In the study of the topography, so far as it was known, and of the geographical nomenclature of the frontier just previous to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, the Memoir upon the late War in North America, by M. Pouchot,[1369] will be found very useful.
The story of St. Leger's expedition and the battle of Oriskany, though told at some length in this chapter as illustrative of border warfare, is so essential a part of the campaign of Burgoyne that the critical discussion of the authorities has been, except in some matters pertaining to the use of Indians, treated rather in connection with the story of that campaign than here.[1370]
The historical introduction upon Sir John Johnson which Gen. J. Watts De Peyster contributed to The Orderly-Book of Sir John Johnson (Albany, 1882) indicates a marked change of opinion upon the exploits of Johnson, as compared with the views which he had expressed in earlier accounts of the battle of Oriskany published by him in 1859, 1869 (Hist. Mag., Jan.), 1878 (Mag. of Amer. Hist., Jan.), and 1880. He confesses that an examination of the British accounts has given him a somewhat enthusiastic admiration for Johnson's methods, but his repeated study has not yet cleared up all errors.[1371] This Orderly-Book gives us the movements of Sir John Johnson's command up to the time that they left Oswego. Through the details for guard and fatigue duty during the delay at Buck Island we get at the different commands which formed the expedition. De Peyster and Stone conclude, from the introduction of a general order for the issue of forty days' rations for five hundred men, just before leaving Buck Island, that this determines the number of St. Leger's command, but the evidence is hardly conclusive.[1372]
In James E. Seaver's Life of Mary Jemison (N. Y., 1856, 4th ed.) we have the story of the way in which the Senecas bewailed their losses, given by a woman who had been long among them as captive and adopted member; and it is on her authority (p. 114) that it is sometimes stated that the English offered bounties for scalps.[1373] An account of the exertions of Red Jacket to keep his people out of the conflict will be found in J. Niles Hubbard's An account of Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, or Red Jacket and his People (Albany, 1886), ch. 3.
As respects the Minisink massacre, the accounts made public by Brant were fairly accurate, though they ran some risk in being transmitted first to Niagara, thence to Quebec, and finally to England. They stand the test of time better than the American accounts. The Tory organ in New York, Rivington's Gazette, printed the first American accounts, representing that only thirty escaped from the ambuscade,—a statement followed in several histories; but the local authorities, on the strength of investigations made at the time of erecting the monument, generally agree on the smaller statements of loss.[1374]
The earliest account of the massacre at Wyoming is in a letter written at Poughkeepsie, July 20, 1778, just after the fugitives had arrived there,[1375] and this account seems to be largely the source whence Gordon, Botta,[1376] and Marshall[1377] drew their accounts. Owing probably to the fact that Marshall cites Ramsay in his footnotes, this last historian is frequently included with the others in the general charge of having furnished an exaggerated and erroneous statement of this deplorable event,[1378] but, in fact, Ramsay is reasonably accurate, and is free from many of the errors which characterize the other narratives.[1379]
Hinman's Connecticut during the Revolution contains an account of the Wyoming massacre, transcribed directly from a contemporaneous publication. A full account of the massacre will be found in Girardin's continuation of Burk's History of Virginia (iv. of the series, p. 314 et seq.), based upon the shocking tales of the fugitives. The popular account was repeated in the History of the Revolution which purported to have been written by Paul Allen.[1380]
Isaac A. Chapman, the first of the local historians to touch the subject, prepared a manuscript, with a preface dated Wyoming, July 11, 1818; but the book was not published until after his death, as A Sketch of the history of Wyoming[1381] (Wilkesbarre, 1830).
Charles Miner, the first to sift out the errors from the accepted accounts, after collecting from survivors their personal experiences, published a series of newspaper sketches which led to his History of Wyoming, in a series of letters from Charles Miner to his son, William Penn Miner, Esq., etc. (Philadelphia, 1845). He carefully chronicled the antecedent history of the Connecticut colony, and gave the first trustworthy detailed account of the invasion, and the articles of capitulation granted to the several forts by Major John Butler. Mr. Miner's agent was apparently refused, at the foreign office, London, a copy of the report of Major Butler. This important document will be found in Wyoming, its history, stirring incidents and romantic adventures, by George Peck, D. D. (New York, 1858).[1382] The author says in his preface: "Forty years since we first visited Wyoming, and from that period we have enjoyed rare advantages for the study of its history." He gives the report of Zebulon Butler to the board of war,[1383] dated at Gnadenhütten, July 10, 1778 (p. 49), the report of Major John Butler to Lieut.-Col. Bolton, dated at Lackuwanak, 8th July, 1778 (p. 52); and there is a thorough résumé of the discussion as to Brant's presence at Wyoming (pp. 87, 88, 89). The report of Butler to Bolton was presumably the document which he received through the favor of Hon. George Bancroft, who cites it (United States, x. 138) in his account of the Wyoming invasion.[1384]