In the course of the Summer, two incursions of British regulars and American refugees had been made from Florida into Georgia. Both expeditions met with such disheartening obstacles, as to induce their retreat without accomplishing more than the destruction of the church, dwelling-houses, and rice-fields of Midway. In return for these visitations. General Robert Howe led an expedition of about two thousand men, mostly militia, into Florida. He captured the British posts on the St. Mary's river, and was proceeding successfully, when his march was arrested by sickness, so fatal to his army as to compel a relinquishment of the enterprise. Toward the close of the year, the British Commander-in-chief determined to strike a signal blow against the South. For this purpose an expedition of two thousand men, under the command of Colonel Campbell, an officer of courage and ability, embarked at New-York on the 27th of November, destined against Savannah. After a passage of three weeks, Colonel Campbell landed near the mouth of Savannah river. General Howe, to whom the defence of Georgia had been confided, had but six hundred regular troops and a few hundred militia to oppose the invaders. This officer had taken a position between the landing and the town, where a battle was fought on the 29th of December. He was out-numbered, out-generaled, and beaten, with a loss of one hundred killed. The town and fort of Savannah, thirty-eight officers, four hundred and fifteen privates, twenty-three mortars, together with the shipping in the river, and a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, fell into the hands of the conquerors. It was an easy victory to the enemy, whose loss was but seven killed and nineteen wounded.
From these glimpses of the events of the year 1778, occurring elsewhere than in the Indian country, it seems, after the battle of Monmouth, to have been a season of comparative inactivity on both sides. Still, having repossessed themselves of the strong pass of the Highlands immediately after the return of Sir Henry Clinton and Commodore Hotham to New-York, toward the close of the preceding year, no lack of industry was exhibited on the part of the Americans in strengthening and multiplying its defences, from which neither force nor treachery ever again dislodged them. The prosecution of those works had been originally entrusted to General Putnam; but the advanced age of that patriotic officer had rendered him less active than formerly, and he had become unpopular in New-York—mainly from an impression that a more energetic commander, stationed, as he was, with an army at Fishkill, and apprised of the approach of Sir Henry Clinton, would have saved Forts Clinton and Montgomery. By directions from the Commander-in-chief, therefore, the Connecticut veteran had been transferred back to his own State, upon a different service.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
Indian siege of Fort Laurens—Successful stratagems—Flight of the pack-horses—The fort abandoned—Projected enterprise from Detroit—Gov. Hamilton captured at St. Vincent by Col. Clarke—Projects of Brant—Uneasiness in the West of New-York—Deliberations of the Oneidas and Onondagas—Brant's projects defeated—Treachery of the Onondagas—Colonel Van Schaick marches to lay waste their towns—Instructions of General Clinton—Passage of Wood Creek and Oneida Lake—Advance upon the Indian towns—Their destruction—Return of the expedition to Fort Schuyler—Mission of the Oneidas to Fort Schuyler in behalf of the Onondagas—Speech of Good Peter—Reply of Colonel Van Schaick—Irruption of Tories and Indians into the lower Mohawk country—Stone Arabia—Defence of his house by Captain Richer—The Indians in Schoharie—General Clinton traverses the Mohawk valley—McClellan's expedition to Oswegatchie—Unsuccessful—Irruption of the Onondagas into Cobleskill—Defeat of the Americans—The settlement destroyed—Murders in the neighborhood of Fort Pitt—Irruptions of Tories into Warwarsing—Invasion of Minisink—Battle near the Delaware—Massacre of the Orange County militia—Battle with the Shawanese.
The erection of an advanced post, called Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawa, by General McIntosh, who was directed to advance upon the Indian towns of Sandusky, has been mentioned in a preceding chapter. Colonel Gibson, who had been left in command of the fort, with a garrison of one hundred and fifty men, soon found his position rather uncomfortable, by reason of the swarms of Indians hovering about the precincts, who soon became so numerous as completely to invest the little fortress. The first hostile demonstration of the forest warriors was executed with equal cunning and success. The horses of the garrison were allowed to forage for themselves upon the herbage, among the dried prairie-grass immediately in the vicinity of the fort—wearing bells, that they might be the more easily found if straying too far. It happened one morning in January, that the horses had all disappeared, but the bells were heard, seemingly at no great distance. They had, in truth, been stolen by the Indians, and conveyed away. The bells, however, were taken off, and used for another purpose. Availing themselves of the tall prairie-grass, the Indians formed an ambuscade, at the farthest extremity of which they caused the bells to jingle as a decoy. The artifice was successful. A party of sixteen men was sent in pursuit of the straggling steeds, who fell into the snare. Fourteen were killed upon the spot, and the remaining two taken prisoners, one of whom returned at the close of the war, and of the other nothing was ever heard. [FN]
[FN] The Rev. Mr. Doddridge, whose little work is the authority for all the facts relative to Fort Laurens, states that Captain, afterward General Briggs, of Virginia, being the officer of the day, was exceedingly desirous of heading the party sent to bring in the horses, but was refused permission by Colonel Gibson, who remarked, that when he had occasion to send out a captain's command, he should be thankful for his services, but until then, he must be content to discharge his duties within the fort. "On what trifling circumstances," adds the good minister, "do life and death sometimes depend!"
