time the ambush was spring, however most agree at around 10 AM.  The 2 PM ending of hostilities at the ambush site corresponds to the Sortie attack from the fort so by consensus, the battle lasted about four hours; this includes one hour of inaction during the thunder storm.

Fort Stanwix Sortie

Compared to the last few days in which St. Leger began his siege of Fort Stanwix, the morning of Wednesday, August 6^th had been unusually calm.  The garrison noticed that the warriors positioned around the fort, who had been maintaining a continual fire, left towards the lower landing along the Mohawk River, along the edge of the woods in the direction towards Oriskany Creek.  Officers feared that something was afoot and that word would spread in which the fort had been taken, severely affecting the loyalties of settlers throughout the valley. Ensign Colbrath wrote: “This Morning the Indians were seen going off from around the Garrison towards the Landing as they withdraw, we had not much firing. Being uneasy least the Tories should Report that the Enemy had taken the Fort Lieut. Diefendorf was Ordered to get Ready to set of [f] for Albany this Evening to Inf Gen Schuyler of our Situation.”[148]  Later that morning, between 9 and 11 AM, accounts vary, three militiamen arrived at the fort with a letter.

Arrival of Gen. Herkimer’s Messengers. As previously discussed, General Herkimer dispatched three messengers the night before the battle requesting that cannon fire three shots when they arrived. The militia, eight miles distant, would then advance and that a sortie would issue from the fort – a diversion to coordinate the militia’s forced approach to the fort.  The three men were Captain Hans Mark Demuth, John (Hans) Yost Foltz (both in Col. Bellinger’s 4^th Regiment) and private Adam Helmer of Klock’s 2^nd Regiment. Unfortunately, they had been delayed, spending the evening wading through swamps to slip past British allies sentries and saw their chance to reach the fort when St. Leger’s warriors and loyalists left the area to establish the ambush. Lt. Colonel Willett wrote that the messengers from General Herkimer arrived closer to 11 AM: “About eleven o’clock, three men got into the fort, who brought a letter from Gen. Harkeman, of the Tryon county militia, advising us that he was at Eriska (eight miles from the fort) with part of his militia, and proposed to force his way to the fort, for our relief.[149]  Dawson placed the time around 10 AM.^[150]  Stone wrote it was nearer to 11 AM, as did Campbell, writing the messengers crossed the morass to the fort at 11 AM. Ensign Colbrath thought the time was between 9 and 10 AM writing, “The leader of these three men, Adam Helmer, brought news of the Tryon Militia’s approach to the fort and a request that those in the fort come out and support the militia. The fort fired the three shots requested by Gen. Herkimer informing them of the receipt of his message.”  Adam Helmer, one of the runners who brought Gen. Herkimer’s letter, later wrote that he recalled the time of his arrival to be one o’clock that afternoon.[151]

The militia never heard those cannon for the ambush was already sprung and the militia was fighting for its life. Most primary accounts state the British sprung the ambush closer to 10 AM. Therefore, the timing of the messengers, when factoring in the garrison’s sortie preparations and the need for delay in leaving the fort because of the thunderstorm, (which occurred around forty-five minutes into the battle), the timeframe of the arrival of the messengers can be ascertained to be between 10 and 11 AM, yet in all probability, closer to 11 AM.  Interesting that Ensign Colbrath thought that Helmer led the messengers.  Helmer is listed as a lieutenant in several secondary accounts, and would rise in rank later in the war, however, at the time, he was a private.[152]  Perhaps, as some accounts state, Helmer was the first to arrive at the fort and therefore, might have been mistaken to be an officer.

Cannon fired and a Strong Sortie prepares to leave the fort.  The cannon were immediately fired and Colonel Gansevoort adhered to General Herkimer’s instructions for assistance from the fort.[153]  Two hundred and fifty Continental Troops were quickly paraded and arrangements were made for a rapid deployment under the command of Lt. Colonel Marinus Willett. However, a heavy rain shower erupted that lasted an hour, causing the sally’s delay.[154] This was the same shower that curtailed action during the Battle of Oriskany.  In a letter Willett wrote on August 11^th, five days later, he listed details of the sortie he was to command writing: “In order to render him [Gen. Herkimer] what service we could in his march, it was agreed that I should make a sally from the fort with two hundred and fifty men, consisting one half of Gansevoort’s, and one half of Massachusetts men, and one field piece, (an iron three pounder). The men were instantly paraded, and I ordered the following dispositions to be made: Thirty men for the advanced guard to be commanded by Van Benscoten and Lieut. Stockwell; thirty for the rear guard under the command of Capt. Allen of the Massachusetts troops, and Lieut. Durffendreff: thirty for flank guards, to be commanded by Capt. _ from Massachusetts, and Ensign Chase. The main body formed into eight subdivisions, commanded by Capt. Bleaker, Lieutenants Conine, Bogardus, M’Clenme, and Ostrander, Ensign Bayley, Lewis, and Dennison, Lieut. Ball, the only supernumerary officer[155], to march with me. Capt. Johnson to bring up the rear of the main body—Capt. Swardwoundt, with Ensigns Magee and Arent, with fifty men to guard the field piece, which was under the direction of Major Badlam.”[156]

Sortie leaves the Fort.  According to Willett’s narrative compiled by his son years later, he left the fort soon after the rain had ceased – the cannon mounted on a traveling carriage. The enemy’s sentries were directly in sight of the fort therefore his movement were necessarily very rapid. They set out down the old military road that lay between Albany and Oswego. When the column reached a point a little more than half a mile from the fort, they came upon Sir John Johnson’s Tory camp. They quickly drove in sentries and the advanced guard that was posted about two hundred yards from the camp.[157] It was at this point that the mission to march to aid the militia was altered on the spot. The troops raided this camp and the Native American camp nearby. 

Why Willett attacked the camps and not march to aid the militia.  The question of why Willett stopped to plunder these camps instead of obeying Colonel Gansevoort’s order to meet General Herkimer’s militia has never been clearly answered.  It was not broached in contemporary documents and few secondary historical accounts question Willett’s decision. In fact, the New York City Sons of Liberty champion’s actions would afterwards result in his being labeled a hero, receiving a sword and accolades from Congress. In defense of Willett abandoning the militia, the men from the fort did not know that the militia had been engaged. However, their curiosity must have been piqued by the absence of so large a part of the enemy allowing them easy access to the camps. Apparently, Willett simply decided that the immediate and obvious benefits to be derived from attacking the camps outweighed any obligation to rendezvous with Herkimer. Although it could not have influenced Willett’s decision, it was too late for the fort’s reinforcements to come to the militia’s aid.  As soon as the rainstorm ended, the fight at Oriskany Creek, nearly six miles distant from the fort, resumed.  If Willett had set off, even at double time, he would not have arrived for another ninety minutes – the worst of the battle would have been over with Herkimer’s militia enclosed in a tight circle which the British allies could not breech.

As it turned out, by attacking the camps was the best service Lt. Colonel Willett could have done for the militia.  By the time of the fort’s sortie, the Native American allies were already disheartened.  Many of their major chiefs were either dead or wounded while the militiamen’s staunch defense only stiffened. At this stage of the battle, most accounts, both primary and secondary, report that when the distant sounds of a major action was heard from the direction of the British loyalist and Native American camps, it was too much. The Native American allies broke off the attack forcing the loyalists to also withdraw, leaving the militiamen no longer molested and the field of battle. This fact, along with the results of his raid, probably muted criticism of Willetts failure to execute his original orders.[158]

Question arises – if British allies heard the sortie attacking the camp, why did the fort not hear signs of the Battle at Oriskany Creek?  All accounts give credit to the Native American withdrawal from the Battle of Oriskany after they heard the distant rumble of battle coming from their camp. This raises an interesting question:  If those fighting at Oriskany Creek, six miles distant, heard the attack on the camps, so too, why then did the Continental Soldiers under Lt. Colonel Willett’s command not hear the intense battle at Oriskany Creek of over a thousand muskets.  Supposedly, Willett did not know the militia had engaged the enemy, why he didn’t immediately march to their aid.  The answer most likely lies in the fact that musketry was muted by the six-mile distance. But when Lt. Colonel Willett used a three-pounder cannon in his attack, the rumble would have carried along the valley. That and later, while the sortie was returning to the fort, the garrison opened up with its much larger cannon when British regulars rallied to the camps’ aid. The boom of those cannon would have been heard at the battle site. It would have ignited the Native American warriors’ concern for their families and supplies, resulting in their rapid retreat from the battle.

Camps attacked and critical supplies captured.  The Continental soldiers’ attack on the camps was so sudden and rapid.  The British allies had not the time to offer or form any resemblance of resistance, leaving flight their only recourse.  Scholars disagree if Sir John was present at the time. Only a few accounts place him at the Battle of Oriskany, six miles distant. Most state that Major Watts commanded the King’s Royal Regiment ‘Greens’ at Oriskany. In Willett’s son’s account of the sortie, as narrated by his father, Sir John Johnson was in his tent during the attack on his camp. It was warm and the loyalist leader was not wearing his coat. He must have been startled, for he left the camp in such a hurry to have left all his baggage including papers (journals & orderly books), letters, and correspondence.[159]  Both camps were soon taken while loyalists and Native Americans took to the river [Mohawk]. The American troops rushed forward and fired upon them as they forded the river, most escaping into the woods beyond. The quantity of camp equipment, clothing, blankets, and stores found in the two camps required a hasty message to the fort for wagons. Seven wagons were stored in the fort about three quarters of a mile distant. While the troops remained in the enemy camps, the wagons were loaded and sent to the fort. They returned two more times to haul off camp supplies until Willett was satisfied that he’d carried off all that could be done before enemy regulars from the northern camp had time to rally. Willett recorded he brought off upwards of fifty brass kettles, over a hundred blankets, a quantity of muskets, tomahawks, spears, ammunition, clothing, deer-skins, and a variety of ‘Indian affairs’, plus five British colors, which were later displayed on the Fort’s flagstaff under the Continental flag.[160]

Enemy casualties and return to the fort.  The number of men lost by the enemy remained uncertain. Six lay dead in their encampments, two of which were Native Americans; several scattered about in the woods; but their greatest loss appeared to be in crossing the river. Shot and drowned along with an inconsiderable number upon reaching the opposite shore and before they sought safety in the woods.[161]  Willett later wrote that he did not allow his men to take scalps, in his words ‘teaching even the savages humanity,’ and left the camps in good order. By then the British regulars, camped north of the fort, had responded to the attack on the loyalist and Native American camps. Willett reported on their brief encounter with the enemy regulars: “We were out so long, that a number of British regulars accompanied by what Indians could be rallied, had marched down to a thicket on the other side of the river [Mohawk], about fifty yards from the road we were to pass on our return: near this place I had ordered the field-piece; the ambush was not quite formed when we discovered them, and gave them a well-directed fire. Here, especially, Major Bedlow, with his field-piece, did considerable execution. The enemy were annoyed by the fire of several cannon from the fort, as they marched round to form the ambuscade. The enemy’s fire was very wild, and though we were very much exposed, did no execution at all. We brought in four prisoners, three of whom were wounded.”[162]

Willett’s son, years later, wrote that St. Leger was among the British regulars contesting Colonel Willet’s return to the fort writing: “Colonel Willett, on returning to the fort, found Colonel St. Leger stationed, with such force as he could collect, opposite the landing, on the other side of the river, not more than sixty yards from the direction in which he [Willett] was marching.” He states that Willetts troops were in such a position that enabled the Americans to engulf the British “with a full fire in his front, while at the same time, he [the British were] enfiladed by the fire of a small field piece… though Colonel St. Leger was sufficiently spirited in returning his fire, it was so wild, as to be altogether without effect. Lt. Colonel Willett returned in triumph to the fort, without having lost a single man.

Lt. Colonel St. Leger saw this brief encounter with Willett’s force differently, giving a good account of his regular troops action in driving the enemy back to the fort and placing partial blame on the camp’s loss to a ‘cowardly Indian’. In his letter to Burgoyne, composed on August 27^th, after he had abandoned the siege on Fort Stanwix, he wrote: “Captain Hoyes was immediately detached to cut in upon their [Willett’s force] rear, while they engaged the Lieutenant. Immediately upon the departure of Captain Hoyes, having learned that Lieutenant Bird, misled by the information of a cowardly Indian, that Sir John was pressed, had quitted his post to march to his assistance, I marched the detachment of the King’s regiment in support of Captain Hoyes, by a road in sight of the garrison, which, with executive fire from his party, immediately drove the enemy into the fort, without any farther advantage than frightening some squaws…[163]

The Garrison first learns of the Battle at Oriskany Creek. Willett wrote in his report: “One of the prisoners is a Mr. George Singleton, of Montreal; he is Lieutenant in a company of which Mr. Stephen Watts, of New York (brother-in-law to Sir John Johnson), was Captain, and who was himself killed in the battle with the militia about two hours before. [Watts would be left on the field of battle; however, he would survive] Mr. Singleton told me that Sir John Johnson was with him when we attacked their camp, and that he thinks be ran to the river. It is said, by some of the Oneida Indians, that he is killed, which does not appear unlikely. [Sir John survived both the siege and the war, living a prosperous life in Canada until old age]. From these prisoners we received the first accounts of General Harkaman’s [sp.] militia being ambushed on their march; and of a severe battle they had with them about two hours before, which gave reason to think they had, for the present, given up their design of marching to the fort.  The assailants returned to the fort in triumph, without having lost a man. The British flags were hoisted on the flag-staff under the American flag and the men, ascending the parapets, gave three as hearty cheers as were ever shouted by the same number of voices.[164]

The American Continental Flag that flew over Fort Stanwix was not the first “Stars and Stripes,” but one of red, white, and blue stripes.   Folk lore and myth can be used to explain the common belief that Fort Stanwix, during St. Leger’s siege in August, 1777, flew the first “Stars and Stripes” of the American Revolution.  The Grand Union was commonly flown from American ships and forts at the start of the war; a flag of alternating red and white stripes with the British union in the upper left-hand corner. It was reported to have flown from Fort Stanwix.  However, when Lt. Colonel Willett arrived with his third regiment, he described a flag he had made of alternating red, white, and blue stripes to be flown instead.  This flag did not have the British union in the corner, nor did it have a series of white stars in a blue background. Willett explains that the blue material to make the flag was from a blue camlet cloak taken from an enemy during Willett’s attack of British troops at Peekskill, New York on March 22^nd of that year.  The white stripes were cut out of ammunition shirts and the red stripes were made from a sundry of other materials. All were sewn together and when done, hoisted up the fort’s flagstaff, from beneath regimental colors and later, after the Fort’s sortie on August 6^th, the captured British colors. Below is the Grand Union Flag that was flown over fortifications and American shipping.

