[1303] The hints as to Burgoyne's opinions of the Indians which are derived from contemporaneous documents are of course more satisfactory than any of his subsequent expressions of opinion. In his speech in the House of Commons, May 26, 1778, his estimate of their value as soldiers was very reasonable: "Sir, I ever esteemed the Indian alliance, at best, a necessary evil. I ever believed their services to be overvalued; sometimes insignificant, often barbarous, always capricious; and that the employment of them in war was only justifiable when, by being united to a regular army, they could be kept under control, and rendered subservient to a general system." (Parl. Reg., ix. p. 218).
[1304] The number of Herkimer's force can never be positively ascertained. It has generally been stated at from 800 to 1,000. In the letter of the Council of Safety to John Jay and Gouverneur Morris (Journals of the Provincial Congress, the Provincial Convention, the Committee of Safety, and the Council of Safety of the State of New York, vol. i. p. 1039) it is estimated at 700.
[1305] Narrative of the Mil. Actions of Col. Mariamus Willett (N. Y., 1831).
[1306] In Simms's Frontiersmen, ii. p.152, and note, there is a description of the Cobleskill affair. Simms says that Stone is in error in making two engagements, one in 1778 and one in 1779, at this spot, and he places the date at May 30, 1778. Campbell describes the event as having occurred in 1779 (Border Warfare, etc., p. 175). Thacher, in his Military Journal, mentions the event in 1778. The next date preceding the entry is May 20th; the next succeeding, June 1st. Col. Stone actually gives three accounts of this engagement,—two in the summer of 1778 and one in 1779.
[1307] The population of the valley at that time has been estimated by Miner at twenty-five hundred, who rejects the larger number given by Chapman and others as not being based on any enumeration; but John Jenkins, in 1783, represented, in behalf of the inhabitants, to the legislature, that such an enumeration was taken, and yielded six thousand persons.
[1308] From Major John Butler's report to Lieut.-Col. Bolton, dated at Lackwanak, July 8, 1778. This report was apparently withheld from Miner's agent, who wrote against its title "Disallowed at the foreign office." Butler's humanity "in making those only his object who were in arms" was the subject of congratulation of Lord George Germain, in a letter to Sir Henry Clinton. See extract in Miner's Wyoming, p. 234. Butler probably understates his losses; but, as is the case with all successful ambuscades, it must have been light. Miner quotes from an American prisoner, who thinks from forty to eighty fell. This seems improbable, when the circumstances of the fight are taken into consideration. The report of Colonel Denison to Governor Trumbull is among the Trumbull MSS. in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
[1309] Eleven dead Indians were left on the field. The American loss was reported by Sullivan as three killed and thirty-three wounded. The number of the enemy engaged was reported by prisoners at eight hundred, although Butler himself stated that his whole force numbered only six hundred men.
[1310] Aug. 20, 1779, General Haldimand had a conference with deputies of the Six Nations. Sullivan was then invading the Indian country. Haldimand told the Indians that he did not "establish" Oswego, because he then "had intelligence that the rebels were preparing boats at Saratoga and Albany to go up the Mohawk River, with an intention to take post at Oswego; but in the course of a few weeks he received a different account, that that was not their intention, but a large rebel army was come up the Connecticut River under the command of the rebel General Haysen, with an intention to invade this province." "As to your apprehensions of the rebels coming to attack your country, I cannot have the least thought of it" (N. Y. Col. Doc., viii. p. 776). Sullivan's force was accounted for as "a feint to be made upon the Susquehanna to draw the attention of Colonel Butler and the Six Nations of Indians from going to Detroit."
[1311] Respecting the original maps made by Lieut. Lodge, of Sullivan's army, showing by actual survey the routes of the several divisions of the army, General Clark informs me that they have been discovered, and will be included in a proposed volume on the campaign, to be issued by the State of New York. What seems to be an original map is preserved among the Force maps in the library of Congress. There is in Simms's Frontiersmen (ii. 272) a map of Sullivan's march along Seneca and Cayuga lakes from the Tioga, following a sketch found among the papers of Capt. Machin, who was in the expedition. See note following this chapter.
For the route of Brodhead, see Mag. of Amer. Hist., iii. 655. Maps of the Groveland ambuscade and the Newtown fight are in the Cayuga County Hist. Soc. Coll., no. 1.—Ed.