It has been already stated that the correspondence of Guy Johnson shows that in the plan of campaign Brant's field of operations in 1778 did not include Wyoming. Gen. John S. Clark in a private note quotes from a MS. in the handwriting of Col. Daniel Claus, entitled Anecdotes of Captain Joseph Brant, 1778, a copy of which is in the possession of Hon. J. B. Plumb, of Niagara, Canada, a statement that Sakayenwaraghton led the Senecas at Oriskany (1777), and that after the battle a council was held at Canadesege, at which it was agreed that this chieftain should attack Wyoming in the early spring, and that Brant should attack the New York settlements. This MS. further says that the Indians "bore the whole brunt of the action, for there were but two of Butler's rangers killed." What is known of the life of this Seneca chieftain is given by Geo. S. Conover in his pamphlet, Sayengueraghta, King of the Senecas (Waterloo, 1885).
[1379] Ryerson in his Loyalists of America (ii. ch. 34) compares the accounts of Wyoming given by Ramsay, Bancroft, Tucker, and Hildreth, and credits Hildreth with the most accurate story. He copies Stone's account from the Life of Brant, and expresses himself in approbation of it. There is an account of the Wyoming affair in The History of Connecticut from the first Settlement to the present time, by Theodore Dwight, Jr. (New York, 1841), which is unusually full of errors. I should be strongly inclined to quote here from the pages of Murray's Impartial History of the present War, etc., to show that British opinions were as strongly pronounced in their expressions against the reported acts of Butler, and that they held the authorities who permitted him to bear a commission responsible, were it not that I find so many pages in this book identical with An Impartial History of the War in America, which was published about the same time in Boston, that I am at a loss to determine which was the original book. The two books are not in all respects the same. The one purports to be an English composition, the other an American recital. Phrases in which the enemy are alluded to in the one are reversed in the other, while topics which are elaborated in one are barely mentioned in the other; still, there are enough pages identical in the two, except for the toning down of the adjectives, to make me doubtful of the authorship of the Rev. James Murray. The bibliography of these books is examined elsewhere in this History.
[1380] In order to show what has been accepted as history on this point, I quote a portion of the account in this history, which is typical: "After the savages had completed their work of slaughter in the field, they proceeded immediately to invest Fort Kingston, in which Col. Dennison had been left with the small remnant of Butler's troops and the defenceless women and children. In such a state of weakness the defence of the fort was out of the question; and all that remained to Dennison was to attempt to gain some advantageous terms by the offer of a surrender. For this purpose he went himself to the savage chief; but that inhuman monster, that Christian cannibal, replied to the question of terms that he should grant them the hatchet. He was more than true to his word, for when, after resisting until all his garrison were killed or disabled, Col. Dennison was compelled to surrender at discretion, his merciless conqueror, tired of scalping, and finding the slow process of individual murder insufficient to glut his appetite, shut up all that remained in the houses and barracks, and by the summary aid of fire reduced all at once to one promiscuous heap of ashes. Nothing now remained that wore the face of resistance to these savage invaders but the little fort of Wilksborough, into which about seventy of Col. Butler's men had effected their retreat, as has been said. These, with about the same number of Continental soldiers, constituted its whole force, and when their enemy appeared before them they surrendered without even asking conditions, under the hope that their voluntary obedience might find some mercy. But mercy dwelt not in the bosoms of these American Tories; submission could not stay their insatiable thirst of blood. The cruelties and barbarities which were practised upon these unresisting soldiers were even more wanton, if possible, than those which had been exhibited at Fort Kingston. The seventy Continental soldiers, because they were Continental soldiers, were deliberately butchered in cruel succession; and then a repetition of the same scene of general and promiscuous conflagration took place, which had closed the tragedy at the other fort. Men, women, and children were locked up in the houses, and left to mingle their cries and screams with the flames that mocked the power of an avenging God."
[1381] Chapman's sketch, although it repeats many of the errors in the popular accounts, says that the women and children fled from the valley. It also gives a copy of the articles of capitulation at the final surrender (note ii.). This account is a long step towards the story as at present accepted.
[1382] It is also given, with other official documents, in Dawson's Battles, i. ch. 38.
[1383] This report is also given in a sketch of the life of Zebulon Butler, which forms a part of the article headed Edmund Griffin Butler, in Geo. B. Kulp's Families of the Wyoming Valley (Wilkesbarre, Pa., 1885, vol. i.).
[1384] Bancroft has necessarily treated such events briefly, but the peculiar facilities which he has enjoyed for gaining access to the papers in foreign archives give especial value to his statistics in connection with such incidents in the war as the battle of Oriskany and the destruction of Wyoming.
[1385] In the N. E. Hist. and Gen. Register (xiv. p. 265) an article, "Mrs. Skinner and the Massacre at Wyoming", by D. Williams Patterson, opens with a quotation from Col. Stone's book, and then proceeds as follows: "The above account, which was probably taken by Col. Stone from a newspaper article, published soon after the death of Mrs. Skinner, contains so many errors that it seems proper to place on record a version of the story more nearly in accordance with facts." The facts stated are of a biographical and genealogical character.
[1386] In a previous note I have reproduced one of the typical accounts of the Wyoming massacre, as the story was told by the earlier historians. The details given in accounts of that class were accepted for a long time without question. Fortunately for the good name of the human race, Butler, with all his responsibility for the wrongs done during the continuance of this border warfare, was not the inhuman wretch which he was represented to be, and the wholesale slaughter of the women and children turned out to be a pure invention. Horrors enough remain unchallenged to raise a doubt if even now all errors have been removed. I have not introduced any of these shocking stories in my narrative, but they can be found in Chapman, Miner, and Stone.
The story of the horrors of the night is told in Hubbard's Life of Van Campen in such a way as to make it seem more probable than the same story appears when read in some of the other accounts.