Towards the end of July, there had gathered together, whites and reds, Indians, Tories, Royal Greens and British regulars, numbering over a thousand men, at Newtown, the Indian town near Baldwin’s Creek, opposite to the present village of Wellsburg on the Erie, and at Lohmansville on the Lackawanna railroad. Here they were for weeks hard at work. Tearing down the Indian houses, they built, with the old and fresh-cut logs, a fortification that extended up the slope of the hill to the north and along the western ridge nearer the Chemung river.
But where was the enemy? It was known that the raid of Brant, down the Walkill valley to the Delaware, had failed to draw Sullivan from his main purpose. The other parties of Tories and Indians had been equally impotent. What then should be done to drive back the avenging army and save their villages and crops?
Evidently the only safety was to join all forces. At a great council of Tories and Iroquois, held where Geneva now stands, it was decided to send wampum belts again to every and all tribes and bands of the Iroquois, and bid them assemble to oppose the invaders in the Chemung valley. Some of the parties that started in response to this call arrived too late. The notorious John Butler, who had led the expedition against Wyoming, was in command of the mixed forces of King George, red, black, and white, and the strategy and tactics employed by him showed the combination of the crafts of both savage and civilized man.
On Saturday evening, August 28, Sullivan’s advance pickets heard the sound of axes and saw many fires brightly burning along the hills just beyond Baldwin’s Creek. A scout sent out a day or two before, reported that the enemy were fortified just beyond the creek and west of the Indian village of Newtown. The march must now be made with a constant reference to ambuscade and with the greatest wariness. “Above all, no Braddocking.”
On Sunday, August 29, the day broke with every indication of very hot weather. The air was close and heavy. The army moved at nine o’clock, the riflemen being well scattered in front of Hand’s light corps, so as to act as scouts and skirmishers, while every man in the brigade moved with the greatest caution. Hardly had they gone a mile, before they discovered several Indians in front. One of these fired and then all fled. Going forward still further a mile, the riflemen found the ground low, marshy and well fitted for the shelter of hiding Indians. Moving slowly and alertly, they discovered another party of Indians, who as before, fired and retreated. Evidently their purpose was to lure the Americans into ambush.
Major Parr, commander of the rifle corps, now determined to advance no further without reconnoitering every foot of the ground. Ordering his men to halt, he sent one of them to climb the highest tree and survey the whole situation. The scout was unable at first to discover anything peculiar, but peering intently ahead, he made out a line of brushwood artfully concealed with green boughs and trees. Starting from near the Chemung river on the left, it ran up the slope of a high hill to the right, for possibly half a mile. Here had been the Indian village of Newtown, consisting of twenty-five or thirty bark houses, but most of the houses had given way to timber entrenchments and to the camp inside of them, though two or three were left so as to form, as it were, bastions for the newly-built fort.
Here the enemy had gathered to make their determined stand. Their force, numbering about nine hundred warriors from five tribes, had been reinforced by between two and three hundred white men, Tories and Canadians, drilled and aided by fifteen regular soldiers of the British army, and commanded by Butler, McDonald, and Brant, while two or three hundred more warriors were soon expected.
Such a position was a formidable obstacle to the advance even of an army provided with artillery. The right flank of the British rested on the river, their left on the side of a hill, while immediately in front of them and for a space of about one hundred yards was a clear field which their fire could sweep easily. Between this field and the Continental lines was a stream, since called Baldwin’s Creek, and then very difficult to cross. On the American right lay a valley so low and marshy that an attack in flank would seem nearly impossible. Thus the place was evidently well chosen.
Nearly the whole story of Indian craft in war is told in the one word, concealment. To hide their breastworks with the hope that the invaders might come very near to them without their being discovered, the Tories and Indians had laid boughs and greenery over the front and top. They had even planted out in front, here and there, fresh young trees, so as to give the appearance of primitive and untouched forests. They had stuck these young trees in the ground outside the breastworks and had thoroughly cleaned up the ground, so that no chips or evidence of human industry were left lying about. They hoped also that Sullivan’s troops would rush for plunder into the few Indian houses left standing outside the lines and would thus be entrapped.
Evidently, also it was their design that the Continentals, moving in a narrow defile and strung out in a line several miles long, should be caught between the river and the entrenchments, while the Indians in ambuscade could pour in their fire. They hoped to “Braddock” Sullivan’s force by stampeding the pack horses and cattle. On the high hill across the river, and on the summit to the northward, watching parties were stationed by Brant so that at the right moment they could quickly descend. Then by frightening the animals, sending them flying in every direction, they could complete the destruction of the army thus huddled together. With so many chances in their favor, the Tories and Indians hoped to give the Continental army such a check as to compel its return.