As to the origin of the “Stars and Stripes” myth associated with Fort Stanwix. Briefly, Congress, on June 14, 1777, passed a resolution to standardize the American flag, that was initially designed as a marine flag, which ultimately replaced the Grand Union; that having the British Union in the upper left-hand corner.  The act read:  RESOLVED: that the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.  Supposedly, news of this new flag resolution was brought to the fort on August 2^nd, the day St. Leger began his siege of the fort, by Lt. Colonel James Mellen who arrived by batteaux with supplies and reinforcements – a hundred men of the 9^th Massachusetts.  This idea of the flag’s introduction was based on primary ledgers and diaries of soldiers present which, upon examination, never existed. In fact, the first public notice of the resolution did not appear until August 20, 1777 in the Pennsylvania Evening Post. 

Other papers printed the resolution between September 3 and October 2, and the first New York papers to publish it were the September 8 issue of the New York Journal and General Advertiser and the September issue of New York Patent and the American Advertiser. The Boston papers, the Gazette and the Spy, didn’t carry news of the new flag standard until September 15 and 18 respectively.  The myth was concocted by Pomeroy Jones, a local scholar, born several years after the siege, whose interest in Fort Stanwix’s history had a lasting influence on the work of later scholars. He interviewed many elderly veterans of the siege and though his contribution to history had value, he also invented journals and memorials which did not exist – from which he gained confirmation that news of the new standard reached Fort Stanwix prior to the siege and the fort was the first ever to raise the “Star and Stripes” in defiance of an enemy force.[165]

Oriskany Casualties Impact

Perhaps author James Roberts summed it up best in his 1898 publication writing that “The Battle of Oriskany, in its percentages of killed and wounded, was the bloodiest battle of the war. It was won by the militia [though questioned: for the militia remained on the field of battle, however had been bested by the British allies] and resulted in St. Leger’s ultimate defeat and Burgoyne’s surrender two months later, thereby made sure.”[166]  And bloody it was.  One of the first actions in which there were no British regulars nor American Continental troops involved.  It was a drawn-out blood bath in which often men fended for themselves in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat using knives, hatchets, and bare fists.  It was a civil war that pitted neighbor against neighbor in passionate hatred. So too, the Iroquois Nation was split as Oneida warriors fought against fellow Mohawk, Seneca, and Cayuga tribes.  The American militia suffered the most as did the Seneca and Oneida chiefs. Those who perished in battle died of horrendous wounds; often stabbed or hacked repeatedly in barbarous brutality. Because the region was ravaged by war over the next several years, the bodies were never buried.  Even after the war, the section of the road upon which the battle raged was avoided by travelers for many years because of the lingering stench and sight of bleached, skeletal bones.

Estimates of casualties on both sides ranged widely. Of Native Americans, most were never reported. About 700 British allies fought that day. Of British allied casualties, it is estimated that about one hundred were killed; that included loyalists from the Mohawk Valley, Canadian frontier ‘rangers’, and Native Americans (mainly Seneca warriors). There is no report of wounded.  Of killed, this would represent just over 14% of those involved. Calculating those injured and one can assume that at least one quarter of British forces were casualties.  Of the American militia, the British reported that upwards of four hundred militiamen were killed while another two hundred were taken prisoner, many of them later tortured and murdered by Native Americans. The American militia reported they lost two hundred killed and an unspecified number of wounded and taken prisoners. Of the 800 in column that day, nearly 200 of the rear 3^rd regiment escaped the trap and were not part of the action, leaving just over 600 to battle the British forces. Assuming the number of American killed was slightly higher than reported by the militia, but not nearly as high as British reports, the number of Americans who died in battle would be approximately 42%. When factoring in wounded and prisoners, the percentage rose to a staggering 60% of American combatants.  This was the greatest percentage lost in a single engagement by any American or British force during the entire war!

Total:  When combining casualty losses from both sides compared to the number of total combatants, the casualty percentage was about 40%. No other battle of the American Revolution came close to such high losses. The narrative of Jacob Sammons’ manuscript lists those American officers killed and wounded. This complete list is given in the endnotes here:[167] A complete list of both officers and enlisted who fought in the battle, listing those who were killed and wounded can be found in Lou Dd. MacWety’s text The Book of Names, details can be found in this articles bibliography.  Stone lists those British officers and Native American casualties. This list can be viewed in this endnote:[168]

The greatest number of those militiamen killed in battle represented the leaders of the Mohawk community; more than half of the officers were killed or wounded including most of the Committee of Safety members. So too Oneida, Seneca and Mohawk warriors lost most of their chiefs and tribal leaders in the battle. As early English Historian George Bancroft wrote: [of American casualties] “the best and bravest people of western New York. The savages fought with wild valor; three-and thirty or more of their warriors, among them the chief warriors of the Seneca, lay dead beneath the trees; [as was Thomas Spencer, Oneida chief] about as many more were badly wounded.”^[169] Stone wrote: “Though victorious, the loss of the Provincials was very heavy; and Tryon County long had reason to mourn that day.”^[170]  Author Campbell wrote: “Tryon County suffered dreadfully in this battle; Col. Cox, Majors Eisinlord, Klepsattle, and Van Slyck were killed, as was also Thomas Spencer, the Indian interpreter. John Trey, major of Brigade, with Col. Bellenger, were taken prisoners.”^[171]

General Herkimer.  The wounded leader of militia forces was transported back to his home near Fort Danby in present day Herkimer. Early historian James Campbell wrote: “Among the wounded was Gen. Herkimer. Early in the action his leg was fractured by a musket ball. The leg was amputated a few days after, but in consequence of the unfavorable state of the weather, and want of skill in his surgeons, mortification ensued, and occasioned his death.[172]  The story of Herkimer’s demise is generally known: that he was wounded in the leg at the battle of Oriskany, that the leg was amputated several days later at his home, and that he died later that day. No one even recorded which leg it was. Durant’s 19th century “History of Oneida County” includes a letter written to Dr. Jonathan Potts, director of American Army Hospitals, Northern Dept. by a Robert Johnson, presumably a doctor/surgeon, dated Aug. 17, 1777. Extracted, it states, “Yesterday morning I amputated General Harcomer’s leg, there not being left the prospect of recovery without it. But alas! The patriot hero died in the evening; the cause of his death God only knows. About three hours before his departure, he complained of pain. I gave him thirty drops of laudanum liquid and went to dress Mr. Pettery. I left him in as good a way as I could with Dr. Hastings to take care of him.”[173]

Author William Stone quoted a statement by the general’s friend and fellow militiaman, Colonel John Roof.  Roof related that Herkimer’s leg was “shattered five or six inches below the knee” and was “amputated by a young French surgeon in the army of General Arnold, contrary to the advice of the general’s own medical adviser, Dr. Petrie, but the operation was unskillfully performed and it was found impossible to staunch the blood. The blood continued to flow as there was no physician in attendance, etc.”  If both accounts are true, Dr. Hastings is not quite the name of a “young Frenchman”.  Though most accounts place the death on August 17^th, questions remain as to the exact day Herkimer succumbed to his wound and surgery.  General Benedict Arnold informed Col. Gansevoort in a letter dated Aug. 21^st that, “General Herkimer died yesterday,” while Dr. Robert Johnson’s letter to Potts was dated the 16^th. Ledger-Herald reporter Peter Betz asked, in an internet article relating the general’s death, dated Oct. 2^nd, 2017, “how was the amputation bungled, and what does it matter, since most colonial amputations brought on death anyway?  Due to the era’s primitive surgery, it appears poor Gen. Herkimer just didn’t have a leg to stand on.”[174]

American Prisoners – Many were tortured and murdered.  Dr. and Captain Moses Younglove was a surgeon in the 1^st Regiment under Colonel Cox.  Just before his death in 1829, early author William Campbell interviewed him about the Battle of Oriskany. Younglove also detailed his experiences as a prisoner first by Native Americans and Loyalists and later his captivity in Canada under British forces.  Shortly after the battle, Moses witnessed the brutal murder of several prisoners at the hands of both Native Americans and Mohawk Valley Loyalists. When Lt. Colonel St. Leger retreated back to Fort Oswego, Younglove was taken into Canada where he was treated poorly before finally exchanged the following year. His older brother by two years, Isaiah, was a sergeant major in Colonel Dayton’s regiment. Some accounts list him as being at the Battle of Oriskany, however he is not listed on any rosters of those who fought that day.  He too was captured and taken to Canada.  Colonel Dayton was present at Fort Stanwix in 1775 and later during the American incursion into Canada in 1776. He was probably taken captive during that time prior to the battle.  He was paroled later in 1777 and died shortly after he was released. Here is a brief version of Younglove’s experiences as written by Campbell.

“Moses Younglove, Surgeon of General Herkimer’s brigade of militia [1^st Brigade under Col. Cox] saith… [that] toward the close of said battle [Oriskany], he surrendered himself a prisoner to a savage, who immediately gave him to a sergeant of Sir John Johnson’s [King’s Royal] regiment; soon after a Lieutenant in the Indian department came up in company with several other Tories. A Mr. Grinnis by name, drew his tomahawk at this deponent [Younglove], and with a great deal of persuasion, was hardly prevailed on to spare his life. He then plundered him of his watch, buckles, spurs, etc. Mr. Butler [probably John or perhaps his son Walter] demanded of him what he was fighting for; to which this deponent answered, “he fought for the liberty that God and nature gave him…]. To which Butler replied, “you are a damned impudent rebel” … immediately turned to the savages and encouraged them to kill him. That several prisoners were then taken forward toward the enemy’s headquarters with frequent scenes of horror and massacre, in which Tories were active as well as savages; and in particular one Davis, formerly known in Tryon County on the Mohawk River. That Lieut. Singleton of Sir John Johnson’s regiment, being wounded, entreated the savages to kill the prisoners, which they accordingly did… about six or seven. That Isaac Paris [Lt. in Klung’s 2^nd Regiment – he had argued with Gen. Herkimer to not wait for the cannon signal from the fort, but to attack at once] was also taken the same road…stripping [him] until some Tories came up who kicked and abused him, after which the savages, thinking him a notable offender, murdered him barbarously.”

Younglove continued speaking of prisoners’ treatment over the next several days: “The savages, who came every day in large companies with knives, feeling of the prisoners, to know who were fattest. That they dragged one of the prisoners out of the guard with the most lamentable cries; tortured him for a long time, and this deponent was informed by both Tories and Indians, that they ate him, as appears they did another on an island in Lake Ontario, by bones found there nearly picked, just after they had crossed the lake with the prisoners. That the prisoners who were not delivered up, were murdered in considerable numbers from day to day round the camp, some of them so nigh that their shrieks were heard. That Capt. Martin, of the batteaux-men, was delivered to the Indians at Oswego, on pretense of his having kept back some useful intelligence. That this deponent during his imprisonment, and his fellows, were kept almost starved for provisions, and what they drew, were of the worst kind, such as spoiled flour, biscuit full of maggots and moldy, and no soap allowed, or other method of keeping clean, and were insulted, struck, &c. without mercy by the guards, without any provocation given. That this deponent was informed by several sergeants orderly on Gen. St. Leger, that twenty dollars were offered in general orders for every American scalp.”[175]

Siege Continues

The Battle of Oriskany did not bring hostilities to a close. St. Leger’s objective remained intact; the capture of Fort Stanwix and passage down the Mohawk Valley to Albany was still within his grasp. Though the fort was proving to be a greater obstacle than anticipated, the loyalists and Native American allies had decimated the Tryon County Militia. This left the fort’s garrison limited on supplies and they had no information on when or if another relief force might arrive. In Albany, Major General Schuyler’s Continental Regulars were stretched thin as they would have to contend with St. Leger’s force in the Mohawk Valley while countering General Burgoyne’s slow, but determined advance down the Hudson River.  Except for the Native American allies, particularly the Seneca, St. Leger’s losses at the battle were minimal; he still had his full contingency of regular troops as they had not participated in the action on August 6th.

By August 7^th, St. Leger was finally able to make use of his artillery as the supply road from Fish Creek to the Oneida Carry was ready. This allowed him to avoid the log and timber obstructions in Wood Creek.  Though St. Leger’s position was favorable, the Continental troops still maintained hope.  St. Leger’s artillery was far too light to impact the fort’s strong embankments and defenses. Though Colonel Gansevoort’s expectations of local aid vanished with the militia’s thrashing, Lt. Colonel Willett’s sortie had struck a blow to British morale, especially their Native American allies. The Americans had also lucked out by the confiscation of Sir John’s papers.  They detailed not only the British forces they faced, but St. Leger’s and Burgoyne’s campaign intelligence including their critical supply lines.

