"Sir,
"It is with concern we are to acquaint you that this was the fatal day in which the succors, which were intended for your relief, have been attacked and defeated, with great loss of numbers killed, wounded, and taken prisoners. Our regard for your safety and lives, and our sincere advice to you is, if you will avoid inevitable ruin and destruction, to surrender the fort you pretend to defend against a formidable body of troops and a good train of artillery, which we are witnesses of; when, at the same time, you have no farther support or relief to expect. We are sorry to inform you that most of the principal officers are killed; to wit—Gen. Herkimer, Colonels Cox, Seeber, Isaac Paris, Captain Graves, and many others too tedious to mention. The British army from Canada being now perhaps before Albany, the possession of which place of course includes the conquest of the Mohawk river and this fort."
The following endorsement is on the back of this letter. "Gen. St. Leger, on the day of the date of this letter, made a verbal summons of the fort by his Adjutant General and Colonel Butler, and who then handed this letter; when Colonel Gansevoort refused any answer to a verbal summons, unless made by General St. Leger himself, but at the mouth of his cannon."
{FN} [In regard to the battle of Oriskany, to which the preceding note refers, the author has received an interesting anecdote from Mr. John S. Quackenboss, of Montgomery county, which would have formed a page in the chapter containing an account of that battle had it come to hand in season. The father of the author's correspondent, Abraham D. Quackenboss, resided in the Mohawk country on the south side of the river, at the breaking out of the war. Living as it were among the Indians, bespoke their language as well as he did his own. Among them he had a friend, named Bronkahorse—who, though an Indian, had been his playmate, and they had served in the French war together under Sir William Johnson. When the revolutionary troubles came on, Bronkahorse called upon Quackenboss, and endeavored to persuade him to espouse the cause of the King—assuring him that their Great Father could never be conquered. Quackenboss refused, and they parted—the Indian, however, assuring him that they were parting as friends, although, since they had fought in one war together, he had hoped they might do so in the other. Mr. Q. saw no more of his friend until the battle of Oriskany. During the thickest of the fight, he heard his name called, in the well-known voice of Bronkahorse, from behind a large tree near by. He was himself sheltered by a tree; but in looking out for the warrior, he saw his Indian friend. The latter now importuned Quackenboss to surrender, assuring him of kind treatment and protection, but also assuring him that unless he did so, he would inevitably be killed. Quackenboss refused, and the Indian thereupon attempted to kill him. For a moment they watched each other, each endeavoring to obtain the first and best chance of a shot. The Indian at length fired, and his ball struck the tree, but had nearly been fatal. Springing from his covert upon the Indian, Quackenboss then fired, and his friend Bronkahorse fell dead on the spot. It was the belief of Mr. Quackenboss that the loss of the enemy during that battle equaled that of Herkimer's command. The latter suffered the most severely in the early part of the engagement—the enemy in the latter part]
No. VI.
[Reference from Page 252.]
"Camp before Fort Stanwix, August 9, 1777
"Sir,
"Agreeable to your wishes, I have the honor to give you on paper, the message of yesterday, though I cannot conceive, explicit and humane as it was, how it could admit of more than one construction. After the defeat of the reinforcement and the fate of all your principal leaders, in which, naturally, you built your hopes; and having the strongest reason from verbal intelligence, and the matter contained in the letters which fell into my hands, and knowing thoroughly the situation of General Burgoyne's army, to be confident you are without resource—in my fears and tenderness for your personal safety from the hands of Indians enraged for the loss of some of their principal and most favourite leaders—I called to council the chiefs of all the nations; and after having used every method that humanity could suggest to soften their minds, and lead them patiently to bear their own losses by reflecting on the irretrievable misfortune of their enemies, I at last labored the point my humanity wished for; which the chiefs assured me of the next morning, after a consultation with each nation, that evening, at their fire-places. Their answer, in its fullest extent, they insisted should be carried by Col. Butler, which he has given in the most categorical manner. You are well acquainted that Indians never send messages without accompanying them with menaces on non-compliance, that a civilized enemy would never think of doing; you may rest assured, therefore, that no insult was meant to be offered to your situation, by the king's servants, in the message they peremptorily demanded to be carried by Col. Butler.