These so-called warriors of whom Thayendanega had been so proud, were taking Tory and British scalps as if they had been summoned for no other purpose, and during two or three minutes all our people stood as if suddenly turned into graven images, so much of astonishment and bewilderment was caused by the wonderful change in affairs.
Captain Jackman's first act, after understanding that the enemy was actually in retreat, with their former allies harassing the fleeing men to the best of their ability, was to send a messenger in hot haste to the fort with the word that he counted on taking his entire force, save those left to hold the batteries and redoubts, in pursuit, and advising that nearly all the British equipment could be seized upon without fear of interruption.
Then we began the pursuit, and this, like the panic in the camp, was the oddest ever known. British regulars and Tories running helter-skelter, casting aside their weapons and accoutrements lest they be impeded in the unreasoning flight, and close at their heels the savages, who fell upon every unarmed man they saw, sometimes killing him outright, but, in many cases which came under my personal observation, disabling and then scalping the poor wretch, leaving him to a lingering death.
More than once did the frightened soldiers flee toward us for protection, and again and again we lent them weapons with which to defend themselves against their late friends.
It is almost impossible to give any details of that pursuit, which was not brought to an end until we were close upon the shore of Oneida Lake, because it was all so confusing--more like the wildest kind of a foot-race, wherein each man was trying to gain the lead, and the hindermost frantic with fear.
It would have been strange indeed had our people been able to hold anything like a military formation. Captain Jackman yelled himself hoarse trying to keep us together, and, when it seemed as if he was on the point of succeeding, some one would set off at a mad pace to save the life of a British soldier who had fallen at the mercy of a savage.
At first we turned our attention to taking prisoners; but before having left the main encampment a mile in the rear the Indians, eager for scalps, began to grow careless of what we might do, and then we paid off many an old score, although all could not have been settled had we slaughtered every last one of them.
During that time of pursuit we saw nothing of the leaders, and I had come to believe that they were among the first to flee, when suddenly the sergeant, in whose company Jacob and I had remained, pointed out amid the bushes what appeared to be a large portmanteau which had evidently been cast aside by some of the fugitives.
In the excitement of the chase either Jacob or I would have passed it by as being of no particular value when there were so many things to be picked up; but the old man was too good and experienced a soldier not to realize the possibilities of the find, and, heedless of all the wild scenes around him, he seized upon it, breaking the lock with a rock.
Then it was we learned that the apparently valueless case was none other than the writing-desk, or official portfolio, belonging to General St. Leger himself, and in it were not only private letters and documents, but all his correspondence and papers relating to the campaign, such as afterward served to show that the king's officers had actually hired the Indians to murder those whom they called "rebels."