Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 / Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched

by John Frederick Schroeder; Benson John Lossing

The British and Indians were prepared to receive him. Their line was formed a small distance in front of their camp on a plain thinly covered with pine, shrub-oaks, and under-growth, and extended from the river about a mile to a marsh at the foot of the mountain. The Americans advanced in a single column without interruption until they approached the enemy, when they received a fire which did not much mischief. The line of battle was instantly formed and the action commenced with spirit. The Americans rather gained ground on the right where Colonel Butler commanded, until a large body of Indians passing through the skirt of the marsh turned their left flank, which was composed of militia, and poured a heavy and most destructive fire on their rear. The word "retreat" was pronounced by some person and the efforts of the officers to check it were unavailing. The fate of the day was decided, and a flight commenced on the left which was soon followed by the right. As soon as the line was broken the Indians, throwing down their rifles and rushing upon them with the tomahawk, completed the confusion. The attempt of Colonel Butler and of the officers to restore order was unavailing and the whole line broke and fled in confusion. The massacre was general and the cries for mercy were answered by the tomahawk. Rather less than sixty men escaped, some to Forty Fort, some by swimming the river, and some to the mountain. A very few prisoners were made, only three of whom were preserved alive, who were carried to Niagara.

Further resistance was impracticable and Colonel Dennison proposed terms of capitulation which were granted to the inhabitants. It being understood that no quarter would be allowed to the Continental troops Colonel Butler with his few surviving soldiers fled from the valley.

The inhabitants generally abandoned the country and, in great distress, wandered into the settlements on the Lehigh and the Delaware. The Indians, according to their usual practice, destroyed the houses and improvements by fire and plundered the country. After laying waste the whole settlement they withdrew from it before the arrival of the Continental troops, who were ordered to meet them. On the 11th of November (1778) 500 Indians and Loyalists, with a small detachment of regular troops, under the command of the notorious John Butler, made an irruption into the settlement at Cherry Valley, in the State of New York, surprised and killed Colonel Allen, commander of the American force at that place, and ten of his soldiers. They attacked a fort erected there, but were compelled to retreat. Next day they left the place, after having murdered and scalped thirty-two of the inhabitants, chiefly women and children.

On the first intelligence of the destruction of Wyoming the regiments of Hartley and Butler with the remnant of Morgan's corps, commanded by Major Posey, were detached to the protection of that distressed country. They were engaged in several sharp skirmishes, made separate incursions into the Indian settlements, broke up their nearest villages, destroyed their corn, and, by compelling them to retire to a greater distance, gave some relief to the inhabitants.

While the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania were thus suffering the calamities incident to savage warfare, a fate equally severe was preparing for Virginia. The western militia of that State had made some successful incursions into the country northwest of the Ohio and had taken some British posts on the Mississippi. These were erected into the county of Illinois, and a regiment of infantry with a troop of cavalry was raised for its protection. The command of these troops was given to Col. George Rogers Clarke, a gentleman who courage, hardihood, and capacity for Indian warfare had given repeated success to his enterprises against the savages.

This corps was divided into several detachments, the strongest of which remained with Colonel Clarke at Kaskaskia. Colonel Hamilton, the Governor of Detroit, was at Vincennes with about 600 men, principally Indians, preparing an expedition, first against Kaskaskia and then up the Ohio to Pittsburgh, after which he purposed to desolate the frontiers of Virginia. Clarke anticipated and defeated his design by one of those bold and decisive measures, which, whether formed on a great or a small scale, mark the military and enterprising genius of the man who plans and executes them.

He was too far removed from the inhabited country to hope for support, and was too weak to maintain Kaskaskia and the Illinois against the combined force of regulars and Indians by which he was to be attacked as soon as the season for action should arrive. While employed in preparing for his defense he received unquestionable information that Hamilton had detached his Indians on an expedition against the frontiers, reserving at the post he occupied only about eighty regulars with three pieces of cannon and some swivels. Clarke instantly resolved to seize this favorable moment. After detaching a small galley up the Wabash with orders to take her station a few miles below Vincennes and to permit nothing to pass her, he marched in the depth of winter with 130 men, the whole force he could collect, across the country from Kaskaskia to Vincennes. This march through the woods and over high waters required sixteen days, five of which were employed in crossing the drowned lands of the Wabash. The troops were under the necessity of wading five miles in water frequently up to their breasts. After subduing these difficulties this small party appeared before the town, which was completely surprised and readily consented to change its master.

Hamilton, after defending the fort a short time, surrendered himself and his garrison prisoners of war. With a few of his immediate agents and counselors, who had been instrumental in the savage barbarities he had encouraged, he was, by order of the Executive of Virginia, put in irons and confined in a jail.

This expedition was important in its consequences. It disconcerted a plan which threatened destruction to the whole country west of the Allegheny Mountains, detached from the British interest many of those numerous tribes of Indians south of the waters immediately communicating with the Great Lakes, and had most probably considerable influence in fixing the boundary of the United States.

These Indian hostilities on the western border were a subject of extreme solicitude to Washington, ever alive as he was to the cry of distress and ever anxious to preserve peace and security to the rural population of the country. Experience and observation had long since taught him that the only effectual protection to the inhabitants of the frontier settlements consisted in carrying the war with severity into the enemy's own country. Hence we find that from the moment these atrocities of the Indians commenced in the western country he was engaged in planning that expedition which, in the next campaign, under the direction of General Sullivan, carried desolation to their own homes and taught them a lesson which they could not soon forget. In the following extract of a letter to Gov. George Clinton of New York, dated March 4, 1779, it will be perceived that he speaks of his plan as already matured: