Near to this place was an Indian fort. This, too, was laid in ruins. On the return two mills were burned and the village of Unadilla was left in a blaze.
From his ruined villages Brant determined to return to Niagara for winter quarters. While on the way he was met by Walter N. Butler, who, with a force of loyalists, was marching to attack the settlements, and he brought orders for Brant to join him. The great sachem was much displeased to be put in a subordinate position under this young man, or rather young fiend, whom he disliked. He was at length persuaded to join him, however, with a force of some five hundred warriors.
It was late in the fall. The scattered settlers had returned to their homes thinking it was too late in the season for further danger from the Indians, as Brant and his warriors had, as they supposed, gone into winter quarters at Niagara. They therefore did not apprehend an attack on the settlement.
The fort at Cherry Valley was the church, surrounded with a stockade and garrisoned by eastern soldiers, who knew little of Indian fighting. They heard rumors of an approach from the Indians, but did not credit them fully. They did, however, send out scouts, who went a few miles, built a fire and lay down to sleep, without appointing a guard. They awoke to find themselves prisoners.
Butler and Brant approached the settlement on a stormy night. They fired upon a straggling settler, who escaped to give the alarm. But, strange to say, the commander did not yet believe the Indians were coming in force, until they burst like a storm upon the settlement, surrounding the houses and murdering the inhabitants as they came forth.
The house of Mr. Wells, a prominent citizen, was first surrounded, and every person in it was killed by the ferocious Senecas, who were first to rush into the village. Captain Alden, the unwise commander, paid for his folly with his life. He and the other officers were quartered among the settlers outside the fort, and as soon as the alarm was heard he tried to reach the fort, but a savage hurled his tomahawk at his head with deadly effect. Thirty-two settlers, mostly women and children, were killed, although some of them escaped to the woods and from there to the Mohawk Valley. Brant greatly regretted the murder of the Wells family, with whom he was well acquainted; although he had tried to anticipate the Indians and reach the Wells house before the Senecas, but failed. He now asked after Captain McKoun, and was informed that he had probably escaped to the Mohawk with his family.
"He sent me a challenge once," said Brant. "I have now come to accept it. He is a fine soldier thus to retreat."
"Captain McKoun would not turn his back upon an enemy when there was any probability of success," answered his informer.
"I know it," said Brant. "He is a brave man, and I would have given more to take him than any other man in Cherry Valley, but I would not have hurt a hair of his head."
Through all that terrible struggle, here and elsewhere, in which so much blood was shed, and so many heart-sickening scenes were enacted by both parties, Brant was generally found on the side of mercy; but it was his misfortune to be under the command of Tories, whom he declared, "were more savage than the savages themselves."