The loyalists of America and their times

by Egerton Ryerson

"The valley of the Genesee, for its beauty and fertility, was beheld by the army of Sullivan with astonishment and delight. Though an Indian country, and peopled only by wild men of the woods, its rich intervales presented the appearance of long cultivation, and were then smiling with the harvests of ripening corn. Indeed, the Indians themselves professed not to know when or by whom the lands upon that stream were first brought into cultivation. Instead of a howling wilderness, Sullivan and his troops found the Genesee flats, and many other districts of the country, resembling much more the orchards and farms and gardens of civilized life. But all was now doomed to speedy devastation. The Genesee Castle was destroyed. The troops scoured the whole region round about, and burnt and destroyed everything that came in their way. The town of Genesee contained 128 houses, mostly large and very elegant. It was beautifully situated, almost encircled with a clear flat, extending a number of miles, over which extensive fields of corn were waving, together with every kind of vegetable that could be conceived. But the entire army was immediately engaged in destroying it, and the axe and the torch soon transformed the whole of that beautiful region from the character of a garden to a scene of sickening desolation. Forty Indian towns, the largest containing 128 houses, were destroyed. Corn, gathered and ungathered, to the amount of 160,000 bushels, shared the same fate; the fruit trees were cut down; and the Indians were hunted like wild beasts, till neither house, nor fruit tree, nor field of corn, nor inhabitant remained in the whole country. The gardens were enriched with great quantities of useful vegetables of different kinds. The size of the corn-fields, as well as the high degree of cultivation, excited wonder, and the ears of corn were so remarkably large that many of them measured twenty-two inches in length. So numerous were the fruit trees, that in one orchard they cut down 1,500."

"Having completed the objects contemplated by the expedition to the point at which he had arrived, General Sullivan recrossed the Genesee with his army the 16th of September, and set out on his return. Why he did not follow up his success, and strike the enemy's citadel at Niagara, which at that time was in no situation for formidable resistance, is a question difficult of solution. Unquestionably, in the organization of the expedition, the conquest of Niagara, the headquarters of the foe of all descriptions, and the seat of British influence and power among the Indians, was one of the principal objects in view. Certain it is, that the most important feature of the enterprise was not undertaken; and it will be seen in the sequel that but small ultimate advantage resulted from the campaign. Stimulated by a keener thirst for revenge, clouds of savages were again and again seen to sweep through the valley of the Mohawk with the scalping knife and the torch."

"The return of the army was along the same tract by which it had advanced. On the 20th, having recrossed the outlet of Seneca Lake, Colonel Zebulon Butler was detached with the rifle corps of 500 men to pass round the foot of Cayuga Lake, and lay waste the Indian towns on its eastern shore; while Lieutenant-Colonel Dearborn, with 200 men, was detached to perform the same service on the south-western shore. The main army pursued the most direct route to the Chemung and Tioga. On the 26th Colonel Dearborn's detachment returned, and on the 28th they were rejoined by Colonel Zebulon Butler, who had burnt three towns of the Cayugas, including their capital. Dearborn had burnt six towns in his route, destroying at the same time large quantities of corn. On the same day, Colonels Van Courtlandt and Dayton were detached upon a similar service—for the destruction of large fields of corn growing upon the banks of the Tioga and its tributaries."

"The army then resumed its march, and passing through Wyoming, arrived at Easton on the 15th of October. The distance thence to Genesee Castle was 280 miles. With the exception of the action at Newton, the achievements of the army in battle were not great. But it had scoured a broad extent of country, and had laid more towns in ashes than had ever been destroyed on the continent before. The red men were driven from their beautiful country, their habitations left in ruins, their fields laid waste, their orchards uprooted, and their altars and the tombs of their fathers overthrown."[98]

All the devastations of settlements, burnings and slaughter committed by the "Tories and Indians" during the whole war shrink into insignificance in regard to extent of territory, the number of inhabitants and towns, the extent of cultivated farms and gardens, when compared with General Sullivan's one vast sweep of ruin and misery, in the course of which, as the historian says, "the Indians were hunted like wild beasts, till neither house nor fruit tree, nor field of corn nor inhabitant, remained in the whole country."

All this was done by an express order of Congress to the Commander-in-Chief; and for doing this General Sullivan and his army received the cordial approbation and thanks of the Congress.

It was very natural that the survivors of the Six Nations and the "Tories," who took refuge and resided among them, should seek revenge on every possible occasion, in months following, in the regions of their own sufferings, especially upon those individuals and communities who they knew had prompted and aided the executioners of Congress. There were partizan leaders, with adventurous followers, on both sides, in the Southern as well as in the Northern States, who inflicted many acts of barbarity and desolation; but these retaliatory cruelties and raids of destruction acquired a greater intensity of bitterness and cruelty after the terrible ravages and cruelties perpetrated by General Sullivan and his army.

Besides, the history of the Indians, as well as of the "Tories," throughout the whole war, was written by their adversaries, and it was considered a master-stroke of policy to exaggerate the alleged misdeeds and paint the character of both the Indians and Tories in the blackest colours. The story of the "Massacre of Wyoming" is a sample of the manner in which the American writers of the day made history against the Indians and the "Tories." When facts could not be sufficiently seasoned to stimulate recruits for the army and appropriations from the people for its support, fiction pure and simple was resorted to; and Dr. Franklin himself did not think it unworthy of his antecedents, age and position to employ this method to bring disrepute upon the "Tories," the Indians, and the British Government itself, and to excite the hatred of his countrymen against them. The accomplished author of the Life of Brant and the Border Wars of the American Revolution forcibly observes:

"The Indians of the Six Nations, in common with their chief, were loaded with execrations for atrocities of which all were alike innocent, because the deeds recorded were never committed, it having been the policy of the public writers and those in authority, not only to magnify actual occurrences, but sometimes, when those were wanting, to draw upon their imaginations for such deeds of ferocity and bloodshed as might best serve to keep alive the strongest feelings of indignation against the parent country, and likewise induce the people to take the field in revenge, if not driven thither by the nobler impulse of patriotism."[99]

Such deliberate fictions, for political purposes, as that by Dr. Franklin, just referred to, were probably rare; but the investigations into which the author has been, in the preparation of the present work, have satisfied him that, from other causes, much exaggeration and falsehood has obtained a permanent footing in American history. Most historians of that period, English and American, wrote too near the time when the events they were describing occurred, for a dispassionate investigation of the truth; and other writers who have succeeded, have too often been content to follow the beaten track, without incurring the labour of diligent and calm inquiry. Reference has been made above to Wyoming, concerning which, to this day, the world has been abused with monstrous fictions, with tales of horror never enacted. Nor were the exaggerations in regard to the invasion of Wyoming greater than were those connected with the irruption into and destruction of Cherry Valley, as the reader will discover in the course of the ensuing pages. Indeed, the writer, in preparation of materials for this work, has encountered so much that is false recorded in history as sober verity, that he has at times been disposed almost to universal scepticism in regard to uninspired narration.