Five days into the siege, after St. Leger’s expectations of the fort’s quick capitalization were dashed, the British began to settle in for the longer haul. The day after the Battle of Oriskany, the immediate area around the fort was fairly quiet in terms of arms fire.  Lt. Colonel Willett wrote “On the evening of the next day [August 7^th], the enemy fired a few cannon at us from high ground, about half a mile north of the fort, where they have erected a small battery.”[176] Ensign Colbrath recorded in his diary for that day: “at 11 o’clock this Evening the Enemy came near the Fort called to our Sentinels, telling them to come out again with Fixed Bayonets and they should give us Satisfaction for Yesterdays work, after which they fired 4 small Cannon at the Fort we laughed at them heartily and they returned to Rest.”[177]  Following Lt. Colonel Willett’s sortie, St. Leger had ordered the construction of fortifications throughout the Oneida Carry. A two-gun battery was constructed with mortar beds and three redoubts were erected near his camp to defend against another attack similar to the sortie; this is the battery Willett wrote of. He also sent Captain Lernoult with one hundred and ten men to build another artillery battery at the Lower Landing on the Mohawk River. The battery consisted of three-pound guns aimed at both the fort and the approach to the Oneida Carry, and along the military road. The true nature of the siege began to set in as St. Leger entrenched his troops.[178]

First letter urging the fort to surrender. Later that night, Aug. 7^th after 9 PM, a letter was received, penned by militia officers who had been captured at Oriskany: Colonel Bellenger, commander of the 4^th regiment and Major John Frey (not listed on militia rosters, but whose presence was evidence on file in manuscripts in the comptroller’s office)^[179].  It was believed that the letter was written under duress with threats of torture and death. The note described unfavorable events at Oriskany and recommended the fort surrender to avoid ‘ruin and destruction’: “…that this was the fatal day in which the succors, which were intended for your relief, have been attacked and defeated with great loss of numbers killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. Our regard for your safety and lives, and our sincere advice to you is, if you will avoid inevitable ruin and destruction, to surrender the fort you pretend to defend against a formidable body of troops and a good train of artillery, which we are witnesses of: when at the same time you have no farther support or relief to expect. We are sorry to inform you that most of the principal officers are killed, to wit — Gen. Herkimer, Colonel Cox, Seeber, Isaac Paris, Captain Graves, and many others, too tedious to mention. The British army from Canada being now perhaps before Albany, the possession of which place of course includes the conquest of the Mohawk river and this fort.”[180]

Official letter to surrender delivered.  The next day, August 8^th, Willett recorded: “they threw a parcel of shells from the same battery, none of which did any execution. Towards evening, around 5 PM, the beating of the chamade [drum signal for a parlay with the enemy] and the appearance of a white flag, was followed with a request that three officers might enter the fort with a message to the commander.[181] Willett wrote, “This evening they sent us a Hag [derogatory referral to the letter of surrender], with which came their Adjutant-general, Captain Armstrong [Ancrum], Colonel Butler [John] and a surgeon.[182]  Colonel Gansevoort received the messengers in his dining room.  Willett described the meeting as gentile, with the room attended by Gansevoort, Willett, Colonel Mellen of the Mass 9^th, and several other of the garrison’s officers. Demands for surrender were discussed over wine, cheese, and crackers. The British claimed that with the loss of Herkimer’s forces, there was no hope of aid for those in Fort Stanwix and that General Burgoyne had already reached Albany. However, if they surrendered the fort, the British would protect them from harm. St. Leger claimed that only with effort was he able to keep the Native American warriors from exacting revenge for their losses on August 6th. If the Continentals refused to surrender, St. Leger could not promise to hold back the warriors, who were extremely impatient, and they would most likely attack not only the fort, but the Mohawk Valley as well.[183] 

Strong Reponses to Letter of Surrender.  Lt. Colonel Willett was straightforward in his disgust of Lt. Colonel St. Leger’s offer. Some years later, as reported by Willett’s son, Willett claimed his remarks to the British representatives in quite colorful words, though perhaps suspect as to legitimacy: “Do I understand you sir to think you say, that you come from a British colonel, who is commander of the army that invests this fort; and by your uniform, you appear to be an officer in the British service…  to tell him [Colonel Gansevoort], that if he does not deliver up the garrison into the hands of your Colonel, he will send his Indians to murder women and children. You will please to reflect, sir, that their blood will be on your head, not on ours…After you get out of it [the fort], you may turn round and look at its outside, but never expect to come in again, unless you come a prisoner.  I consider the message you have brought, a degrading one for a British officer to send, and by no means reputable for a British officer to carry.”[184] Colonel Peter Gansevoort was more diplomatic and not as romantic, but by no means less firm: “Sir, in answer to your letter of this day’s date, I have only to say that it is my determined resolution, with the forces under my command, to defend this Fort at every hazard to the last extremity…I have the honor to be, Sir, Your most obt. and humble. Ser’t.”[185]  Surgeons were exchanged and a truce was declared for three days. The next day, the 9^th, St. Leger put his offer of surrender in writing as did Colonel Gansevoort.

Time was not in St. Leger’s favor.  The British commander was aware of General Burgoyne’s slow march towards Albany and the general’s difficulties. Though he tried to trick the garrison into believing Albany was in British hands, it was almost impossible to halt all information from getting in and out of the fort. If Major General Phillip Schulyer decided to send a strong force of Continental troops to reinforce the fort, he may not be able to counter the move.  Even before his small field pieces began lobbing shells into the fort, he knew they would not be enough to force the fort to surrender.  So too, Lt. Colonel Willett’s sortie had a devastating effect on the morale of the Loyalists and most particularly Native Americans. Mary Jemison, Irishwoman who, as a young girl, was captured in 1755 and adopted by the Seneca nation, stated that she and her warriors were ‘deceived into the campaign’, believing that their original participation was as observers only, rather than expected to fight.^[186] The loss of critical supplies was disheartening as well as stretching their ability to sustain a long siege. This and the British allies casualties, especially the Seneca who lost most of their major chiefs, during the battle with Herkimer’s men had a considerable uneasiness effect in the British camp.[187] Somehow, St. Leger had to convince the strong garrison to surrender before his allies, particularly the Native Americans, gave up the fight and went home. Over the next two weeks, he would turn to his artillery officers and field engineers to effect a strategy to persuade the Americans behind their strong parapets to capitulate.

Fort sends runners to inform General Schuyler and seek Reinforcements.  Those in Fort Stanwix recognized they were isolated from the outside. The British had blocked communication coming to and from Fort Stanwix and any potential relief was lost at the Battle of Oriskany. Uncertain if General Schuyler knew of their circumstances, they needed to inform Albany and that they required aid. It was decided that Lt. Col. Willett and 1^st Lt. Stockwell^[188], both of the 3^rd New York Continental Regiment, would slip out of the fort and inform the general. They left the fort in the early hours of August 9^th and took great care to remain undetected. To travel light and move quickly through the woods, they took only a minimum of supplies including knives, hatchets, cheese, crackers, and “a quart canteen of spirits.[189] They did not take guns, blankets, or baggage. Willett’s path began at the fort’s sally port and across the wetlands surrounding the fort towards the Mohawk River. While crossing the swamp, they skirted the camps of the British allied Native Americans. They continued in the general direction of the Mohawk River. After traveling 50 miles in about two days, they arrived at Fort Dayton near German Flatts. Note: Willett would later state, in his son’s text, that he left on the 10^th. Some accounts give the time of departure from the fort nearer to midnight on the 8^th.

St. Leger turns to his artillery and begins trenching.  Although an agreed upon armistice was to have lasted for three days, the British began to bombard the fort the next day.  At 10:30 p.m. on August 9th, St. Leger’s arrangement of field pieces continued a ‘well directed fire’ all night. Artillery and small arms fire were exchanged at intervals through the week. By August 15, Ens. Colbrath counted 137 shells fired at the fort.[190]  St. Leger also ordered his engineers and Canadian workers to begin digging a trench towards the fort to set mines. Because St. Leger brought only light field artillery, they had a very limited effect on the garrison and none on the fort’s physical construction. Out of frustration and having learned from a deserter the location of the fort’s powder-magazine that was inadequately protected, St. Leger, on August 16^th, tried a new tactic. He would attempt to shell the magazine hoping to blow up a portion of the fort.  Later that day Ensign Colbrath recorded that “the Enemy threw some Shells Horrisontally at our Works.”[191]  This resulted in but one casualty, the death of a trooper along the parapet.[192]  The explanation for these shells that slammed into the fort at a horizontal line, resulting in a greater impact (similar to a howitzer), can be found in St. Leger’s August 11, 1777 report to General Burgoyne: “…It was found that our cannon has not the least effect upon the sodwork of the fort, and that our royals [mortars] had only the power of teasing, as a six-inch plank was a sufficient security for their powder-magazine, as we learnt from deserters. At this time Lieutenant Glenie of the artillery, whom I had appointed to act as assistant engineer, proposed a conversion of the royals (if I may use the expression) into howitzers. The ingenuity and feasibility of this nuance striking me very forcibly, the business was set about immediately, and soon executed, when it was found that nothing prevented their operating with the desired effect but the distance, their chambers being too small to hold a sufficiency of powder.

There was nothing now to be done but to approach the fort by a sap to such a distance that the ramparts might be brought within their portice,[193] at the same time all materials were preparing to run a mine under the most formidable bastion.” ^[194]

St. Leger continues to pressure the fort.  While St. Leger’s Canadians worked at the approaching trench, the garrison and their enemies kept up the exchange of fire. French Canadians were under the command of Capitaine Jean-Baptiste-Melchoir de Rouville Hertel[195] He had been one of the defenders of Fort St. Johns on the Richelieu River when the Americans under General Montgomery took the fort. He spent 20 months a prisoner before being released, in time to join St. Leger’s expedition. In his journal, L’Expedition du Fort Stanwix, he claimed that the chief engineer made several critical errors in the trench’s construction, complaining it was only three feet deep that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of several of the laboring men. During this period, the fort suffered little or no damage with few casualties among its defenders, however St. Leger’s siege tactics kept up a constant pressure, mainly on the garrison’s morale. This pressure led to some of the fort’s troops to desert, fleeing to the enemy.  On the 11^th, the British cut off water supply to the fort by diverting the creek. However, the resourceful garrison quickly dug sufficient wells.^[196]  After a week of continual bombardment, August 17^th was a day of relative quiet. However, the 18^th saw a resumption of British artillery which again, proved to be more a nuisance, causing minimal harm. By the 19^th, British trenches were worrisome to the garrison, having reached just 150 yards from the fort.  Soon, St. Leger could move his artillery closer where they could do more damage, as well as the placement of mines. Colonel Gansevoort had his men train their small arms and cannon on the Canadian engineers and workers digging the sap so as to slow them down. But so too this was a concern as the garrison’s ammunition was running low.  On August 21^st, a woman in the fort who was ‘big with Child’ was wounded in the thigh by the artillery fire. The next day, she gave birth to a daughter on the southwest bastion’s bombproof, which Colbrath recorded that both and mother and child ‘do well with the Blessing of God.’[197] 

Party sent to recruit loyalists further down the valley fails.  After the Battle of Oriskany, Sir John Johnson proposed to St. Leger that he be permitted to take 200 men and ‘a significant body of Indians’ down the valley to bring the people back to the royal cause.  St. Leger told him he could not spare the men, and disapproved of it, however he did agree to send a ‘flag’ of fourteen men. This included 10 soldiers, 3 warriors, and their leader, Walter Butler[198], son of Colonel John Butler.[199]  Lt. Colonel Willett stated that the number included six to eight soldiers and eight to ten warriors. They would fail in their cause as they were captured within a week. On august 15^th, they were arrested at Rudolph’s Shoemaker’s tavern in German Flats by a contingent of Continental troops from nearby Fort Dayton.[200]  However, this capture would lead to General Benedict Arnold’s sly ruse that proved to be the death nail for St. Leger’s expedition.

General Benedict Arnold’s Reinforcement and Ruse

Lt. Colonel Willett arrives at Fort Dayton and rides to Albany. After traveling fifty miles by foot in just two days, Lt. Colonel Willett and Lt. Stockwell met Colonel James Wesson, 9^th Massachusetts at the small stockade of Fort Dayton in German Fats where he was stationed with a detachment of his regiment.[201] They were informed that Brigadier General Ebenezer Learned[202] had been ordered by General Schuyler to march his Massachusetts brigade (2^nd, 8^th, and remaining 9^th) to the relief of the fort. Learned’s brigade had been posted at Van Schaick’s Island near the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers when he was ordered to the fort’s relief on August 6^th.  Willett and Stockwell, probably the morning of August 12^th, were given a pair of horses and met General Learned on the road. General Learned had meticulously made his way west over the eighty or so miles from the Hudson to Fort Dayton, conferring with several outposts and Mohawk Valley militia.  General Learned told them that General Benedict Arnold was given command of the relief force and was at Albany. Lt. Colonel carried on to Albany to report to Arnold on the situation at Fort Stanwix and the state of Tryon County’s militia after the Battle of Oriskany.[203]

The main body of General Schuyler’s army laid at the village of Stillwater, about twenty miles north of Albany and southeast of Saratoga.  However, besides Brigadier Learned’s brigade which had been sent up the Mohawk on August 6 through the 9th, General Schuyler had already made provisions for additional corps to follow.  The 1^st and 4^th New York marched towards Albany at about the same time as Learned’s brigade headed west. They and Learned’s brigade needed a Major General to command. Benedict Arnold was chosen, but not from a romantic rendition of a council of war regurgitated by other historians. A myth, that had its origin in Isaac N. Arnold’s 1880 text, Life of Benedict Arnold, Patriot & Traitor, portrayed a stressed-out Schuyler imploring for a volunteer to lead the rescue force. When no one responded, Arnold nobly stood up to volunteer, of course followed by an inspirational pontification.  No; Arnold was chosen simply because the expedition needed a Major General to command and as second to Schuyler, he was the only major general in town. Also, Arnold was by far the best choice, as he had proven himself to be one of the most confident, though arrogant, leader among Schuyler’s army.

