This scene as it came down to me when a child, from the reported words of a great grandmother who witnessed it, most profoundly impressed my youthful imagination.
What occurred after the capitulation? By the terms of the surrender protection was promised to persons and property. Regardless of the terms, the Indians plundered individuals of the clothing on their persons, pillaged the farm steads of everything movable, drove away the live stock, destroyed the growing crops and burned the buildings of the distressed inhabitants to the ground. Their commander could not, or would not restrain them.
The result was that on the night following the battle, and on the two or three succeeding days and nights, the 3,000 inhabitants of the Wyoming Valley fled, some by boats and rafts down the river, but by far the greater number through the wilderness, and over the mountains to the settlements beyond. It was not a planned and orderly hegira, in which provision was made for necessary wants, but a hurried, hasty, precipitate flight, urged on to desperation by every element of real and imaginary danger. Their houses, furniture, household utensils, crops, flocks, farming implements, provisions, papers, clothing, horses, wagons,—all left behind. And it was all utterly destroyed or carried off. Of the delicate women and tender children, not less than 200 perished by the way. In the battle, the massacre, and the flight it is probable that 500 persons lost their lives. In a memorial to the Connecticut legislature, the survivors stated that their property losses amounted to 38,308 pounds, 13s.[46]
In the Articles of Capitulation signed at Forty Fort was this: "Art. 7. That the inhabitants Col. Denison capitulates for, together with himself, do not take up arms during the present contest." Some undoubtedly considered themselves bound by this article. Colonel Denison for one is no longer heard of in our military annals, although Westmoreland remained more than four years longer under the jurisdiction of Connecticut. The Twenty-fourth regiment was never reorganized. It was overwhelmed on the field of battle; it was surrendered in sections, by the terms of four military conventions.[47] Of this sort of glory it had a monopoly. As a regiment its story is told.
On the other hand many of the men considered themselves absolved from the terms above recited. The party that imposed the conditions, did not themselves observe them. Lieut. Col. Zebulon Butler, one month from the day of surrender, returned to the valley at the head of some Continental soldiers and 40 militiamen and went into garrison at Wilkes-Barrie. A muster roll of these men is extant. Many of them were men who had been surrendered. Captain John Franklin, with a company of Wyoming militia, went out in Hartley's expedition the same year, and in Sullivan's expedition the next year, and on other occasions.
In an upper chamber of this building is an original pay roll of one of these companies. Many of its names are identical with those who served in the Twenty-fourth regiment.
After the flight of the people from the valley the dead lay unburied on the plain where they fell for nearly four months. On the twenty second day of October a detail of thirty men was sent from the garrison at Wilkes-Barre as a guard to protect those of the inhabitants that had returned, in performing that solemn duty.[48]
A granite monument suitably inscribed now marks the place of sepulchre. Engraved upon it is a very inaccurate list of those "slain in battle" and of "survivors."
In this temple, dedicated to the Muse of the backward look, it may be appropriate to inquire, What relation, if any, had these events to the history of the times? The drama of the American Revolution held the center of the stage. Did our regiment enact a part? An important part. It triumphed mightily in its death. The tales of the butchery of these captured citizen soldiers, the cries of those mothers and little children, driven from their burning homes to the wilds of the forest, were heard all over the civilized world. The execration of mankind was visited upon a King, and a country, that employed savage allies and paid them ten dollars apiece, in gold, for the scalps of human beings.