Louis and M'Kean did not strictly obey orders, and early in the morning they started off with their forces in pursuit. Johnson, with the Indians and Yagers, fled toward Onondaga Lake, where they had left their boats concealed. His Greens and the Rangers followed. Van Rensselaer and his whole force pursued them as far as Fort Herkimer, at the German Flats, and there M'Kean and Louis were ordered to press on in advance after the fugitives. They struck the trail of Johnson the next morning, and soon afterward came upon his deserted camp while the fires were yet burning. Van Rensselaer had promised to push forward to their support; but, having little confidence in the celerity of his movements, and fearing an ambuscade, Louis refused to advance any further until assured that the main body of the Americans was near. The advanced party halted, and were soon informed by a messenger that Van Rensselaer had actually abandoned the pursuit, and was then on his return march! It was a shameful neglect of advantage, for, with proper skill and action, Johnson might have been captured at the Nose, * before Stone Arabia was desolated, or else overtaken and secured in his flight.
When Van Rensselaer heard of the concealment of Johnson's boats on the Onondaga, he dispatched a messenger to Captain Vrooman, then in command at Fort Schuyler, ordering him to go with a strong detachment and destroy them. Vrooman instantly obeyed. One of his men feigned sickness at Oneida, and was left behind. He was there when Johnson arrived, and informed him of Vrooman's expedition. Brant and a body of Indians hastened forward, came upon Vrooman and his party while at dinner, and captured the whole of them without firing a gun. Johnson had no further impediments in his way, and easily escaped to Canada by way of Oswego, taking with him Captain Vrooman and his party prisoners, but leaving behind him a great number of his own men. ** Tryon county enjoyed comparative repose through the remainder of the autumn and part of the winter.
In January, 1781, Brant was again upon the war-path in the neighborhood of Fort Schuyler. The slender barrier of the Oneida nation had been broken the previous year by driving that people upon the white settlements, and the warriors from Niagara had an unimpeded way to the Mohawk Valley. They were separated into small parties, and cut off load after load of supplies on their way to Forts Plain, Dayton, and Schuyler. During the month of March two detachments of soldiers near Fort Schuyler were made prisoners, and the provisions they were guarding were captured. All the information that could be got respecting the movements of the enemy strengthened the belief that it was his determination to make another invasion of the valley, and penetrate, if possible, as far as the settlement at Schenectady, to destroy the Oneidas who had found shelter there.
Already the scarcity of provisions at Forts Schuyler and Dayton warned the people that, if supplies were not speedily obtained, those posts must be abandoned, and the whole county would thus be left open to the savages. The distress at Fort Schuyler was greatly increased by a flood early in May, which overflowed the works and destroyed considerable provisions. The damage was so great, that it was decided, at a council of officers, that the strength of May 12, 1781 the garrison was totally inadequate to make proper repairs. A few days afterward the destruction of the fort was completed by fire, the work, it was supposed, of an incendiary. The post was then necessarily abandoned, and the garrison was marched down to Forts Dayton and Plain.
* The Nose, or Anthony's Nose, as it is sometimes called, is a bluff at a narrow part of the Mohawk, in the town of Palatine, and derives its name from the circumstance that its form is something like that of the human nose. Here a ridge evidently once crossed the valley and kept the waters in check above, for the effects of the action of running streams and eddies are very prominent in the rocks. At the upper end of the plain below are bowlders and large gravel stones, which diminish to sand at the lower end.
** Campbell's Annals.
Gloomy Prospect in the Mohawk Country.—Patriotism of Colonel Willett.—His Command of the Tryon County Militia
At this period every thing combined to cast gloom over the Mohawk country. Vermont, as we have noticed in a former chapter, had assumed an equivocal position, amounting almost, in appearance, to a treasonable rebellion against Congress. General Haldimand, with a large regular force, was menacing the northern country from his post upon Lake Champlain; the Johnsons, Butlers, and Brant were laying plans for an extensive invasion of Tryon county and the settlements near the Delaware; the forts that served for a defense for the people were weak from lack of provisions, ammunition, and men; the principal one, the key to the Mohawk Valley from the west, was destroyed; and, worse than all, a spirit of discontent and despondency was rife in that quarter, induced by the inefficiency of Congress in furnishing supplies, and the seeming hopelessness of the patriot cause. General Schuyler and others expressed their conviction that, if another invading army should come upon the settlements during the existing state of things, large numbers of the people would join the royal standard. The undisciplined militia, necessarily engaged in farm labor, and often insubordinate, were a weak reliance, and nothing but an efficient military force, either of paid levies or soldiers of the regular army, could give confidence and real protection.
The expectation of such aid was but a feeble ray of hope at the beginning of the summer, for Washington and the French commander (De Rochambeau) were concocting plans far more important than the defense of a single frontier section of the vast extent of the colonies. Governor Clinton was greatly pained and embarrassed by the gloomy prospect in his department. In this dilemma, his thoughts turned to Colonel Willett, who had just been appointed to the command of one of the two regiments formed by the consolidation of five New York regiments. His name was a "tower of strength" among the people of the Mohawk Valley, and Clinton implored him to take command of all the militia levies and state troops that might be raised for the summer campaigns. He consented, left the main army, and established his head-quarters at Fort Rensselaer * (Canajoharie), toward the close of June.
The spirits of the people were revived, although the forces of Willett consisted of mere fragments of companies hastily collected from the ruins of the last campaign. "I confess myself," he said, in a letter to Governor Clinton, "not a little disappointed in having such a trifling force for such extensive business as I have now on my hands; and, also, that nothing is done to enable me to avail myself of the militia. The prospect of a suffering country hurts me. Upon my own account I am not uneasy. Every thing I can do shall be done; and more can not be looked for. If it is, the reflection that I have done my duly must fix my tranquillity." **