Historians agree that General Arnold left Albany for Fort Dayton, on August 13^th and that he arrived at Fort Dayton on August 17^th.[204]  Documents confirm that on Aug. 17^th, Arnold’s surgeon who would have traveled with Arnold operated on General Herkimer at his home in German Flatts near Fort Dayton.  If Arnold’s troops marched twenty miles per day, this would put them at Fort Dayton by August 17^th.  It is possible that Arnold rode ahead of his troops with a detachment and thereby arrived before his command.  It is believed that Lt. Colonel left Albany on the 13^th with Arnold.  He didn’t leave Fort Dayton on his ride east until late night on the 11^th or early morning the 12^th. He must have pushed his horse relentlessly to make the eighty-mile journey in one day.  It is more believable that Willett met up with Arnold while the general was marching the 1^st and 4^th New York west towards Fort Dayton. Willett accompanied Arnold and returned to Dayton, where the relief force was assembling before the push to Fort Stanwix.  Arnold spent the next couple of days gathering information while the remaining of the reinforcements arrived from the Hudson. On the 20^th, he convened a council of war to go over intelligence and plan their march to counter St. Leger’s forces and relieve the fort. Present were: Brigadier General Learned; Colonels Willett; John Bailey, 2d Massachusetts; Cornelius Van Dycke, 1st New York; Henry Beeckman Livingston, 4th New York; Colonel James Wesson, 9th Massachusetts; and Lt. Col. John Brook; 8th Massachusetts. The day before, August 19^th, General Horatio Gates assumed command of the Northern Army, replacing Major General Phillip Schuyler.

At the Council, General Arnold, one whose audacity for quick decisions and action, was uncharacteristically cautious in his approach to Fort Stanwix.  At the council, the officers discussed information from one of the Oneidas, who had lately been at the enemy’s encampment. He had informed that all the Six Nations, except the Oneida and Tuscarora, had joined the enemy, the whole amounting to 1,500 by the enemy’s account.  In viewing St. Leger’s encampment, he was fully convinced there were upwards of 1,000 Native Americans, and their other forces (British regulars, Hessian Jaeger, King’s Royal Regiment, Butler’s frontiersmen) are near 700, besides some Tories who have joined since their arrival. Lt. Colonel Willett chimed in that he believed the Oneida warrior’s account was nearly true. General Arnold reported the returns delivered that morning, the number of troops present: 933 rank and file effectives, 13 artillerymen, militiamen that did not exceed 100.  The question was raised to the council if whether they should march to Fort Stanwix with the present force, or to remain at Fort Dayton, waiting for reinforcements. This would include additional Continental troops from Albany, requesting more militia to turn out, and hopeful that the Oneidas would join them in greater numbers.

Council Resolution and Arnold’s Proclamation.  The council decided that they would wait until reinforcements arrived that would equal their numbers with the enemies, before marching the remaining miles to the Fort’s relief.  If Arnold was not prepared to rush into battle, he was ready to sound aggressive. On August 20^th, he issued a proclamation:

“Whereas a certain Barry St. Leger a Brigadier-general in the services of the George of Great-Britain, at the head of a banditti of robbers, murderers, and traitors, composed of savages of America, and more savage Britons (among whom is noted Sir John Johnson, John Butler, and Daniel Claus) have lately appeared in the frontiers of this State, and have threatened ruin and destruction to all the inhabitants of the United States. They have also, by artifice and misrepresentation, induced many of the ignorant and unwary subjects of these States, to forfeit their allegiance to the same, and join with them in their crimes, and parties of treachery and parricide[205]…But if still blind to their own interest and safety, they obstinately persist in their wicked courses, determined to draw on themselves the first vengeance of Heaven, and of this exasperated country, they must expect no mercy from either.”[206]

Actual numbers favored the Americans.  While evidence indicated that St. Leger’s force outnumbered Arnold’s column, the total American strength, including the fort’s garrison, gave them a force more than equal to that of their enemy. At the most, St. Leger’s white troops numbered 700 to 800 men, of whom approximately 300 were Canadian militia, not the most reliable of troops. The Indians, who may have numbered 800 at this time, were of limited usefulness in a pitched battle; and even that number had been reduced by the fighting at Oriskany. Between Arnold and Gansevoort, the Americans had a maximum of 1,746, of whom all but about 100 were Continentals.[207]  St. Leger could not maintain the siege and repel the relief column; and if he abandoned the siege, the garrison would be free to cooperate with Arnold.  With his back to the wall so to speak, matters would worsen for the British commander as more than half his force was about to abandon the siege.

Arnold writes to Colonel Gansevoort.  On or near the 20^th, Arnold penned a letter to Colonel Gansevoort of his delay but to keep the faith.  “Dear Colonel — I wrote you the 19th, that I should be with you in a few days; since which, your express is arrived[208], and informs me you are in high spirits, and no apprehensions at present. I have been retarded by the badness of the roads, waiting for some baggage and ammunition wagons, and for the militia, who did not at first turn out with that spirit I expected; they are now joining me in great numbers; a few days will relieve you; be under no kind of apprehension, — I know the strength of the enemy and how to deal with them. Enclosed are several letters and papers which will announce to you a signal victory gained by Gen. Stark over the enemy;[209] you will accept my congratulatory compliments on the occasion.  Howe, with the shattered remnant of his army, are now on shipboard. The last date was the 4th August; he was in the Gulf stream becalmed. Burgoyne, I hear this minute is retreating to Ty [Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain]. I make no doubt our army, which is near fifteen thousand, will cut off his retreat.”

Arnold tries Walter Butler and his ‘flag’ as spies.  Concocts a ruse.  Benedict Arnold arrived at Fort Dayton on the 17^th, and was briefed on the August 15^th arrest of loyalist Walter Butler and the others at German Flats in a plot to recruit loyalists throughout the Mohawk Valley.[210] Arnold arranged for a court martial on August 20^th, with Lt. Col. Willett serving as judge advocate and Butler defending himself.[211] The court martial found three of the accused guilty of spying or desertion and they were sentenced to death. The rest, including the warriors were treated as prisoners of war.[212] The next day, August 21^st, Lt. Colonel Willett hit the road again, riding eastward to deliver to newly appointed commander of he Northern Army, General Horatio Gates, with the council’s war resolution, along with a request for another 1,000 men to march to the fort’s aide. 

General Arnold would not wait for that aide from General Gates. The three loyalists sentenced to death for the loyalist plot, that included Walter Butler,[213] were to be sent east to Albany where their sentence would be executed (Butler would escape to Canada).  However, Arnold had one of the prisoners ordered for execution to remain at Fort Dayton: Hon Yost Schuyler, one of the less prepossessing members of the numerous Schuyler clan, considered mentally retarded.  He had lived among the Indians, who apparently held him in some awe because of his affliction. His brother Nickolas Schuyler and their mother came into Arnold’s camp to plead for Hon Yost’s life. Nickerson’s account of how Arnold used him is probably more accurate than most:

“He was condemned to death for his part in the plot, but taking Hon Yost’s brother as hostage for his good conduct, Arnold told the half-wit that his life would be spared if he would go to St. Leger’s camp and frighten the Indians there by playing upon their emotions and especially by exaggerating the numbers of the relieving force. The half-wit, delighted at the chance of saving himself, prepared with considerable cunning for the attempt. In order to represent himself as an escaped prisoner who had been fired upon, he caused several bullet holes to be shot through his clothes. the half-wit appeared pointing to the holes in his clothes as proof of the story of his escape. When among the Native Americans and asked Arnold’s numbers, Hon Yost looked upward vaguely and pointed to the leaves on the trees. Such a message from one so mysteriously stricken by the Great Spirit was enough to put the Indians in commotion. Brought before St. Leger, Hon Yost repeated his story with a wealth of detail. Arnold with two thousand men, he said, would be upon them within twenty-four hours.”[214]

St. Leger, Sir John, and the Indian superintendents, Daniel Claus and John Butler, tried to prevent their allies from overreacting to the tales of Arnold’s advance. A council was convened, at which the general learned that 200 Indians had already decamped. The chiefs then informed him that if he did not retreat, they would abandon him. Just how much Hon Yost’s story played in influencing the Native Americans is open to question. The campaign certainly had not been profitable to the Iroquois, and they had little stomach for either a prolonged siege or another battle. The appearance of the half-demented white man must have seemed very fortuitous. They now had an excellent excuse for doing what they wanted to: abandon the expedition.  Daniel Claus put the best face possible on the affair when he wrote: “The Indians finding that our besieging the Fort was of no Effect, our Troops but few, a Reinforcement as was reported of 1500 or 2000 Men with Field pieces, by the way, began to be des[pi]rited & file off by Degrees: The Chiefs advised the Brigr to retreat [to] Oswego and get better Artillery from Niagara & more Men and return & renew the Siege, to which the Brigr agreed and accordingly retreated which, was on the 22 of Augt.[215]

End of Siege & St. Leger’s Retreat

St. Leger Orders to Retreat.  With his Native American allies giving up and heading home in droves, plus a large force under General Arnold approaching, Gen. St. Leger agreed to give up the siege. He ordered a general retreat to begin the night of August 22^nd by removing the sick and wounded to Wood Creek. However, another false account came in that the enemy was within two miles of the Lower Landing at the Mohawk River. This information caused a panic among the Loyalists and their Native American allies who still remained. St. Leger had no choice but to press the retreat to occur before noon of August 22^nd.[216]  Both groups rushed towards Wood Creek to catch the bateaus leaving to cross Oneida Lake.  The flight was so quick that the Canadian workers and engineers digging in the trenches did not hear of the retreat and only discovered as they saw their comrades fleeing.[217]  While some ran, others plundered the supplies left in the abandoned camps.[218]

Fort Stanwix Learns of British Retreat.  The morning of August 22^nd began with typical British artillery fire. The Continentals in Fort Stanwix had no information of Arnold’s approach or St. Leger’s planned withdrawal.  Around noon, a deserter arrived and informed the Continentals that St. Leger was retreating due to an approaching force.  Ensign Colbrath’s journal entry for the 22^nd gives details: “This Morning the Enemy bombarded very smartly The Sergeant Major and two privates were wounded. At Noon a Deserter came to us whose Examination was that the Enemy had news in the Camp that Burgoyne’s Army was Entirely Routed and that three thousand men was Coming up to reinforce us and further that the Enemy was retreating with great precipitation—upon which the Commanding Officer Ordered all the Cannon bearing on their Works to Fire several rounds each to see whether they wou’d return it which partly confirmed the Report of the Deserter.”[219]  Col. Gansevoort ordered fire onto the British batteries which did not receive any return fire. Ensign Colbrath continues: “Sometime after, 4 Men came in and reported the same and that they had left part of their Baggage upon which the Col. ordered 50 Men & two wagons under Command of Capt. Jansen to go to their Camps where they killed 2 Indians and took 4 Prisoners one of them was an Indian. After they had Loaded the wagons with what Baggage they cou’d carry they returned but Night Coming on they cou’d not return to fetch what Baggage was still Left in their Camp.”[220]

Fort Receives more details of Arnold’s approach.  That evening, Aug. 22^nd, two more men came into the fort. The first was a companion of the deserter. Ensign Colbrath writes further: “…the other John Yost Schuyler, who informed the Commanding Officer that he was taken prisoner at the German Flatts and confined at Fort Dayton 5 Days That Gener’l Arnold had sent him to General St. Leger commander of the King Troops to inform him that 2000 Continental with 2 Fields Pieces and a great Number of Militia were on their march for this place to Reinforce the Garrison that he informed General St Leger of it and in Consequence of which he Ordered his Troops to strike their Tents and pack up, and further after he had done his Errand he hid himself in the woods till Night and coming across the above Men they came in together, he likewise informed us that near 17 Indians were at Fort Newport quite drunk upon which the Col ordered a party of men under the command of Major Cochran to go and take them who in about an Hour Returned and informed the Colonel he had been there but did not find any and that he went to Wood Creek and found 8 New Bateaus which the Enemy had left behind…”  Colbrath wrote that at midnight, Gansevoort sent off three of his regiment to inform General Arnold of the enemy’s rapid retreat. Another deserter came in later stating he’d left one of the British cohorns (‘royal’ or small mortar) by Wood Creek. Lastly, Colbrath wrote that a woman who had been wounded by artillery some days before had given birth to a daughter: “She and the child are like to do well with the Blessing of God…”[221]

Ensign Colbarth’s account on Equipment captured and Arnold’s arrival.  Colbrath’s Journal, August 23^rd:  “This Morning the Col sent out a party under the command of Major Cochran to take them, who returned with three prisoners 4 Cohorns and some Baggage and reported there was 17 Bateaus lying there; another party was sent to the Enemy’s N. Camp to bring in the rest of the Baggage left by us last Night containing of Ammunition camp equipage and entrenching Tools another party was sent to the Enemy’s S E Camp who brought in 15 Waggons a 3-pound field piece Carriage with all its Apparatus most of the Wagon Wheels was cut to pieces as were the Wheels of the Carriage Several Scouts were sent out to Day one of whom took a German prisoner who Reported that the Enemys Indians had when they got about 10 Miles from this Fort fallen on the Scattering Tories, took their Arms from & Stabb’d them with their own Bayonets And that for fear of said Indians he and 9 more German Soldiers had took to the woods the rest are not yet found their Design was not to come to the Fort as Butler and Johnston told them when Orders were given to Retreat, that those who fell into our hands would be Hanged immediately Another Scout proceeded to Canada Creek found a Carriage for a Six pounder & 3 Boxes of Cannon Shott which they brought in This afternoon the Honble Major General Arnold Arrived here with near a 1000 Men[222] They were Saluted with a Discharge of powder from our Mortars formerly the Enemys, and all the Cannon from the Bastions amounting in the whole to 13 Attended with three cheers from the Troops on the Bastions.”[223]  See Endnotes here for Colonel Gansevoort’s report to Arnold that gave a complete listing of enemy items taken.[224]

