The War Chief Of The Six Nations Part 3

The boy was now quite rea.s.sured that the Indian would do him no harm, and boldly inquired who his interrogator might be.

'My name is Brant,' answered the redskin, although he pondered for a moment before replying.

'What! Joseph Brant?' said the youth, as a sharp thrill went coursing through his veins.

'No!' answered the warrior, 'I am a cousin of his'; but a smile lit up his dark countenance, and the boy knew that his denial was just a bit of native humour. Thereupon Brant disappeared in the direction of Foster's house.

The boy at once rushed from the field to the fortified post near by to tell his story, and a hue and cry was soon raised. A party hurried to the loyalist's house to seek Brant, but he was not there. Foster said that he had never come and that he knew nothing of him. So, checkmated in their search, the group of would-be captors had to wheel about and go back disappointed to their fortress.

Brant was fast gaining an unsavoury reputation which he but partly merited. Owing to the character of the country in which he was fighting, and to the lack of discipline in the force under his command, destruction of property and plunder were certain to occur. Brant, as we shall see, did little to discourage this among his warriors.

His argument was that his antagonists had taken up arms against their lawful king. As rebels, their lands and property were forfeited to the crown and were justly liable to seizure by the king's forces. To the settlers on the border, however, Brant was looked upon as a ruthless marauder, thirsting for blood. Whenever acts of wanton cruelty took place, the blame was generally laid at his door. This explains the bitterness of their att.i.tude to him both during and after the conflict and the singular fear which his name inspired among them.

At Unadilla Brant had begun to fortify an area which lent itself to defence, and thither the tribesmen flocked from the surrounding districts. So determined were the settlers to capture him that they offered a reward to any one who would bring them any knowledge of his movements. Even men like Captain McKean, whom Brant had mentioned so kindly to the farmer's boy, were hot upon his trail. This officer set out with five other men in order, if possible, to effect Brant's capture. While on their quest the little party came one night to the house of a Quaker. To their great delight, the Quaker told them that Brant had been at his place during the day and would come back. He warned them, however, that Brant was prepared to meet them, and that if he returned suddenly their lives would be in danger. McKean, however, was stubborn in his resolve to stay.

'Your house, friend Sleeper,' he said, with a show of bravado, 'shall be my fort to-night.'

But the Quaker would have none of them, and sent the searchers on their way. Then Captain McKean wrote a letter to Brant. Placing this in a stick, he cast it on an Indian path, where it was soon found by a redskin and carried to the War Chief's wigwam. In the letter McKean arraigned Brant for the ferocious manner in which he was fighting, and dared the Mohawk chief to single combat, or to send a chosen body of men to meet him in fair field against an equal number. If he showed his face in Cherry Valley, threatened McKean, 'they would change him from a Brant into a Goose.'

Brant knew the impulsive nature of McKean and took this amusing letter for what it was worth. Yet the letter was not without its effect upon him. They had dared him; they had taunted him with threats; he would show them that Joseph Brant would have a day of reckoning and that right early. 'Cherry Valley people,' he wrote in the postscript of a short note sent to an ardent loyalist, '[are] very bold, and intended to make nothing of us; they call us wild geese, but I know the contrary.'

Early in July a b.l.o.o.d.y engagement had occurred in the valley of Wyoming, an extensive region in Pennsylvania on the north branch of the Susquehanna river. For many years after the encounter it was commonly believed that Brant was the leader of the Indians who took part in it.

The valley of Wyoming had once been a possession of the tribes of the Six Nations but, in 1754, they had been ousted from their inheritance by a colonizing company.

When the Revolutionary War began it was already well peopled with settlers. Naturally eager for vengeance, the dispossessed Indians invited the co-operation of Colonel John Butler and his rangers in a raid. Butler accepted the invitation, and the Indians and rangers to the number of five hundred made a swift descent of the Susquehanna and invaded the valley. Their approach, however, had been discovered, and the entire militia of the district, mustering eight hundred, advanced against them. In the battle which followed, the defenders were defeated with great slaughter and many scalps were taken.

Older American historians misrepresented the fight as a cruel ma.s.sacre of non-combatants and a.s.serted that Brant was present. British writers, following them, fell into the same error. Thomas Campbell's poem, 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' written in 1809, gives a gruesome picture of the episode, telling of the work which was done by the 'monster Brant.' During his visit to England in 1823, the War Chief's youngest son, John Brant, vindicated his father in a letter to Campbell, and showed that the reference to his father in this poem was based on false information. He declared that 'living witnesses' had convinced him that his father was not in the neighbourhood of Wyoming at the time of the so-called ma.s.sacre; testimony has been forthcoming to support the claims which John Brant then made. It has been shown that the tribesmen of the Six Nations whom Butler had with him were Senecas, while the rest were Indians from the western tribes, and that Brant's tribe, the Mohawks, were not present.

Nevertheless the Wyoming slaughter differs only in degree from other scenes of bloodshed and plunder in which Brant took part. In the month, indeed, in which the vale of Wyoming was being bathed in blood, he swept down on the little hamlet of Andrustown, and, bearing away a few captives and much booty, disappeared with his followers in the surrounding forest.

It was now nearing the time of harvest, and in the Mohawk valley the grain had ripened to a golden brown. Even amid the din of war men must live, and so the settlers began to garner the season's crop. Nowhere on the river were there fuller barns than in the populous district that went by the name of the German Flatts. Bordering the Mohawk river on either side, it stretched for ten miles along the valley, rich in soil, and with broad green pastures and plenteous herds. The settlers knew that the enemy was not far off, and they grew more afraid of attack with each pa.s.sing day. They had two strongholds to which they could flee in case of trouble, Fort Herkimer on one bank of the river, Fort Dayton on the other; but these would be of little use to the settlers if they had not sufficient warning of the approach of the enemy. Mindful of this, they sent four of their number to act as scouts and to warn the settlement of any danger. While on this mission three of the party met with death at the hands of their adversaries, but the fourth escaped and hastened back to the German Flatts. One evening, just before sunset, he arrived with the fearful tidings that Brant was moving up the river with a large band of Indians and would soon be upon them. The alarm was spread through the valley, and men, women, and children gathered up what articles of value they could take with them in their hurried flight, and rushed pell-mell to the forts. During the evening some carried off a portion of their household effects in small boats. In the meantime Caldwell, commanding a party of rangers, with Indians under Brant, had come to the outskirts of the settlement. Then, even before the first gleam of daylight had begun to slant across the valley, the Indians were flitting like ghostly spectres in and out among the buildings. Almost at the same moment flames arose in every direction, flas.h.i.+ng and darting against the morning sky. Powerless to stay the destruction, the settlers, huddled behind their defences, witnessed a melancholy sight. Houses and barns, everything that could be given to the fire, were soon a heap of smoking embers.

Caldwell had no means of laying siege to the forts, as he was without cannon; so he made no effort to effect their capture. But he did not check his warriors from roaming at will over the valley. Running down the slopes into the pasture land, they rounded up the horses, the herds of black cattle, and the browsing sheep; and, having collected these together, they drove them from the meadows and disappeared with them among the trees. Before sundown they were many miles away, leaving behind desolation and blank dismay.

CHAPTER IX

CHERRY VALLEY

The next occurrences in Brant's life are even more deplorable than those narrated in the preceding chapter.

The Cherry Valley episode can only be regarded as a sad instance of what the use of Indian allies sometimes involved. A peaceful farming district was devastated; peasants were plundered and slain. It is true that some of them were in arms against British rule, but as a whole they were quietly engaged in farming operations, striving to build up homes for themselves on the outskirts of civilization. In this work of devastation and death Brant was only second in command; the leader was a white man and a British officer. But neither Brant nor Butler, who commanded the expedition, was able to restrain the cruelty and ferocity of the Indian warriors until much havoc had been wrought.

A haze was now brooding over the Susquehanna, and the autumn leaves were being tinged with red. The struggle of the year 1778 seemed over and Brant decided to spend the winter at Niagara. Accordingly he set out with a band of warriors from his entrenched position at Unadilla and went forward by easy stages along the old and well-beaten Indian trail leading towards Lake Ontario. He had proceeded well on his way when, to his surprise, a party of former allies crossed his path in the forest. Led by Captain Walter N. Butler, a son of Colonel John Butler, the victorious leader at Wyoming, a body of the Tory Rangers who had been with Brant at Oriskany were going eastward.

