Elsie and Her Loved Ones

by Martha Finley

“But Jennie had waited too long. Early the next morning a black servant boy belonging to Mrs. McNeil espied some Indians stealthily approaching the house, and, giving the alarm, he fled to the fort, about eight rods distant.

“Jennie’s young friend, Mrs. McNeil’s daughter, was away from home at the time, and the family there just then consisted of only Mrs. McNeil, Jennie, two small children and a black female servant.

“The kitchen stood a few feet from the house, and when the alarm was given the colored woman snatched up the children, fled with them to the kitchen, and from there, through a trap-door, into the cellar.

“Mrs. McNeil and Jennie followed. Jennie, young and able to move briskly, reached the trap-door first; but Mrs. McNeil, being old and corpulent, could not move rapidly, and before she could get down into the cellar the Indians were in the house, and a powerful savage seized her by the hair and dragged her up. Another went into the cellar and brought out Jennie, but the darkness of the cellar favored the colored woman and the children. It would seem the Indians did not see them, so left them in their hiding place unharmed.

“The Indians started off on the road to Sandy Hill, taking Mrs. McNeil and Jennie with them; that was the road to Burgoyne’s camp.

“When they came to the foot of a hill, where the road forked, they caught two horses that were grazing, and tried to mount their prisoners upon them. Mrs. McNeil was too heavy to be lifted on the horse easily, so told the Indians by signs that she could not ride. Then two stout ones of them took her by the arms and hurried her up the road over the hill, while the others, with Jennie on the horse, went along the road running west of a tree.

“The negro boy who ran to the fort gave the alarm, and a small detachment was immediately sent out for the rescue of the captured ones. They fired several volleys at the Indians without hitting them. Lossing, whose version of the sad story I am giving you, goes on to tell that Mrs. McNeil said that the Indians who were hurrying her up the hill seemed to watch the flash of the guns, and several times threw her upon her face, at the same time falling down themselves, and she distinctly heard the balls whistle above them. The firing ceased when they had got to the second hill from the village. They stopped there and stripped her of all her garments except her chemise; then they led her, in that plight, into the British camp. Her cousin, General Fraser, was there, and she reproached him bitterly for sending his ‘scoundrel Indians’ after her. He said he did not know of her being away from New York City, and he took every pains to make her comfortable. She was so large that not a woman in the camp had a gown big enough for her, so Fraser lent her his camp coat for a garment, and a pocket handkerchief to take the place of her stolen cap.

“Very soon after she was taken into the camp, two parties of Indians came in with fresh scalps, one of which Mrs. McNeil at once recognized by the long glossy hair as that of Jennie McCrea. She was horror struck and boldly charged them with the murder of the poor girl. They, however, stoutly denied it. They said that while hurrying her along the road, on horseback, near the spring west of the pine-tree, a bullet intended for them from one of the American guns mortally wounded the poor girl, and she fell from the horse. They had lost a prisoner for whom they had expected a reward, and the next best thing was to take her scalp and bear it in triumph to the camp and get the promised reward for such trophies.

“Mrs. McNeil always believed their story to be true, as she knew they had been fired upon by the detachment from the fort, and that it was far more to their interest to take a prisoner to the British camp than a scalp, as they would get the larger price for the former. Burgoyne had told the Indians they should be paid for prisoners whom they took, but called to account for scalps.”

“So it seems Burgoyne wasn’t all bad,” commented Eric. “And I think it must have been a good deal more trouble to get that big fat old woman into the camp alive than it would have been to get the young girl there without killing her.”