Arnold’s March to the Fort.  On August 22^nd, while still at German Flats, General Arnold had learned of the enemy’s attempt to dig approach trenches nearer the fort.  Fearful that an attack might carry the place, he decided to march at once to its relief. An express reached him when he had marched about two miles [perhaps one or more of Gansevoort’s men] and informed him of St. Leger’s withdrawal. He pushed about 900 men forward in an effort to catch up with the British rear. In Arnold’s report to General Gates, he states he reached the fort at 5 p.m. [on August 23^rd], too late to press the pursuit. The next morning, he sent 500 men to continue the chase, but bad weather forced its abandonment, except for a small party that reached Oneida Lake in time to see the last of the British soldiers crossing it in boats.[225]

Timeline

• June and July 1777– Preparations in Montreal: Lt. Colonel General Barry St. Leger prepares for the expedition. Colonel Daniel Claus sends a group of Native American warriors to reconnoiter Fort Stanwix. Fort Stanwix: Continental Army prepares for expected attack on the Oneida Carry by rebuilding and reinforcing Fort Stanwix (Schuyler).
• June 23: The British leave Lachine, Canada beginning their advance to the Mohawk Valley along the St. Lawrence River.
• June 25: Capt. Greggand and Corporal Madison are ambushed while hunting pigeons. British scouts kill Cpl. Madison and scalp Capt. Gregg, who survives his wounds.
• July 3: British scouts ambush Ensign Spoor and seven men while Spoor and the other Continental troops were cutting sod to repair Fort Stanwix. One soldier was killed, another was injured, and the other five were taken prisoner. This ambush was probably related to the reconnaissance sent by Daniel Claus.
• July 8: St. Leger’s forces arrive at Buck Island (Carleton Island) to reorganize and supply the expedition.
• July 19: British forces leave Buck Island and begin the crossing of Lake Ontario.
• July 23: British forces arrive at Oswego. At Oswego, Captain Joseph Brant and his Mohawk warriors join the British advance. Colonel John Butler holds councils with Seneca and other Haudenosaunee in attempts to convince them to join the British side.
• July 27: British allied Native American scouts ambush three girlspicking berries outside of Fort Stanwix. Two of the girls died, while the third survived her gunshot wound to the shoulder.
• July 28: Colonel Gansevoort sends women with children, the sick and injured away from Fort Stanwix.
• August 1: Oneida warriors inform Fort Stanwix of the approaching British forces.
• August 2: Bateaux arrive from Fort Dayton (Utica) to resupply Fort Stanwix. British forces under Lt. Henry Bird arrive in the carrying place and begin attack on bateaux. The Siege of Fort Stanwix begins.
• August 3: Main body of British forces arrives and surrounds Fort Stanwix.
• August 4: Small arms fire throughout day at Fort Stanwix.
• August 5: There is continued fire against Fort Stanwix; British forces burn down the new barracks built outside the fort.
• August 6: Battle of Oriskany occurs southeast of Fort Stanwix; Lt. Col. Marinus Willett’s attack on the Loyalist and British allied Native American camps serves to distract the British forces.
• August 7: Continued firing around Fort Stanwix. The British set up artillery batteries and redoubts.
• August 8: With the British artillery batteries established, they continue to bombard the fort. Colonel John Butler enters Fort Stanwix with ultimatum for Fort Stanwix’s surrender. Lt. Col. Willett begins expedition to Albany.
• August 9: Continentals refuse to surrender and firing begins again. St. Leger starts trenching towards Fort Stanwix.
• August 11: British cut off Fort Stanwix’s water supply by diverting creek. The Continental soldiers replace the water supply by digging wells within the fort.
• August 13: Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold moves to take control of relief force based at Fort Dayton. On march towards Ft. Dayton joins up with Lt. Col. Willett. Walter Butler travels through Mohawk Valley to recruit Loyalists.
• August 14: The British continue their artillery attacks on Fort Stanwix. Maj. Gen. Arnold arrives at Caughnawaga to take control of Tryon County Militia 3rd Regiment.
• August 15: Continental authorities arrest Walter Butler and his ‘flag’ in German Flatts.
• August 17: British try to fire howitzers horizontally at the fort, but they have little effect. Gen. Herkimer dies of wounds received at the Battle of Oriskany.
• August 17: British quiet around Fort Stanwix. Maj. Gen. Arnold arrives at Fort Dayton to organize relief force.
• August 19: While continuing the artillery attacks on Fort Stanwix, the British have also begun excavating trenches towards Fort Stanwix. The British trenches are within 150 yards of Fort Stanwix.
• August 20: Continentals use small arms to slow trenchers. Walter Butler sentenced to death. Lt. Colonel Willett presiding.
• August 21: As part of a deal to avoid the death for treason, Loyalist Hon Jost Schuyler is sent to deceive St. Leger into thinking a large body of militia is on its way to relieve Fort Stanwix.
• August 22: St. Leger believes Hon Jost Schuyler’s ruse and begins to retreat. Siege of Fort Stanwix is over.
• August 24: Gen. Arnold’s relief force arrives at Fort Stanwix. St. Leger’s forces were already on move to Oswego.[226]

Aftermath

Arnold would not remain at Fort Stanwix.  He immediately hurried back to the Hudson with Learned’s brigade and participated in the decisive Battles of Saratoga.^[227]  Barry St. Leger intended to join Burgoyne on the Hudson and redeem the defeat he had suffered on the Mohawk. The distance proved too great for St. Leger to do so before General Burgoyne’s main drive towards Albany.  Burgoyne’s main army advanced to the northern part of the township of Stillwater, where General Gates had blocked the road to Albany. On September 19 and October 7, he fought two engagements on American terms. Battle of Freeman Farm and Battle of Bemis Heights – both labeled the Battle of Saratoga.  Failing to drive or lure the Americans off Bemis Heights, he retreated northward to the village of Saratoga (Schuylerville), where he capitulated to Gates on October 17. The British grand design for 1777 was wrecked. A strategic and tactical turning point in the war was passed, and a family fight had become an international conflict.  Benedict Arnold would clash with Gates, but ultimately prove to be the genuine hero – rushing into battle and rallying the American troops at a critical moment to win the day. He would be wounded in the leg once again (first time outside Quebec in 1775), and would end up suffering a wounded pride that contributed to his undoing.

In the aftermath of defeat, Loyalist officers were compelled to place the blame on others, and requested reimbursement for expenses. Colonel Claus was the most blatant accuser as he attempted to tarnish Butler, stating his poor information led St. Leger to believe Fort Stanwix was not well fortified.[228]  Such accusations went nowhere.  In a letter dated September 15, 1777, Carleton ordered the raising of a Ranger unit to be under Col. John Butler’s leadership with his son Walter as captain.  Butler’s Rangers quickly became a formidable force along the frontiers of what would become Pennsylvania and New York. They conducted raids and ambushes on outposts and settlements, most notably the Cherry Valley Massacre and Wyoming Valley Massacre. Occasionally, Butler’s Rangers would join Brant’s Native American warriors in raids and campaigns.[229]

The ability to conduct such widespread raids was the result of the losses suffered by the Tryon County Militia at the Battle of Oriskany. The militia lost most of their officers and a large number of troops at the battle. Either out of fear of another ambush or that British forces would attack their homes and farms if left defenseless, surviving militia became hesitant to continue to serve with the militia (Tryon County Safety Committee to Governor George Clinton September 7, 1777). As a result of a declined militia presence, settlements throughout the Mohawk Valley and west of the Hudson Valley became open to raids throughout 1778. The destruction of farms led George Washington to order the Sullivan-Clinton campaign from June 17th to October 3, 1779. Continental troops followed a scorched earth campaign against the British allied Haudenosaunee burning their villages and crops. Those who served at Fort Stanwix during the siege as part of the NY First and Third regiments were part of the Sullivan-Clinton campaign. The result of the Sullivan-Clinton campaign was a decimation of much of British allied Haudenosaunee territory, specifically Seneca and Cayuga, and the retreat of British allied Haudenosaunee villagers to Fort Niagara to request help from the British.

The American victory at Fort Stanwix purchased temporary security for the troubled Mohawk valley that was shattered each of the remaining years of the war raiding British regulars and, especially, their Loyalist and Indian auxiliaries. Settlers and Native Americans on both sides of the conflict were fighting for their home country; and the fighting was often characterized by the mutual savagery of internecine warfare. The Americans retaliated in 1779 with the Sullivan-Clinton campaign[230] that devastated the hostile Iroquois towns but failed to destroy the Native American ability to fight. Although the tribes suffered severely during the winter of 1779-80, the heaviest of the century, they joined their white allies for even more serious raids, especially Joseph Brant’s and Sir John Johnson’s forays of 1780; and the northern frontier was a theatre for destructive but indecisive border war until the end of the Revolution.[231]

Fort Stanwix continued to guard the Great Carrying Place until the spring of 1781. During the fort’s final years, the elements and fires worked havoc on its fabric and structures. A fire in April 1780 destroyed the guardhouse and threatened the nearest barracks so seriously that it had to be razed to prevent the fire’s spreading. On May 14, 1781, another fire, preceded by a rainstorm, destroyed all the barracks while the rain did extensive damage to the fort’s walls. On May 27, 1781, Washington wrote the President of the Continental Congress that the fort was so exceedingly damaged that he was abandoning the post.  The general visited the Great Carrying Place in 1783 and in August directed Colonel Marinus Willett, now a colonel of the New York Levies and Militia, to build one or two blockhouses at the portage between the river and Wood Creek. Apparently three such structures were erected near the site of the old colonial Fort Williams near the river landing-place.[232]

In 1784, the United States negotiated one of its first Native American treaties at old Fort Stanwix. The settlement of western lands was one of the new nation’s most pressing problems. Efforts to reach a solution produced the Ordinance of 1785, one of the landmarks in American legislative and land policy history.  While surveys mandated by the Ordinance were started, Congress turned to the next step required to open the West—’Indian removal.’  The Treaty of Stanwix of 1784 can be considered among the first major steps of this policy by which the Iroquois surrendered all claims to their old lands in return for a few cheap presents. Altogether, the Native Americans had few reasons to remember the fort with affection. Yet, there are few historic sites whose story more nearly represent the history of the western frontier. Trade, settlements, war, diplomacy, heroism, cupidity, and suffering each played a role at the Oneida Carrying Place, as each had throughout the story of the white man’s conquest of the frontier. A decade after the second Treaty of Fort Stanwix was signed, the State of New York erected a blockhouse for housing military stores on the parade of the fort. Still standing in 1815, this blockhouse disappeared at an unknown date. The entire fort was leveled by 1830. The history of Fort Stanwix had come to a close.

St. Leger’s August 27^th Report of his Retreat to General Burgoyne.  He places blame principally on his Native American Allies. A reduction of his letter to Burgoyne, where he reports on his retreat from Fort Stanwix, is included in this endnote.[233]

Major Participants After the War

Barrimore Matthew ‘Barry’ St. Leger (1733-1789) For the next several years, St. Leger was a leader of the British frontier war against the Americans. He was promoted to colonel in 1780. In 1781, he led an attempt to kidnap General Philip Schuyler. Following the war, he remained in Quebec, and briefly commanded the British forces there in 1784. He resigned his commission the following year due to ill health, and died four years later in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England.

Sir John Johnson {1741-1830)   was promoted to brigadier general in 1782. That year Sir John Johnson was also appointed as Superintendent General and Inspector General of Indian affairs of First Nations in Canada, including the four Iroquois nations that had relocated there. After the war, he was appointed by the Crown to distribute lands in Upper Canada to exiled Loyalists, and estimated he helped resettle nearly 3800 in 1784. Johnson became very wealthy, acquiring vast land holdings in lower and upper Canada. In 1796, he moved to Montreal. He had eighteen children including eight sons who served in the British military. He was still Superintendent of Indian Affairs at his death in Montreal.

Daniel Clous (1727-1787) He was born in Germany and immigrated to America in 1749. For the remainder of the war Claus would be based in Montreal overseeing scouting and intelligence gathering operations by combined groups of Six Nations Indians and Indian department rangers. After the war, Claus worked at establishing lands and communities for Six Nations Indians who decided to settle in Canada. Claus actively pursued compensation from the British government for the loses he incurred in supporting the British during the war. It was during one of these trips to England seeking compensation that he died on November 9, 1787.

John Butler (1728-1796) He later raised and commanded a regiment of rangers, which included affiliated Mohawk and other Iroquois nations’ warriors. They conducted raids in central New York west of Albany, including what became known among the rebels as the Cherry Valley Massacre. After the war Butler resettled in Upper Canada where he was given a grant of land by the Crown for his services. Butler continued his leadership in the developing province, helping to found the Anglican Church of Canada and Masonic Order, and serving in public office.

Walter Butler (1752-1781) Son of John Butler. During the American Revolution, Captain Butler fought alongside his Tory father John. He and his father formed Butler’s Rangers in the fall of 1777. They campaigned with Native Americans in many raids throughout the Mohawk Valley and throughout New York and Pennsylvania. Walter Butler was considered ruthless and many primary sources state he was responsible for the killing of women and children settlers during the Cherry Valley Massacre, November 11, 1778. He was killed on October 30, 1781, in a skirmish by a detachment of Americans led by Colonel Willett. As fate would have it, Willett presided over Butler’s trial on August 20, 1777, in which he was condemned to hang as a spy – three months later escaping to Canada.

Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) (1743-1807) Mohawk chief – he was educated at the future Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. During the American Revolution, Brant led Mohawk and colonial Loyalists known as Brant’s Volunteers. During the war, Brant participated in all the major battles along the American Frontier, having been wounded at Detroit. After the war, he traveled to England and met with King George the III, pleading for and being granted land for Native Americans in Canada.  He would also meet with President George Washington as a mediator between the British and the USA. He often played both sides of conflicts while trying to achieve as much as he could for his people. Joseph Brant died in his house at the head of Lake Ontario (site of what would become the city of Burlington, Ontario), on November 24, 1807, at age 64 after a short illness.

Cornplanter John Abeel III, Gyantwachia (born between 1732 and 1746–February 18, 1836) Seneca chief who planned and selected the ambush site for the Battle of Oriskany. He lived a long productive life – always working to better the life of his people. He invited Quakers to their reservation to help educate and improve Native American youth.  After his death, a monument, the first to honor a Native American, was erected in 1866 at his grave site.

General ‘Johnny’ Burgoyne (1722-1792) After surrendering his army to General Horatio Gates, he and his officers returned to England; the enlisted men both British and German, became prisoners of war. Burgoyne came under sharp criticism when he returned to London, and never held another active command.

General John Stanwix (1690-1766) He was born John Roos, but changed his name Stanwix when succeeded to the estates of his uncle Thomas Stanwix. General Stanwix was ordered to the Oneida Carrying Place in early 1758. In 1759, after building the fort that bore his name, he was sent south to Pennsylvania where he constructed Fort Pitt. In 1760 he became Major General and the following year, Lieutenant General. Returning to England, he was a member of Parliament from 1761 until his death. He was lost at sea while crossing from Dublin, Ireland, to Wales in the packet The Eagle.

Colonel Peter Gansevoort (1749-1812) After St. Leger’s failed attempt expedition, Gansevoort was given command of Fort Saratoga in the Albany region. He led his regiment during the Sullivan-Clinton expedition in 1779. He became ill and returned home for a spell rejoining the army for posts at West Point and later commander of the Albany militia.  After the war he became a successful farmer and brewer in the Albany area. In 1809 he was commissioned a Brigadier General in the Northern Army. In 1811, his health suffered and he returned home, dying the next summer.

Colonel Elias Dayton (1737-1807). After his regiment’s posting to the Mohawk Valley and Fort Ticonderoga, May 1776 – March 1777, his regiment was reformed. He was assigned to General Washington’s army and fought in all the major battles including Yorktown, having his horse shot out from under him at Germantown. He was elected to congress, but remained with the army. Among his notable efforts was aiding Washington to set up a spy network in New York City and helping to suppress the 1781 mutiny. He was made a Brigadier General of Militia in 1783 near war’s end. After the war, he served in the New Jersey General Assembly and was mayor of Elizabethtown until 1805. Dayton, Ohio is named after his son Jonathan.

Lt. Colonel Marinus Willett (1740-1830) Native of New York, he lived a long and active life from Sons of Liberty Champion to accomplished soldier and political leader. He remained active throughout the Mohawk Valley for the continuation of the war. Afterwards, he returned to New York City were he became politically motivated attaining several positions within the government and later, helping to improve Native American relations. He was the 48^th mayor of New York City from 1807-1808.  He was buried at Trinity Church, NYC and later at the NYC Marble Cemetery.

Ensign William Colbrath (as of this writing no information of birth or death) Little is known about Ensign Colbrath outside his memoir of Fort Stanwix. He was made a lieutenant in November of 1777, Regimental Quartermaster in 1780, and retired from the army in January, 1781.  After the war he remained in the Mohawk Valley and was listed as a major and power of attorney for Baron Von Steuben to sell land. He lived in the Lower Landing of the Oneida Carry and what became Rome, NY. He was sheriff of Herkimer and later Oneida County in 1798, listed now as Colonel William Colbrath.

General Phillip Schuyler (1733-1804) Wealthy landowner and politician as well as Alexander Hamilton’s father-in-law.  He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1775. As commander of the Northern Army, he had planned the 1775 American invasion of Canada and conducted the American retreat and resistance to British forces in 1776. His skillful management of stalling Burgoyne’s invasion in 1777 contributed largely to Burgoyne’s defeat. After he was replaced by General Horatio Gates on August 19, 1777, he played a less active role in the military, resigning in 1779. After the war he became a New York senator – later losing to Aaron Burr in 1791, but once more attaining the senate seat in 1797. He remained active politically until his death, just four months after Alexander Hamilton was killed in a dual with Aaron Burr.

Molly Brant (1736-1796)  Konwatsi’tsiaienni, and Degonwadonti.  She was an important Mohawk leader throughout the French and Indian War and American Revolution. She was a consort of the powerful and wealthy British Indian agent Sir William Johnson with whom she had eight children. Joseph Brank, Mohawk chief and military leader was her younger brother. A loyalist, after the war, she migrated to Canada to present day Kingston.  A devout Anglican, she was given a pension by the British Government and lived out her days active in her community.

Two Kettles (b? – 1822) Oneida who fought beside her husband Han Yarry at the Battle of Oriskany. They married in 1750 and were prosperous farmers in the town of Oriska, at the Oneida Carry; often catering to Fort Stanwix’s garrison.  They had three sons and a daughter. Little is known of Two Kettles. Their home was destroyed after the Battle of Oriskany, however they later rebuilt. Her husband died in 1794.  It is reported that she went blind just prior to her death.

Hanyery (Han Yerry) Tyonajanegen (1724-1794) Oneida chief warrior of the Wolf clan. He and his wife Two Kettles, married in 1750, were founding and prominent members of the Oneida village of Oriska.  They had a large, prosperous farm. An American ally, he was known for being calm and cool in battle.

General Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) After Fort Stanwix’s rescue, Arnold rushed back in time to participate in General Burgoyne’s demise. He was wounded at the Battle of Bemis Heights and would later receive no credit for his accomplishments in Burgoyne’s defeat, having been shunned by his nemesis General Gates. Thin skinned and one who stumbled over an ego, Arnold was forever after bitter. While recovering, he was given the command of Philadelphia after the British left. He made connections with British loyalist, married Margaret Shippen – daughter of prominent British supporter, and eventually, as is well documented, turned to the British. He ended the war as a despised British general to both Americans and British military personnel. After the war, he had many business dealings in the Caribbean, having moved his family to St. John’s.  After a bout of debt and a span as a sea captain, he ended up in England where he died and was buried without military honors.

Memorial to Battle and Reconstructed Fort Stanwix

The Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site marks the Battle of Oriskany that was fought on August 6, 1777. It was one of the bloodiest engagements of the war with the highest percentage of casualties per participants than any other major action of the American Revolution.  The battlefield is just over a mile south of the Mohawk River.  It is 2 ½ miles northwest of the Village of Oriskany just off NY Route 69 and is just over 5 ½ miles southeast of Rome, New York.  An obelisk that was dedicated in 1884 with plaques at the base commemorate the battle and its participants.  The monument stands above a small rise that many of the ambushed Americans found their way to, and where General Herkimer, wounded, rallied and directed the American forces. The site was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962.

Fort Stanwix National Monument is a reconstructed fortification of the historic Fort Stanwix (Fort Schuyler) and managed by the National Park Service (NPS).  During the 1960’s, Rome city leaders lobbied the federal and state governments for a fort reconstruction as part of an urban renewal program to help revitalize downtown Rome.  New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy supported the proposal and a master plan for a reconstructed Fort Stanwix was completed in 1967. In 1970, the NPS began a three-year archaeological investigation. Construction of the fort began in 1974 and the partially completed structure was opened to the public in time for the United States Bicentennial 1976 celebrations. The current reconstruction, an earth and timber clad, reinforced concrete structure surrounding three freestanding buildings, was completed in 1978. The fort, part, and museum is open to the public and run by the National Park Service.

Recommended Books for Further Reading

ALSO ON REVOLUTIONARY WAR JOURNAL

General Sullivan’s Expedition Against the Iroquois and the Battle of Newtown

Cherry Valley Massacre

Attack on German Flatts 1778

Plum Tree Massacre and the “Bloodiest Day”

Rachel Silverthorn: Paul Revere of the American Frontier

Siege of Vincennes: Dedication, Sacrifice, and Bloody Murder

General Simon Fraser: England Lost an Army & Their Best Wilderness Warrior at Battle of Saratoga

RESOURCES and ENDNOTES

Adams, James Truslow. Atlas of American History.  1985: Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, NY.

American Catholic Historical Society.  “The Catholic Loyalist Highlanders of the Mohawk Valley” The American Catholic Historical Researches.  New Series, Vol. 4, No. 3 (JULY, 1908), pp. 231-249.

Arnold, Isaac Newton.  Life of Benedict Arnold, His Patriotism and Treason.  1880: Jasen, McClurg & Company, Chicago, IL.

Bancroft, George.  History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent. Vol. IX Fifth Edition.  1875:  Little Brown and Company, Boston, MA.

Benton, Nathaniel.  History of Herkimer County…  1856: J. Munsell, Albany, NY.

Betz, Peter.  The Leader-Herald. Oct. 2, 2917.  “Just what (or who) really killed Gen. Herkimer?”  

Boehlert, Peter A.  The Battle of Oriskany and General Nicholas Herkimer. 2013: The History Press, Charlestown, SC.

Campbell, William W.  Annals of Tryon County or the Border Warfare of New York During the American Revolution.  1831:  J. & J. Harper, New York, NY.

Clinton, George.  State of New York Public Papers of George Clinton, Volume 3 of 10 volumes. “A Monthly Return of the State of the Garrison Fort Schuyler May 1st 1778”. 1900: Albany: State of New York Archives. 

Colbrath, William Lt., Ed. by Larry Lowenthal.  Days of Siege, A Journal of the Siege of Fort Stanwix in 1777 (Colbrath Journal) 1983: Eastern Acorn Press, Durham, NC.

Dawson, Henry B.  Battles of the United States by Sea and Sand Embracing Those of the Revolutionary and Indian Wars…in two Volumes.  1858:  Johnson, Fry, and Company, New York, NY.

Dillenbeck, Andreas:  Find a Grave

Eckert, Allan W.  The Frontiersman.  1967:  Little Brown and Company, Boston, MA.

Eckert, Allan W.  The Wilderness War. 1978: Little, Brown, and Company Publisher, Boston, MA.

Foote, Allan D.  Liberty March, The Battle of Oriskany.  1999: North Country Books Inc., Utica, NY.

Ford, Worthington Chauncey.  British Officers Serving in the American Revolution 1774 – 1783.  1897: Historical Printing Club, New York, NY.

Gach, Michael, “The Indians of the North and Northwest in the American Revolution, 1775-1783” Master’s Theses. 1946: Loyola University, Chicago, IL.

Glatthaar, Joseph T; Martin, James Kirby. Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution.  2006: New York: Hill and Wang Publishing, New York, NY.

Gordon, William. The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America…  Three Volumes. 1801:  Samuel Campbell, New York, NY.

Graymont, Barbara. The Iroquois in the American Revolution. 1972: Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, New York.

Greene, Nelson. History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614-1925. 1925:S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, IL.

Greene, Nelson.  The Story of Old Fort Plain and the Middle Mohawk Valley.  1915: O’Connor Brothers Publishing, Fort Plain, NY.

Hamilton, Milton W. “Sir William Johnson’s Wives” New York History Vol. 38, No. 1 (January, 1957), pp. 18-28.

Heitman, Francis.  Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution.  1914: The Rare Bookshop Publishing Company, Washington, DC.

Hertel, Jean-Baptiste-Melchior de Rouville  1945 L’Expedition du Fort Stanwix. In Le Canada Vol XXXIII (Novmber).

Jacobsen, Edna L.  “The Herkimer Family and Battle of Oriskany Portfolio.  New York History Pbl. By Fenimore Art Museum. Vol. 29, No. 3 (July, 1948), pp 342-348.

Jacobson, Michael.  Battlefield Delineation: Siege of Fort Stanwix and Battle of Oriskany…Research Based on a Grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program to Rome Area Chamber of Commerce.  September 12 2013:  National Park Service Am. Battlefield Protection Program, Washington DC.

Jones, Pomroy 1851 Annals and Recollections of Oneida County. 1851: Pomroy Jones Self-Published, Rome, NY.

Jones, Thomas.  History of New York During the Revolutionary War…  1879:  New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

Ketchum, Richard M (1997). Saratoga: Turning Point of America’s Revolutionary War.  1997: Henry Holt, New York, NY.

Logusz, Michael. With Musket and Tomahawk, Vol. II, The Mohawk Campaign in the Wilderness War, 1777. 2012: Casemate Publishers, Havertown, PA.

Lossing, Benson J.  Our Country, A Lifelong History of the United States… Vol. III of VI.  1895:  James A. Bailey, New York, NY.

Lyttle, Eugene W. & Herchheimer, Nicolas. “Nicholas Herkimer,” Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association. Vol. 4 (1904), pp 19-29.

MacWethy, Lou D.  The Book of Names, History from America’s Most Famous Valleys, Especially Relating to the Early Palatines and the First Settlers in the Mohawk Valley.  1933:  Published by The Enterprise and News, St. Johnsville, NY.

Mercantile Library Association.  New York City During the American Revolution. Being a Collection of Original Papers.  1861:  C. A. Alvord Printers from manuscripts in the possession of The Mercantile Library Association of New York City, New York, NY.