In 1777 their youthful officer had suffered harsh imprisonment among the enemy, and, burning for vengeance, he was making a late-season tramp into the rebels' country.

He had asked for a number of his father's rangers, and his request had been granted. He was also allowed the privilege of taking Brant along with him, should the chieftain be found willing to join his force.

On meeting with Brant so opportunely by the way, he gave him an outline of the measures of retaliation which he proposed to adopt. As the scheme was unfolded, the war-scarred chief of the Mohawks saw that he was meant to serve under this youth of small experience. Brant was ready for almost any work that might be of service to his king, but he was at first reluctant to serve under Butler. The situation between the two leaders became strained, but at last Brant gave in; their differences were patched up, and the two men came to friendly terms.

Orders were issued by Brant to his motley throng of redskins, and five hundred of them reversed their march.

The united contingent of seven hundred men first headed for the banks of the Tioga river, one of the branches of the Susquehanna. Here a conference was held, and it was agreed that they should make a combined attack upon the settlers of Cherry Valley. To Butler this was more than pleasing, eager as he was to pay off what he considered a heavy score. The heart of the War Chief throbbed with savage delight. A flaunting challenge still rang in his ears; the settlers had invited him to enter their valley, and now he would answer their gibing call. Little did the inhabitants of Cherry Valley dream what was in store for them. During the summer they had carried most of their movable property to a well-built fortress. But as everything had now grown tranquil, they had taken it back to their homes again. Yet hardly had this been accomplished before Colonel Ichabod Alden, commandant of the fort, received a note from an official source telling him that enemies were near at hand.

In spite of the trustworthy source from which it came, Colonel Alden gave barely any heed to this warning message.

He declared that the threatened danger was but an idle rumour, that all would be well, and that he would take every precaution for the safety of his people. On November 9 spies were sent out in different directions with a view to getting fuller information. One body of these went boldly down the Susquehanna, where their own carelessness brought about their undoing. At nightfall they lit a fire, and, wrapping themselves up snugly, had gone fast asleep. But to their astonishment, as they rubbed their eyes in the light of morning, they were surrounded by a party of Indians, were bundled off as prisoners of war, and hurried into the presence of Brant and Butler, who extracted much useful information from them. In the light of this information plans were made for an immediate attack on the settlement in Cherry Valley. The settlers were still unsuspecting, when, on the evening of November 10, the enemy arrived within a mile of the fort and crept to the summit of a hill densely shaded by evergreens, and hid themselves from sight. The snow was fluttering down, but towards morning this had changed to a drizzling rain, and the air was thick and murky. Groping their way forward as silently as possible, they stole upon the slumbering cl.u.s.ter of habitations. Just as they came near the edge of the village, a settler was seen riding in on horseback. An Indian fired and wounded him. But the man clung to his horse and pressed on heroically to sound the alarm. Before rus.h.i.+ng to the onslaught, the Rangers, under the immediate command of Butler, paused a moment to see what damage their powder had taken through the wet. This moment was fatal for the settlement, for the Indians now rushed on in advance and sped into the doomed village like hounds let slip from their leashes.

The savages were now beyond control, and Brant knew that even he could not stay the slaughter. Fiercest of all were the Senecas, who tomahawked and slew with the relentless fury of demons. But the War Chief thought of the family of a Mr Wells, whom he knew and hoped that he might save. He took a short cut for this settler's house, but the way lay across a ploughed field, and as he ran the earth yielded under his feet and he made slow progress through the heavy soil. When he came to the house, he saw that it was already too late. The Senecas and other Indians with them had done their work. Not one of the inmates had escaped the tomahawk.

While the attack upon the houses was in progress, the Indians made several a.s.saults upon the fort, but to no avail. Their work of destruction, however, went on unchecked among the habitations of the settlers. It was not long before flames were mounting in every quarter.