Toward evening of the same day, the whole force of the Indians, painted, and in the full costume of war, presented themselves in full view of the garrison, by marching in single files, though at a respectful distance, across the prairie. Their number, according to a count from one of the bastions, was eight hundred and forty-seven—altogether too great to be encountered in the field by so small a garrison. After this display of their strength, the Indians took a position upon an elevated piece of ground at no great distance from the fort, though on the opposite side of the river. In this situation they remained several weeks, in a state rather of armed neutrality than of active hostility. Some of them would frequently approach the fort sufficiently near to hold conversations with those upon the walls. They uniformly professed a desire for peace, but protested against the encroachments of the white people upon their lands—more especially was the erection of a fort so far within the territory claimed by them as exclusively their own, a cause of complaint—nay, of admitted exasperation. There was with the Americans in the fort, an aged friendly Indian named John Thompson, who seemed to be in equal favor with both parties, visiting the Indian encampment at pleasure, and coming and going as he chose. They informed Thompson that they deplored the continuance of hostilities, and finally sent word by him to Colonel Gibson, that they were desirous of peace, and if he would present them with a barrel of flour, they would send in their proposals the next day. The flour was sent, but the Indians, instead of fulfilling their part of the stipulation, withdrew, and entirely disappeared. They had, indeed, continued the siege as long as they could obtain subsistence, and raised it only because of the lack of supplies. Still, as the beleaguerment was begun in stratagem, so was it ended. Colonel Gibson's provisions were also running short, and as he supposed the Indians had entirely gone off, he directed Colonel Clark, of the Pennsylvania line, with a detachment of fifteen men, to escort the invalids of the garrison, amounting to ten or a dozen men, back to Fort McIntosh. But the Indians had left a strong party of observation lurking in the neighborhood of the fort; and the escort had proceeded only two miles before it was fallen upon, and the whole number killed with the exception of four—one of whom, a captain, escaped back to the fort. The bodies of the slain were interred by the garrison, on the same day, with the honors of war. A party was likewise sent out to collect the remains of the fourteen who had first fallen by the ambuscade, and bury them; which service was performed. It was found, however, that the wolves had mostly devoured their flesh, and by setting traps upon the new-made grave, some of those ravenous beasts were caught and shot on the following morning.
The situation of the garrison was now becoming deplorable. For two weeks the men had been reduced to half a pound of sour flour, and a like quantity of offensive meat, per diem; and for a week longer they were compelled to subsist only upon raw hides, and such roots as they could find in the circumjacent woods and prairies, when General McIntosh most opportunely arrived to their relief, with supplies, and a reinforcement of seven hundred men. But still they came near being immediately reduced to short allowance again, by an untoward accident causing the loss of a great portion of their fresh supplies. These supplies were transported through the wilderness upon pack-horses. The garrison, overjoyed at the arrival of succors, on their approach to within about a hundred yards of the fort manned the parapets and fired a salute of musketry. But the horses must have been young in the service. Afrightened at the detonation of the guns, they began to rear and plunge, and broke from their guides. The example was contagious, and in a moment more, the whole cavalcade of pack-horses were bounding into the woods at full gallop, dashing their burdens to the ground, and scattering them over many a rood in all directions—the greater portion of which could never be recovered. But there was yet enough of provisions saved to cause the mingling of evil with the good. Very incautiously, the officers dealt out two days' rations per man, the whole of which was devoured by the famishing soldiers, to the imminent hazard of the lives of all, and resulting in the severe sickness of many. Leaving the fort again, General McIntosh assigned the command to Major Vernon, who remained upon the station several months. He, in turn, was left to endure the horrors of famine, until longer to endure was death; whereupon the fort was evacuated and the position abandoned—its occupation and maintenance, at the cost of great fatigue and suffering, and the expense of many lives, having been of not the least service to the country.
Originally it had been the purpose of General McIntosh to penetrate through the wilderness to Lake Erie, and thence make a descent upon Detroit; and by a letter from the Commander-in-chief to a Committee of Congress appointed to confer with him upon military subjects, it seems to have been his opinion that McIntosh had made the best dispositions for the enterprise which the circumstances of the case allowed. But he was disappointed in his expectations of men, provisions, and stores. This seems to have been one of those undertakings by order of Congress, without consultation with the Commander-in-chief, which had previously annoyed him not a little. Still, it received his approbation, the more readily because its design was in coincidence with his own views on the subject of Indian warfare—his uniform opinion being, that the cheapest and most effectual method of opposing them, was to carry the war into their own country. By their incursions into the frontier settlements, so long as the Americans were content to act on the defensive, the Indians had little to lose and every thing to gain; whereas the direct reverse would be the consequence of an offensive war against them. [FN]