National Park Service.  “Construction and Military History 1758 – 1777.”  II. The Building of Fort Stanwix.  www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/fost/history

Newton D. Mereness, ed., “Journal of An Officer Who Travelled in America and the West Indies in 1764 and 1765,” Travels in the American Colonies. 1916: Macmillan Company, New York, NY.

Nickerson, Hoffman.  The Turning Point of the Revolution or Burgoyne in America, Vol. I.  1928, The Riverside Press, Cambridge Mass., 1967: Kennikat Press, Port Washington, NY.

Raphael, Ray.  A People’s History of the American Revolution. 2001: New Press, New York, NY.

Roberts, Ellis H.  The Battle of Oriskany 1777: the Conflict for the Mohawk Valley During the American War of Independence.  2011: Leonaur Publishing, London, UK.

Robert, James R. New York in the Revolution as County and State. 1898: Brandow Printing Company, Albany, NY.

Salmon, Stuart.  “The Loyalist Regiments of the American Revolutionary War 1775-1783”  2009: PhD Dissertation 0020749, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, UK.

Sanders, John.  Centennial Address Relating to the Early History of Schenectady, and ItsFirst Settlers. Delivered at Schenectady, July 4, 1876.  1879:  Van Bethuysen Printing House, Albany, NY.

Schenectady Digital History Archive. “History of the Mohawk Valley: Gateway to the West 1614 – 1925.”  Chapter 33: Palatines Settle Schoharie – 1712.

Scott, John Albert. Fort Stanwix and Oriskany: The Romantic Story of the Repulse of St. Leger’s British Invasion of 1777.  1927: Rome Sentinel Company, Rome, NY.

Skinner, Avery W.  “The Old Trail from the Mohawk to the Oswego.”  Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association. Published by Fennimore Art Museum.  Vol. 13 (1914), pp. 199-209.

Skull, G. D. Editor.  The Montresor Journals. 1881: New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

Smith, William.  The History of the Late Province of New York from its Discovery to the Appointment of Governor Colden in 1762, Vols. I & II.  1830:  New York Historical Society, New York, NY.

Snow, Dean.  1777 Tipping Point at Saratoga.  2016: Oxford University Press, New York, NY.

Stedman, Charles.  The History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War in Two Volumes.  1794:  Printed for the author, Sold by J. Murray, London, UK.

Stevens, John Austin.  The Burgoyne Campaign, An Address Delivered on the Battlefield on the One Hundredth Celebration of the Battle of Bemis Heights, September 19, 1877.  1877: Anson D. F. Randolph & Company, New York, NY.

Stevens, William R.; Thurber, Pear; Barach, Alvan LeRoy. “St. Leger’s Invasion and the Battle of Oriskany. Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association.  Vol. 12 (1913), pp. 329-351. 

Stone, William L. Border Wars of the American Revolution Vol. I.  1874: Harper Brothers Publishers, New York, NY.

Stone, William  The Campaign of Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, The Expedition of Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger.  1877:  Joel Munsell, Albany, NY.

Stone, William Leete. Life of Joseph Brant – Thayendanegea.  1838:  Published by Alexander B. Blake, New York, NY.

Stone, William.  The Starin Family in America…Early Settlers of Fort Orange in Albany…  1892: Joel Munsell & Sons, Albany. NY.

Thacher, James 1862 Military Journal of the American Revolution. Hurlbut, Williams, and Company. Hartford, CT.

Watt, Gavin K.  Rebellion in the Mohawk Valley: The St. Leger Expedition of 1777.  2002: Dundurn Press, Toronto, Canada.

Willett, Colonel Marinus.  A Narrative of The Military Actions of Colonel Marinus Willett, Taken Chiefly from his own Manuscript. Prepared by his son, William M. Willett.  1831:  G. & C. & H. Carvill, New York, NY.

ENDNOTES

---

[1] Some texts list Barry St. Leger’s title as Brigadier General. Others state he was given the temporary title of Brigadier General for this campaign through the Mohawk River Valley.  The only primary source that this writer could find where St. Leger is referred to as Brigadier is in St. Leger’s own correspondence to Colonel Gansevoort who commanded Fort Stanwix.  Here, Lord Germain gives St. Leger’s commission as Lt-Colonel as does Burgoyne in all his correspondence and reports.

[2] Nickerson, pp 91-92.

[3] Jacobson, pg. 20.

[4] Skinner, pg. 201.

[5] Ibid, pp 92-93.

[6] Nickerson, pg. 92.

[7] Ibid, 195

[8] Irondequoit – Iroquois meaning ‘where the land meets the water’.  The area bordering Lake Ontario and is today a suburb of Rochester, New York.  The French first invaded Iroquois land through Irondequoit Bay in 1687 which led to the Iroquois nation’s enmity towards the French and their allegiance with England during the Seven Years War (French and Indian War).

[9] Raphael, pg. 247.

[10] Jacobson, pp 31-32.

[11] Fort Oswego was a formidable fortification improved upon by the British 55^th Regiment under Major Alexander Duncan during the French and Indian War.

[12] Jacobson, pg. 32.

[13] Stone, pg. 218.

[14] Ibid, pg. 220

[15] Jacobson, pg. 33.

[16] Raphael, pg. 251.

[17] Greene.

[18] Stone, from Lt. Bird’s Journal, pg. 221.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Jacobson, pg. 22

[21] Fort Herkimer: 1740, Herkimer County, Mohawk. Fortified house of Johann Yost Herscheimer, south side of Mohawk River about opposite West Canada Creek. The two story house was 70 feet long by 40 feet wide with two foot thick stone walls and loopholes on each floor and basement. The house was enclosed with a parapeted palisaded and six foot by 7 foot ditch. The four angles had small bastions. The site was destroyed during construction of the Erie Canal in 1825. Also known as Fort Kaouri (or Kouari).

[22]Skinner, pg. 205.

[23] Hamilton, pg. 23.

[24] National Park Service [NPS] History: The Building of Fort Stanwix.

[25] A curtain wall is a defensive wall between two towers (bastions) of a fortification

[26] A sally port is a secure, controlled entry way to a fortification. 

[27] NPS The Building of Fort Stanwix.

[28] Embrasures on parapet:  An opening with sides flaring outward in a wall or parapet of a fortification usually for allowing the firing of cannon or musketry.

[29] An outwork of fortifications, with two faces forming a salient angle, constructed beyond the main ditch and in front of the curtain.

[30] Mereness, pg. 369.

[31] Pontiac’s War:  Pontiac’s War, or Pontiac’s Rebellion, began in the Great Lakes region of North America in 1763. Pontiac was an Ottawa leader who led a loose confederation of Native Americans from numerous tribes to fight for their land against the presence of British troops at the conclusion of the French and Indian War. It was ruthless and bloody and ended a few years later without a clear victory for the Native people or for the British.   Eight forts were destroyed and hundreds of colonists were killed or captured, with many more fleeing the region. Hostilities came to an end after British Army expeditions in 1764 led to peace negotiations over the next two years. The Native Americans were unable to drive away the British, but the uprising prompted the British government to modify the policies that had provoked the conflict.  About 400 British soldiers were killed in action and perhaps 50 were captured and tortured to death. It is estimated that 2,000 settlers had been killed or captured.  The violence compelled approximately 4,000 settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia to flee their homes. Native American losses went mostly unrecorded.  The Native American leader of the revolt, Pontiac, was assassinated in 1769  by a Peoria warrior.

[32] Casemates: A vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores

[33] En Barbatte: A raised platform on a rampart for one or more guns, enabling them to be fired over a parapet rather than through an embrasure.

[34] Escarpment: A steep slope built in front of a fortification.

[35] Glacis: A gently sloping bank, in particular one that slopes down from a fort, exposing attackers to the defenders’ missiles

[36] NPS: The Building of Fort Stanwix.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Willetts Narration, pg. 43.

[39] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] NPS: Arms and Accouterments.

[43] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ibid.

[46] Fraise: An obstacle consisting of palisades projecting horizontally from the scarp or counterscarp of a temporary fortification’s ditch. 

[47] Cheveaux de fiese:  A protecting line of sharpened timbers on top of or before a wall.

[48] Willett, pg. 223.

[49] Willett Narration, pg. 53.

[50] Willett, pg. 44.

[51] Nickerson, pg. 198.

[52] Jacobson, pg. 35.

[53] Lt. Colbrath’s August 2^nd Journal Entry.

[54] Jacobson, pg. 35

[55] Nickerson, pg. 196.

[56] Greene, pg. 10.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Jacobson, pg. 32.

[59] Catholic Loyalist Highlanders, pg. 238.

[60] Ibid, pg. 239.

[61] Ibid, pg. 240.

[62] Ibid, pg 245.

[63] Ibid, pp 240 – 241.

[64] Ibid, pg 249.

[65] Ibid, pg. 234.

[66] Ibid, pg. 232.

[67] Lyttle, pg. 19.

[68] Gach, pp 22-23.

[69] Lyttle, pg. 213.

[70] Dawson, pp 238-239.

[71] Stone, pg. 210

[72] Dawson, pg. 213.

[73] Pierre Van Cortlandt (January 10, 1721 – May 1, 1814) Lt. Governor of New York and chairman of the committee of safety. As colonel and later general of the state’s militia, he managed and had full charge of the revolutionary government of the state and directed its entire war effort. He was a great friend of Washington and at war’s end, on November 25, 1783, he accompanied General Washington on his triumphant ride into New York City.

[74] Dawson, pg. 213.

[75] Stone, pg. 215.

[76] Jacobson, pp 33-34.

[77] Ibid, pg. 35.

[78] Willett, pg. 46.

[79] Ibid, pg. 48.

[80] Campbell, pg. 93.

[81] Stone: Border Wars, pg. 188 and Stone: Campaign of Burgoyne, pp 139-140 and Stone: Life of Brant, pg. 210.

[82] Stone: Life of Brant, pg. 210.

[83] Ibid.

[84] Willett, pg. 49.

[85] Jacobson, pg. 36

[86] Willett, pg. 51.

[87] Jacobson, pg. 37.

[88] Nickerson, pg. 199

[89] Ibid.

[90] Jacobson, pg. 37.

[91] Colbrath’s Journal found On-line.

[92] Dawson, pp 239-240.

[93] Jacobson, pg. 37, Willett, pg. 51, NPS Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[94] Jacobson, pg. 38, Colbrath Journal, Stone, pg. 231.

[95] Willett, pg. 51, Stone, pg. 231, Jacobson, pg. 38.

[96] Stevens, pg. 25.

[97] Jacobson, pg. 39.

[98] Stone, pg. 233 Life of Brant.

[99] Willett, pg. 52

[100] Jacobson, pg. 42.

[101] Robert, pp 183-203.

[102] Jacobson, pg. 42.

[103] Willett, pg. 52, Stone, pg. 235.

[104] Stone, pg. 240 Life of Brant.

[105] Ibid, pg. 235.

[106] Bancroft, pg. 378.

[107] Scott, pg. 205.

[108] Watt, pp 159-160.

[109] Roberts, pg. 182.  Adam Helmer was was made nationally famous by Walter D. Edmonds  popular 1936 novel Drums Along the Mohawk with its depiction of “Adam Helmer’s Run” of September 16, 1778, to warn the people of German Flatts of the approach of Joseph Brant and his company of Indians and Tories. He was also featured in John Ford’s 1939 movie of the same name featuring Henry Fonda.

[110] Most historical accounts, both texts and internet list Isaac Paris as a Colonel.  This is incorrect. He was a lieutenant in Colonel Jacob Klock’s 2^nd regiment.  Roberts, New York in the Revolution as Colony and State, pg. 187.

[111] Stone, pg. 235.

[112] St. Leger’s Account, pg. 45.

[113] Watt, pg. 134.

[114] Jacobson, pg. 40, Stone,(on Sir John remaining in camp, pg. 241.

[115] Jones, pg. 344.

[116] Graymont, pg. 134.

[117] Ibid, pp 40-41.

[118] Scott, 1927, pg. 200, Stone pg. 241.

[119] Jacobson, pg. 41, NPS Fort Stanwix in Revolution.

[120] Jacobson’s footnote on page 43 explains the discrepancy of when the battle started: “There are various alternatives for the timing of the battle. Moses Younglove puts the timing of the first fire on the militia at 11 am (Younglove NA). Adam Helmer states he arrived at Fort Stanwix at 1 pm (Continental Congress Item 67:69). Ensg. Colbrath places Helmer arriving at Fort Stanwix between 9 and 10 am (Lowenthal 1983:29). Reviewing these variations in timing, Scott (1927:207) places the start of the battle between 8 and 9 am with the battle concluding around 3 pm.”

[121] Jacobson, pg. 43.

[122] Graymont, pg. 76, 190.

[123] Watt, pg. 162.

[124] Glatthaar, pg. 161, Watt, pg. 162.

[125] The location of the Beech Tree is marked with a plaque.

[126] Stone, pg. 236

[127] According to Roberts pg. 183 – 195 –   Lt. John Van Sluyck was in Colonel Kluck’s 2^nd regiment.  No officers were named Davis.  There is no Davis in Colonel Cox’s 1^st Regiment.  There is an enlisted men name Joseph Davis in Kluck’s 2^nd Regiment.  There are four enlisted men of Colonel Bellinger’s 4^th Regiment:  Peter, John, George and one just listed as Davis.  Four more enlisted men named Davis in the 3^rd Regiment – however this regiment was at the rear of the column when the British allies attacked and most of these men escaped the carnage and escaped.

[128] Glatthaar, pg. 161.

[129] Jacobson, pg. 44.

[130] Glatthaar, pp 161-162.

[131] Jacobson, pg. 44.

[132] Ibid., referal to Younglove reference.

[133] Watt, pg. 166.

[134] Jacobson, pg. 44, Watt, pg. 166.

