The Berkshire and Hampshire yeomen
With the men of the Hudson join,
And the gathering flood rolls over
The host of the bold Burgoyne.
For a cycle was closed and rounded,
A continent lost and won,
When Stark and his men went over
The earthworks at Bennington.
W. H. Babcock.
Saint Leger, meanwhile, had landed at Oswego and advanced against Fort Stanwix. General Nicholas Herkimer, commander of the militia of Tryon County, at the head of eight hundred men, started to the rescue. He met the enemy, on August 5, at Oriskany, and there followed the most obstinate and murderous battle of the Revolution. Both sides claimed the victory.
THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY
[August 6, 1777]
As men who fight for home and child and wife,
As men oblivious of life
In holy martyrdom,
The yeomen of the valley fought that day,
Throughout thy fierce and deadly fray,—
Blood-red Oriskany.
From rock and tree and clump of twisted brush
The hissing gusts of battle rush,—
Hot-breathed and horrible!
The roar, the smoke, like mist on stormy seas,
Sweep through thy splintered trees,—
Hard-fought Oriskany.
Heroes are born in such a chosen hour;
From common men they rise, and tower,
Like thee, brave Herkimer!
Who wounded, steedless, still beside the beech
Cheered on thy men, with sword and speech,
In grim Oriskany.
But ere the sun went toward the tardy night,
The valley then beheld the light
Of freedom's victory;
And wooded Tryon snatched from British arms
The empire of a million farms—
On bright Oriskany.