BRANT.
Stone gives two portraits of Brant: one in his younger days, after a picture belonging to the Earl of Warwick, and painted by G. Romney; the other after a painting by Catlin, following an original by E. Ames, and representing him at a later age.
The younger of these two is herewith given. (Cf. J. C. Smith's Brit. Mez. Portraits, iii. 1306; and McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes, vol. ii.) Cf. also J. N. Hubbard's Sa-go-ye-wat-ha (Albany, 1886), p. 88.—Ed.]
The Indians were, however, invited to be present at the conference with Sir John. As a result of the expedition, the Highlanders were disarmed and Sir John was arrested and paroled. In May, it being reported that Sir John was not observing his parole, a second expedition was dispatched to Johnson Hall.[1295] Without waiting to be arrested, Sir John fled to Canada with a numerous body of followers, and shortly thereafter entered the English army. It was in this same month that the affair of the Cedars took place. Here, for the first time, Joseph Brant—Tha-yen-dan-e-gea—appeared in the field against the colonies. As a youth he had been placed at the school for the instruction of Indians, which was conducted by the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, afterwards president of Dartmouth College. Brant is said to have been a man of good personal appearance and of great physical courage. Enough of his life had been spent among the whites to make him feel at ease in European costume, and to fit him to enter society without fear of transgressing ordinary rules of etiquette. As the private secretary of Guy Johnson, he had followed the superintendent to Montreal. From that point he went to England, where he was received with consideration. After a brief stay he returned to Canada, arriving in time to participate, while his memory of British adulation was still fresh,[1296] in the joint attack of the British troops and Indians on the Americans at the Cedars.[1297]
The necessity for occupying Fort Stanwix became early apparent to the Americans, and was the subject of frequent correspondence. This fort was at the carrying-place between Lake Ontario and the Mohawk,[1298] and from this post, on September 23, 1776, Colonel Dayton wrote that "Indian rumors report Colonel Johnson at Oswego with a large force."[1299] The alarm was, however, premature.
In the spring of 1777[1300] intelligence reached the Tryon County committee of the march of Brant, with a large body of warriors, across the country from Canada to the region where the Susquehanna River crosses the line between New York and Pennsylvania. Considerable restlessness was also noted at this time among the Tories. The presence of this large force of Indians under Brant caused great uneasiness to the settlers, and in June General Herkimer, with about three hundred of the militia, marched to Unadilla. Then followed one of the most singular incidents, as the story is generally told, of the whole border war. Herkimer's whole proceedings up to this point were aggressive. He had ventured with an armed force into Indian country. Upon his application, a co-operative force under Colonel Van Schaick was dispatched to Cherry Valley. The presence of Brant in the vicinity with a large body of followers was known, and Brant had already avowed his loyalty to the king. Yet after a conference, to which Brant came with evident reluctance, and at which he made a display of the force with him in such a way as to make Herkimer's followers uneasy, the meeting terminated without apparent result, unless Brant's renewed assertion of loyalty may be so regarded.[1301] Very soon after this a conference was held at Oswego between the officers of the British Indian Department and the Six Nations, at which the greater part of the latter were secured for the service of the king, and the lines were finally drawn between them and those members of the confederacy who were disposed either to maintain neutrality or who actually favored the American side.
While these events were occurring, Burgoyne had started upon his march by way of Lake Champlain, confident that he could without difficulty effect a junction with the British force from New York. Lieutenant Hadden mentions that Burgoyne said at an early date in the campaign that "a thousand savages brought into the field cost more than twenty thousand men." What confidence he had in his allies at the start diminished as he advanced. On the 11th of July he wrote to the secretary of state "Confidentially to your lordship, I may acknowledge that in several instances I have found the Indians little more than a name",—a name which he sought by a proclamation to make a terror; but in doing so he gave his adversaries ground for holding him responsible for such enormities as the murder of Miss McCrea,[1302] and for refusing to believe his indignant denials. His doubts of the value of the Indians as soldiers were soon verified. They could scout and forage, but at Bennington they were useless. They, in turn, finding that Burgoyne endeavored to restrain them in their customary methods of warfare, and that there was but little opportunity for plunder, began to drop away. At the most critical period of the campaign they deserted in large numbers, and could not be prevailed upon to return. Their presence, far from proving a terror to the provincials, consolidated and thus strengthened them, while on the other hand it undoubtedly led the English to overestimate their own strength.[1303]
By orders from London, dated March 26, 1777, the advance of Burgoyne was supported by a simultaneous movement by way of the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. Lieutenant-Colonel Barry St. Leger, made a brigadier for the purpose, led a force of about 650 regulars, Hessians, Canadians, and Tories, with upwards of 800 Indians, as stated by Colonel Claus, who had charge of them.
