The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley

by James Otis

I was not less wearied with the carnage than those around me. Even Sergeant Corney, to whom such scenes were not strange, leaned against a portion of the earthworks as if for support while he dashed the perspiration from his eyes, and then we knew by the sounds that the battle was being waged severely over against the sally-port.

Then it was I called for the Minute Boys to follow me, as I ran at the best pace possible in that direction, for there was our post of duty.

Now Colonel Gansevoort no longer husbanded his store of ammunition intended for the cannon, and every piece in the northern and eastern bastions was being worked with the utmost rapidity, sending among the Tories such a shower of iron as their cowardly hearts could not hold out against, and, when they turned with cries of fear to flee, the British regulars, understanding that they were too few in number to effect anything against us, joined in the retreat.

The assault had come to an end, and we of the garrison were triumphant, but at such an expense of life that we could not well afford many more such victories.

During that night we buried our dead,--four and twenty men,--committing them to the dust under cover of darkness lest the enemy see how much injury he had inflicted, and, thank God, never a member of my company who could not answer to the roll-call.

There were forty-one so seriously wounded that it was necessary a certain force be told off from among the garrison to play the part of nurses, and, when to the number of disabled is added those who were to care for them, it can be seen that St. Leger struck us a severe blow, even though he did not succeed in his purpose.

We buried our comrades in the horn-works, just under the stockade they had defended so gallantly, and threw over the fence of logs fifty-two of Thayendanega's wolves who would take no further part in murder and rapine. It is positive that there must have been many wounded among the Indians, some so severely that it would have been impossible for them to accompany their fellows in the retreat; but yet we found none that had any life in them when we searched among the ghastly evidences of the fight for our own people.

Peter Sitz declared that he had seen one of the wounded savages deliberately kill himself with a knife, when it was seen that the assault had failed, and I doubt not but that several did the same rather than fall into our hands. Then, also, it is possible, in the heat of battle, and remembering what these human wolves had done to the women and children of the settlements which had been attacked, some of our men had sent more than one of the helpless wretches to the Happy Hunting Grounds. I count myself as tender-hearted as any other, and yet it would not have troubled my conscience had I put a few wounded villains out of the world, rather than let them live to commit yet more murders.

On the morning after the assault a white flag was raised over the fort, and when St. Leger sent in hot haste a messenger to learn what we wanted, thinking, most like, we had made up our minds to surrender, he was informed that Colonel Gansevoort was willing to grant an hour's truce that the British and Indian dead might be buried.

This the enemy accepted, and I was surprised to see that never one of Thayendanega's beauties came forward to carry off the slain of his tribe. I had always heard it said that the redskins would brave any danger rather than allow a dead Indian to fall into the hands of an enemy; but certain it is that on this day the rascally Tories dragged away the bodies, with not even a squaw to help them.