[135] Watt, pp 170-171, Jacobson, pg. 44.

[136] Ibid., pp 179-180.

[137] Stone, pg. 238

[138] Jacobson, pp 44-45.

[139] Campbell, pg. 79.

[140] Roberts, pp 191-194.

[141] Stone, Sterin Family.

[142] Stone’s Life of Brant, Walker memoir, pg. 238.

[143] Dillenbeck, Find a Grave.

[144] Eckert, pg. 137.

[145] W. Stone, Life of Brant, 238.

[146] Jacobson, pg. 45.

[147] Stone, pg. 240.

[148] Ensign Colbrath Journal.

[149] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[150] Dawson, pg. 243.

[151] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[152] Roberts, pp 186-187.

[153] Stone, pg. 234.

[154] Ibid.

[155] Supernumerary is an old term that generally refers a fully sworn officer who has the same powers as other officers but does not hold a full-time position.

[156] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[157] Willett, pg. 53.

[158] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[159] Willett, pp 53-54.

[160] Ibid.

[161] Ibid.

[162] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[163] Campbell, pg. 79.

[164] Willett, pg. 53

[165] NPS: Fort Stanwix in the Revolution.

[166] Roberts, prelude.

[167] List of American officers killed and wounded:  Narrative of Jacob Sammons, MS. The officers of the Tryon County militia killed or wounded in this battle were as follows : — In Colonel Frederick Viascber’s – regiment, Captains John Davis and Samuel Pettingill, killed ; Major Blauvelt and Lieut. Groat taken prison era and never heard of afterward ; Captain Jacob Gardenier and Lieut. Samuel Gardenicr wounded,. In Colonel Jacob K lock’s regiment, Major John EWilord, and Major Van Sluyck, and Captain Andrew Dillenback, killed; Captains Chn»v»phcr Fox and John Breadbeg, wounded ; Brigade Major JohnFrey, wounded and tak*n prisoner. In Colonel Peter Bellinger’s regiment, Major Eoos Klepeaule, Captain Frederick Helroer, and Lieut Petrie, were killed. Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Bellinger «nd Henry Walredt* were taken pnf oners. In Colonel Ebeneaer Coi’e regiment. Colonel Cox and Lieut Col. Hunt were killed ; Captains Henry Diefendorf, and Robert C rouse, and Jacob Bowman, hill- ed. Captain Jacob Soober and Lieut William Seeber mortally wounded. The surgeon, Moses Younglove, was taken prisoner. Among the volunteers not be- longing to the militia, who were killed, were Isaac Paris, (then a member of the Legislature,) Samuel Billiogton, John Dygert, and Jacob Snell, members of the Committee of Safety. There was likewise a Captaio Graves who fell, but to which regiment he belonged the author has not ascertained.

[168] A, mentioned in the text, St. Lcgcr, in his official report, did not state the number of his own killed and wounded. Colonel Butler however, wrote to Sir Guy Carleton— ” Of the New Yorkers [these were loyalists from the Mohawk Valley], Captain M’Donald was killed, Captain Watts dangerously wounded, and one subaltern. Of the Rangers, Captains Vilton and Flare killed, and one private wounded. The Indians suffered much, having thirty-three killed and twenty-nine wounded; the Seneca lost seventeen, among whom were several of their chief warriors, and liad sixteen wounded.  Major Stephen Watts, of Butler’s force, who was listed as commander of British allies during the battle, was wounded and left for dead. He was able to crawl away and a few days later, make his way back among the British.

[169] Bancroft, pg. 378.

[170] Stone, pg. 241.

[171] Campbell, pg. 83.

[172] Ibid.

[173] Betz, Oct. 2, 2017.

[174] Ibid.

[175] Campbell, pp 90-92.

[176] Dawson, pg. 244.

[177] Colbrath Journal, August 7, 1777.

[178] Jacobson, pg. 50.

[179] Roberts, pg. 251.

[180] Campbell, pg. 85.

[181] Dawson, pg. 244.

[182] Ibid.

[183] Willett, pg. 56, Jacobson, pg. 50.

[184] Willett, pp 57-58.

[185] Campbell, pg. 86.

[186] Stone, pg. 234.

[187] Lossing, pg. 931.

[188] Most accounts list Stockwell as Major, including Willett’s primary source written some years later by his son. Bancroft and Campbell write that he was a lieutenant. Stockwell was a 1^st Lieutenant in Gansevoort’s 3^rd NY Regiment in 1777. He left the Continental Line in 1778 and served as a captain of militia to one may assume war’s end.  Heitman, Pg. 522.

[189] Willett, pg. 60.

[190] Jacobson, pg. 51.

[191] Colbrath, Journal August 16, 1777.

[192] Jacobson, pg. 52.

[193] Could St. Leger mean parapet when writing portice. The rampart he spoke of could refer to a raised earthen mound or stone fortification surrounding a fort that is usually surmounted by a parapet.

[194] NPS: Siege of Fort Stanwix, The letter from St. Leger to Burgoyne, dated August 11, 177 can be found online in Claus’ Account; Canadian Archives.

[195] Jean-Baptiste-Melchior de Rouville Hertel was the  grandson of Francois Joseph Hertel who led the infamous Deerfield massacre in 1704. From a long line of military, his family were the last Canadians to gain nobility by France.

[196] Jacobson, pp 60-61.

[197] Colbrath, Journal August 22, 1777.

[198] Captain Walter Butler, of Butler’s Rangers, would become infamous later in the war for his and his father John’s barbarous tactics towards enemy troops and the merciless slaughter of settlers.

[199] Claus Journal, pg. 721, Jacobson, pg. 52.

[200] Willett, pp 61-62.

[201] Earlier in June, Wesson had sent a detachment of the 9^th Mass. as reinforcements to Fort Stanwix. Some of these troopers were part of Lt. Colonel Willett’s Sortie on August 6^th.

[202] Brigadier General Ebenezer Learned commanded the 2^nd, 8^th, and 9^th Massachusetts.  As Colonel of militia, early in the war, he went on to command the 3^rd Continental Regiment. He held the important Dorchester Heights in April 1776 that led to the British abandoning Boston. He was selected to lead 500 men into Boston (all those who had smallpox or had previously been inoculated, to clean up the city before American troops entered. He resigned afterwards due to poor health, but re-enlisted on April 2^nd 1777 where he was given a brigade command in the Northern Department. After helping to relieve Fort Stanwix, he would fight during the battles around Saratoga. His brigade would be strengthened with the addition of Livingston’s 1^st Canadian Regiment and two militias from New Hampshire, the 2^nd and 4^th.  He and Benedict Arnold would lead the forces that broke the back of Burgoyne’s forces at the Battle of Bemis Heights. During the winter of 1777-1778, he commanded a Massachusetts Brigade at Valley Forge. Due to ongoing health problems, he resigned on March 24, 1778 and returned home to Oxford, Mass. where he was active in state politics until his death in 1801.

[203] NPS – The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[204] Watt, pg. 233, Willett, pp 61-62, Jacobson, pg. 52.

[205] Parricid – the killing of parents or near relatives.

[206] NPS – The Siege of Fort Stanwix

[207] The size of Gansevoort’s garrison is difficult to determine. Two hundred men arrived with Willett, 200 with Badlam, 100 with Mellon. The number that accompanied Gansevoort is unknown, but was at least 200, making a total of 700. This is at odds with a return for provisions for Aug. 13 for 467 soldiers, but except for the contingent that arrived with Gansevoort, the numbers of the other elements are precisely documented.

[208] He may be referring to the seventeen year old Oneida warrior scout, Paul Powless (Paulus). Gansevoort used him as both scout and  messenger throughout the siege.

[209] Reference to the Battle of Bennington in which General Stark’s New Hampshire militia and Green Mountain Boys under Colonel Seth Warner defeated a strong force of German Brunswick troops on August 16^th.  (Many claim these were Hessians – colonial accounts describe all German mercenaries as ‘Hessians’)

[210] Watt, pg. 233.

[211] Willett, pg. 62, Watt, pg 236.

[212] Watt, pg. 238.

[213] Walter Butler, son of loyalist Indian Agent John Butler, was a lawyer in Albany before the war. He would spend three months and would escape to Canada prior to his death sentence being carried out.  In 1778, he and the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, led a company of Tories and Native American s in the raid that culminated in the Cherry Hill Massacre.  He had been blamed for the deaths of the many women and children who were killed on that occasion. He fought in the Battle of Johnstown and was killed on October 30, 1781, while retreating back to Canada in a skirmish with rebel troops  commanded by Colonel Marinus Willett, who had presided over his trial on October 20^th, 1777 in which he was sentenced to death.

[214] Nickerson, pp 273-274.

[215] NPS – The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[216] Watt, pgs. 253 & 255.

[217] Hertel, Watt pg. 252.

[218] Jacobson, pg. 54.

[219] Colbrath Aug. 22^nd Journal Entry, NPS: The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[220] Ibid.

[221] Ibid.

[222] According to Colonel Gansevoort’s report this was around 3PM.

[223] Colbrath Aug. 23 Journal Entry, NPS: The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[224] Colonel Gansevoort report to Gen. Arnold of enemy equipment taken: 4 Royals, 4 2.5 inches diameter, 126 shells for ditto, 3 travelling carriages damaged, 2 damaged limbers for ditto, 135 three-pound round shot, 20 six-pound ditto, 72 three-pound shot flannel cartridges, 4 tin tube boxes, 60 tubes, 11 cannisters, 1 set horse-harness, 1 set of men’s ditto, 4 sponges, 3 ladles, 3 wad-boks, 28 boxes musket balls, 2 powder-horns, 2 lanthorns, 4 handspikes, 3 haversacks, 1 drudging-box, 2 linstocks, 2 port-fires, 1 apron, 1 pair of good limbers, 27 oil-cloths, 2 pair cloathes, 1 coil-rope, a large quantity of junk, a quantity of woollen yarn, 17 three-pound boxes of cartridges damaged, 5 six-pound ditto, 2160 good musquet cartridges, a large number of ditto damaged, 30 copper hoops.

[225] This from General Arnold’s August 23^rd and 24^th report to General Gates.

[226] Jacobson, pp 60-61

[227] NP’S – The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[228] Jacobson, pg. 56.

[229] Ibid., pg. 57.

[230] Also known as the Clinton-Sullivan campaign.  Between August 26 and September 21, 1779, 4,469 Continental Troops under the command of General John Sullivan, seconded by General James Clinton, protracted a scorch and burn campaign against the Iroquois Nation (excepting the Oneida who were American allies). They burned several Native American villages and drove over five thousand men, women, and children to seek refuge at Fort Niagara. The goal was to end British and Native American raids along the frontier – however next year, these raids returned with fresh vengeance due to the offenses and devastation of the campaign.

[231] NPS – The Siege of Fort Stanwix.

[232] Ibid.

[233] St. Leger’s August 27^th Report of his Retreat to General Burgoyne – Places blame principally on his Native American Allies. In the midst of these operations, [digging the trench towards the fort] intelligence was brought in by our scouts of a second corps of one thousand men being on their march. [Since Arnold left Fort Dayton by Aug. 21^st – this would have been later that evening since St. Leger mentions doing battle the next day] The same zeal no longer animated the Indians; they complained of our thinness of troops and their number of losses. I immediately called a council of the chiefs ; encouraged them as much as I could; promised to lead them on myself, and bring into the field three hundred of the best troops. They listened to this and promised to follow me, and agreed that I should reconnoiter the ground properest for the field of battle next morning, accompanied by some of their chief warriors, to settle the plan of operations. When upon the ground appointed for the field of battle, scouts came in with the account of the first number swelled to two thousand; immediately after, a third, that General Burgoyne’s army was cut to pieces, and that Arnold was advancing by rapid and forced marches, with three thousand men. It was at this moment I began to suspect cowardice in some, and treason in others; however, I returned to camp, not without hopes, with the assistance of my gallant

Co-adjutor. Sir John Johnson, and the influence of the superintending Colonels, Claus and Butler,of inducing them to meet the enemy. A council, according to their custom, was called, to know their resolutions, before the breaking up of which I learned that two hundred had already decamped. In about an hour they insisted that I should retreat, or they would be obliged to abandon me. I had no other party to take, and a hard party it was to troops who could do nothing without them, to yield to their resolves; and therefore proposed to retire at night, sending on before my sick, wounded, artillery, &c., down the Wood Creek, covering them by our line of march.”

St. Leger blames his hurried retreat, leaving most of his supplies, again on his Native American allies.“…keeping to my resolution of retiring by night, they [Native Americans] grew furious and abandoned; seized upon the officers’ liquor and clothes, in spite of the efforts of their servants, and became more formidable than the enemy we had to expect. I now thought it time to call in Captain Lernoult’s post, retiring with the troops in camp to the ruined fort called William, in the front of the garrison, not only to wait the enemy, if they thought proper to sally, but to protect the boats from the fury of the savages, having sent forward Captain Hoyes,with his detachment, with one piece of cannon, to the place where Bull Fort stood, to receive the troops, who waited the arrival of Captain.

At this place [Canada Creek in which a deep cedar swamp separates it from the main road] the whole of the little army arrived by twelve o’clock at night, and took post in such a manner as to have no fears of anything the enemy could do. Here we remained till three o’clock next morning, when the boats which could come up the creek arrived, or rather, that the rascally part of all nations of theIndians would suffer to come up ; and proceeded across Lake Oneyda to the ruined fort of Brereton…  On my arrival at the Onondago Falls, I received an answer to my letter from your Excel which showed in the clearest light the scenes of treachery that had been practiced on me. The messenger had heard, indeed, on his way, that they were collecting the same kind of rabble as before, but that there was not an enemy within forty miles of Fort Stanwix.”