Two great flank attacks on the British forces were made by the Americans during the war of the Revolution. One, in winter, against Quebec, in 1775–76, failed nobly; the other, in summer, into the Iroquois country, against Tories and Indians, in 1779, was superbly successful. Yet while Montgomery and Arnold have had their meed of fame, but scant and tardy justice has been done to Sullivan.
Twelve years’ residence in the lake country of the Empire State, amid the scenes of the march that destroyed savagery and opened the forests to civilization, has made its story a most fascinating study. After repeated examination, on the ground, of the camps, battlefields, scenes of bridge-building and road-making, of topographical and engineering difficulties, of marchings and of rest, and even of feasting, along nearly the whole of the routes of the main army and right wing, I have learned to appreciate more the magnitude of Sullivan’s task and the completeness of his successful enterprise. One can more readily understand why Congress and Washington first ordered the campaign, and then realized the importance and value of its victories and happy issue.
Critical analysis and comparison of local legends, study of the mythology—that grows around picturesque scenery and striking names as naturally as moss on a damp stone—and, most of all, of the original journals and documents of the men of 1779, have but added to the pleasure of the narrator. A knowledge of the march of Sullivan’s Continentals in 1779 makes the landscape between Easton and the Genesee Valley glow, kindling at once memory, imagination and patriotism.
May art glorify history and the tablet, boulder, and memorial line the pathway of the Revolutionary patriots with beacon lights of grateful remembrance.
W. E. G.
CHAPTER I
CONGRESS VOTES TO CHASTISE
After the awful massacres at Wyoming and Cherry Valley in 1778, Congress passed a vote on the 27th of February, 1779, authorizing Washington to break the power of the Iroquois Indians by desolating their country. Only thus could the American frontiers be protected from Tories and Indians and the rear and flank attacks be stopped.
Until the Revolutionary War the Iroquois had been friends of our fathers against the French in Canada, with whom the Algonquin Indians had acted as allies. How did it come to pass that the Iroquois turned to be our enemies? Lifting up the hatchet and scalping knife against us, they left at Cherry Valley, and Wyoming, great blood spots, and along the frontier a line of fire and death. To answer this question, we must go back more than a century and a half. At that time the North American continent was divided between two quite different sorts of Indians, the Five Nations of the Iroquois, who were united in a confederacy, and the much more numerous Algonquins, who lived all around them.
In 1609, two men, each representing a different civilization, penetrated the inland waters of America. Henry Hudson, an English captain in a Dutch ship and with a Dutch crew, sailed up the river that now bears his name and made the friendly acquaintance of the tribes of Northern New York. Samuel Champlain, from France, came down the lake that bears his name, acting not only as friend, but as ally to the Algonquins, who were ever at war with the Iroquois. The boundary line between these two kinds of Indians was drawn at Rock Regio, in Lake Champlain, near Burlington, Vermont.
It happened at this time that hostile parties from the North and South were out seeking each other. Dressed in bark armor, with bows and arrows, and stone hatchets, they met in combat, not in ambush, but in the open field. The Frenchmen, taking sides with the Algonquins, killed several Iroquois with their firearms. Forthwith, vowing vengeance against these white men who had interfered, the Indians of the South resolved to seek Dutch aid. A few years later they appeared at Fort Orange, near Albany, bringing their beaver and other skins in exchange for arms and ammunition. Thus armed, they were able to go forth on equal terms with the Algonquins to the slaughter of the French and their allies. With them the age of stone was over and the new era of iron and gunpowder had come.