There was another occurrence of deep and thrilling interest connected with this battle, the particulars of which were related in after-years by Brant himself, while on a visit to the city of New-York. [FN-1] Among those who were grievously wounded was Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel Wisner, a gentleman of great respectability, a magistrate, serving among the Goshen volunteers. In surveying the battle-field, the situation of Wisner arrested the attention of the Indian commander, who examined his condition. The chief saw that he was wounded past hope of recovery, but he was, nevertheless, in the full possession of his faculties, and was even able to converse. Believing his case to be altogether beyond the power of medical and surgical skill, and having no means of carrying him away. Brant reflected a moment upon his own course of duty. He was disposed to save his life if he could, and yet felt that it was impossible. To leave him thus helpless and alone upon the field, in the possession of his senses to a degree enabling him to appreciate all the horrors of his situation, would be the height of cruelty. Added to which was the moral certainty, that the wolves abounding in the forest, guided by the scent of blood, would soon be gorging themselves alike upon the wounded and the dead. The thought, therefore, that Wisner might be torn in pieces while yet alive, seemed to him even more than savage cruelty. Under these distressing circumstances and considerations, the chief argued with himself that true humanity required a speedy termination of his sufferings. Having formed this conclusion, the next point was to compass his death without inflicting additional torture upon his feelings. With this view he engaged Wisner in conversation, and while diverting his attention, struck him dead in an instant, and unperceived, with his hatchet. It was but a savage exhibition of humanity; but there was benevolence in the intention, however strangely reasoned; and the motive of the final blow is to be applauded, notwithstanding the shudder caused by its contemplation. [FN-2]
[FN-1] Conversations of Brant with General Morgan Lewis, related by the latter to the author.
[FN-2] The British account of this battle, published in New-York on the 18th of August, 1779, as received from "a person just arrived from Joseph Brant and his brethren," stated that Brant had with him only sixty Indians and twenty white men. Among the principal inhabitants killed, the same account gave the following return: "Colonel Benjamin Tustan, Jr., Captain Samuel Jones, Captain John Little, Captain John Wood, Captain Duncan, Captain Benjamin Vail, Captain Reat Tyler, Adjutant Nathaniel Frink, Lieutenant Benjamin Dunning, Lieutenant Samuel Knapp, Lieutenant John Wood, Lieutenant Abraham Shepherd, Justice Gabriel Weisner, Justice Gilbert Vail, Justice Roger Townsend, Justice William Barker, Commissioner James Knapp, Commissioner James Mashier. Wounded, Major Hans Decker, Major Samuel Meeker, of the Minisink militia. Out of one hundred and forty-nine that went out, thirty returned—missing one hundred and nineteen."—Vide Almon's Remembrancer, vol. vi. p. 276.
From Minisink, by a rapid movement, Brant fell upon a settlement on the south side of the Mohawk, where, on the 2d of August, he made a few prisoners—the name of one of whom was House. This man, with his companions, was carried back into the woods, and left in charge of the Indians, while Brant, with four of his warriors, went off upon some secret enterprise. On the fourth day after his absence, he returned, attended by his four warriors, but on horseback himself, having been wounded in the foot by a musket shot. The wound, however, was not like that of Achilles, in the heel, but by a buck-shot in the ball of the great toe—and therefore in a place less equivocal for a soldier's honor. They then commenced their march in the direction of Tioga; but as House became too lame by walking to continue the journey on foot, the Indians proposed killing him. To this Brant objected; and having been acquainted with House before the war, he released him on condition of his taking an oath of neutrality, which was written by the chief in the Indian language. House signed the oath, and Brant witnessed it. He was then released, and being somewhere in the vicinity of Otsego Lake, where General Clinton was then making preparations for his celebrated descent of the Susquehanna, House came into Clinton's camp on the 8th of August—the day previous to his embarkation. [FN]
[FN] MS. letter of General James Clinton to Governor Clinton, his brother.
Contemporaneously with these occurrences, and while, as will subsequently appear, the attention of the American officers was directed to more important movements, the Indians and Tories once more broke in upon the Pennsylvania border, in Northampton, Lyconia, and the neighborhood of Sunbury. In a succession of petty affairs between the 1st and 21st of July, several neighborhoods were destroyed and mills burnt. On the 17th, all the principal houses in the township of Munsey were burnt. Two persons were killed on that day, and four had been killed a few days previous, besides several taken prisoners. On the 20th, three men were killed by a small party hovering about Freeland's Fort, situated on the West branch of the Susquehanna, seventeen miles from Sunbury. On the 28th, five days after the affair of Minisink, this little defence, which was garrisoned by only thirty men, and about fifty women and children who had sought refuge within its walls, was invested by one of the McDonalds, at the head of two hundred Indians, and one hundred troops calling themselves regulars. But, although wearing the British uniform, it was believed that they were American loyalists. The enemy met with less resistance during this irruption than would have been the case, but for the circumstance that the greater part of the men had been drafted for the boat service of General Sullivan, who was then at Wyoming, preparing to enter the Seneca country. Fort Freeland was too weak of itself, and too weakly garrisoned, to hold out long against such a disparity of force. Captain Hawkins Boone, a brave officer, stationed with thirty men at a distance of some miles, marched to the relief of the fort immediately on hearing of the investment. The garrison had surrendered before his arrival. Boone nevertheless gave battle to the enemy; but, overpowered by numbers, he was slain, together with eighteen of his men, whose scalps were carried as trophies into the fort. Two other officers. Captains Dougherty and Hamilton, were also killed. By the terms of capitulation, McDonald stipulated to spare the women and children, and allow them to depart. The fort, and the houses in its vicinity, were then burnt. [FN]
[FN] Almon's Remembrancer—article from Philadelphia.