The case of Mr. Mitchell was still more painful. He was in the field at work when he beheld the Indians approaching; and being already cut off from his house, his only course was to betake himself to the woods. On returning to his home, after the enemy had retired, he found his house on fire, and within its plundered walls the murdered bodies of his wife and three of his children. The fourth, a little girl of ten or twelve years of age, had been left for dead. But signs of life appearing, the parent, having extinguished the fire, which had not yet made much progress, brought his little mangled daughter forth to the door, and while bending over her, discovered a straggling party of the enemy approaching. He had but just time to conceal himself, before a Tory sergeant, named Newberry, rushed forward, and by a blow of his hatchet extinguished what little growing hope of life had been left, by a darker though less savage enemy than himself. It is some consolation, while recording this deed of blood, to be able to anticipate the course of events, so far as to announce that this brutal fellow paid the forfeit of his life on the gallows, by order of General James Clinton, at Canajoharie, in the summer of the following year. On the next day Mr. Mitchell removed his dead to the fort with his own arms, and the soldiers assisted in their interment. Several other families were cut off—the whole number of the inhabitants slain being thirty-two, mostly women and children. In addition to these, sixteen soldiers were killed. Some of the inhabitants escaped, but the greater proportion were taken prisoners. Among the former were Mrs. Clyde, the wife of Colonel Clyde, who was absent, and her family. She succeeded in reaching the woods with her children, excepting her eldest daughter, whom she could not find at the moment; and although the savages were frequently prowling around her, she yet lay secure in her concealment until the next day. The eldest daughter, likewise, had made a successful flight, and returned in safety. Colonel Campbell was also absent; but hastening home on hearing the alarm, he arrived only in time to behold the destruction of his property by the conflagration of the village, and to ascertain that his wife and children had been carried into captivity. [FN] The torch was applied indiscriminately to every dwelling-house, and, in fact, to every building in the village. The barns, being filled with the combustible products of husbandry, served to render the conflagration more fierce and terrific; especially to the fugitive inhabitants who had escaped to the woods for shelter, and whose sufferings were aggravated by the consciousness that their retreating footsteps were lighted by the flames of their own households.
[FN] Colonel Campbell was the grandfather of the author of the Annals of Tryon County, so frequently referred to in the present volume, to whom the author is almost exclusively indebted for the facts respecting the invasion of Cherry Valley. The author of the Annals being himself a native of that place, was not only familiar with its history from his cradle, but has taken great pains to collect the facts. There is indeed no other reliable authority. Ramsay is equally brief and unsatisfactory; while Macauley's wretched jumble of every thing, called, for what reason cannot be divined, a History of New-York, contains the most foul misrepresentations. The massacre was bad enough, in all conscience; but when it is stated that, "not content with killing the inhabitants, they ripped open and quartered the women, and then suspended their mangled limbs on the trees—that the helpless infants were taken from their mothers' breasts, and their brains knocked out against the posts,"—and when these statements are compared with the real facts of the case, we may well tremble for the truth of history. The simple incident which gave rise to this shocking tale of mutilating the bodies of the dying and dead, was this. One of the Tories had lived as a domestic with the Rev. Mr. Dunlop. He had run away in consequence of ill-treatment, as was alleged, on the part of Mrs. D. After she was slain, it is said he cut off her hand. But even this story is of doubtful authenticity.
The prisoners taken numbered between thirty and forty. They were marched, on the evening of the massacre, down the valley about two miles south of the fort, where the enemy encamped for the night. Large fires were kindled round about the camp, into the centre of which the prisoners, of all ages and sexes, were promiscuously huddled, and there compelled to pass the hours till morning—many of them half naked, shivering from the inclemency of the weather, with no shelter but the frowning heavens, and no bed but the cold ground. It was a dismal night for the hapless group—rendered, if possible, still more painful by the savage yells of exultation, the wild, half-frantic revelry, and other manifestations of joy on the part of the victors, at the success of their bloody enterprise. In the course of the night a division of the spoil was made among the Indians, and on the following morning the march was resumed; although parties of the Indians returned to prowl among the ruins of the village or hang upon its outskirts, during the greater part of the day, and until reinforcements of militia from the Mohawk Valley began to arrive, when they dispersed.
The retiring enemy had not proceeded far on their way, before the prisoners, with few exceptions, experienced a change in their circumstances, as happy as it was unexpected. They had been separated, for the convenience of traveling, into small groups, in charge of different parties of the enemy. On coming to a halt, they were collected together, and informed that it had been determined to release all the women and children, excepting Mrs. Campbell and her four children, and Mrs. Moore and her children. These it was resolved to detain in captivity as a punishment to their husbands, for the activity they had displayed in the border wars. With these exceptions, the women and their little ones were immediately sent back, bearing the following letter from the commander of the rangers, addressed to General Schuyler. As a key to the letter, and perhaps, also, to the motives of Captain Butler in this act of humanity, it should here be remarked, that on the flight of his father and himself to Canada, his mother and the younger children had been left behind. Mrs. Butler and her children were detained by the Committee of Safety, and permission to follow the husband and son to Canada had been refused, as has been stated in a former chapter:—
"Captain Butler to General Schuyler.
Cherry Valley, Nov. 12, 1778.
"Sir,
"I am induced by humanity to permit the persons whose names I send herewith, to return, lest the inclemency of the season, and their naked and helpless situation, might prove fatal to them, and expect that you will release an equal number of our people in your hands, amongst whom I expect you will permit Mrs. Butler and family to come to Canada; but if you insist upon it, I do engage to send you, moreover, an equal number of prisoners of yours, taken either by the Rangers or Indians, and will leave it to you to name the persons. I have done every thing in my power to restrain the fury of the Indians from hurting women and children, or killing the prisoners who fell into our hands, and would have more effectually prevented them, but that they were much incensed by the late destruction of their village of Anguaga [FN-1] by your people. I shall always continue to act in that manner. I look upon it beneath the character of a soldier to wage war with women and children. I am sure you are conscious that Colonel Butler or myself have no desire that your women or children should be hurt. But, be assured, that if you persevere in detaining my father's family with you, that we shall no longer take the same pains to restrain the Indians from prisoners, women and children, that we have heretofore done.
"I am, your humble servant, Walter N. Butler, Capt. Com. of the Rangers. "General Schuyler." [FN-2]