Butler, dismayed to see the Indians so completely beyond control, was forced to hold his regular troops in readiness to oppose a sally from the garrison. Brant meanwhile exerted himself in performing numerous acts of kindness, and did what he could to check the rude violence of his savage band. In one house he found a peasant woman working calmly at her daily toil.

'Are you thus engaged,' he questioned, 'while all your neighbours are murdered around you?'

'We are the king's people,' was the simple response.

'That plea will not avail you to-day,' said the chieftain.

'They have murdered Mr Wells's family, who were as dear to me as my own.'

'But,' replied the woman, 'there is one Joseph Brant: if he is with the Indians, he will save us.'

'I am Joseph Brant,' came the rapid answer, 'but I have not the command, and I know not that I can save you.'

No sooner had he done speaking than his sharp eye detected a group of Senecas coming to the house. 'Get into bed quick,' he said abruptly, 'and feign yourself sick.' The woman did his bidding, and the Indians when they entered were completely deceived by her pretence. Then, as they departed, Brant gave a piercing signal, and some of his Mohawks gathered into the room. He had called them to help him save this woman and her family. His mark on them would, he believed, make them safe even in this time of general slaughter. He had no colouring matter with him and he asked the Mohawks to use theirs. With deft fingers the Indians then placed the chief's own mark upon the woman and her children in order to protect them.

'You are now probably safe,' said Brant and moved out again into the smoke of fire and battle.

When the ma.s.sacre was over, it was found that thirty or forty settlers had escaped death and had been made prisoners. From one of these Brant made inquiries respecting the whereabouts of Captain McKean. He learned that this officer had taken his family away to the Mohawk valley.

'He sent me a challenge once,' remarked Brant; 'I have now come to accept it. He is a fine soldier thus to retreat.'

'Captain McKean,' was the rejoinder, 'would not turn his back upon an enemy where there was a possibility of success.'

'I know it,' said Brant, with open generosity. 'He is a brave man, and I would have given more to take him than any other man in Cherry Valley. But,' he added, 'I would not have hurt a hair of his head.'

On the evening of the day of carnage the prisoners were led down the valley to the loyalist encampment, several miles to the south of the fort. Fires had been lighted on every side, and within the extensive range of these fires the luckless captives were corralled for the night.

But the air was chill, and many who were clothed in scanty fas.h.i.+on pa.s.sed the hours of darkness in helpless agony on the cold, bare ground. During the night the shrill cries of the Indians, as they gloated over the scene of their triumph, resounded through the forest. The spoils were divided among the raiders, and with the dawning of another day they set out in the direction of Niagara.

The captives were separated into small parties, and apportioned among the different sections of the force.

They had expected little mercy from the victors, but to their surprise clemency was shown to them. Butler had now succeeded in rea.s.serting his authority on their behalf. As the marching bands came to a standstill, they were collected together and the women and children were released. Only the wives of two colonial officers with their families were held captive and carried away into the western forests. In Cherry Valley heaps of smoking debris were all that remained. Groups of redskins still hovered about the unhappy village until, on the following day, they saw that an enemy was approaching. A body of militia had come from the Mohawk river, but they were too late; the savages, avoiding an encounter, departed, and the scene was one of havoc and desolation. As one chronicler has written: 'The c.o.c.ks crowed from the tops of the forest trees, and the dogs howled through the fields and woods.'

CHAPTER X

MINISINK AND THE CHEMUNG RIVER

Brant now proceeded to the loyalist rendezvous at Niagara, but his restless spirit would not allow him to remain idle. He was soon intent on forwarding a design of far-reaching import, in the prosecution of which he hoped to receive the a.s.sistance of the western tribes. He held intercourse with the Delawares and the Shawnees, and planned a joint campaign with them to take place during the winter months. The Western Indians were to make an attack on the borders of Virginia, while he would lead an expedition into the heart of the colony of New York.

This bold enterprise, however, was fated to miscarry.

Word came that Governor Hamilton, the British commander of Fort Detroit, had been overpowered by Colonel George Clark, in February, on the Wabash river. Hamilton, who had captured Fort Vincennes there, had for some time been endeavouring to interest the western tribes in the British cause; but, on July 5, 1778, Clark had captured the town of Kaskaskia in the Illinois country, and, after a forced march from that place to the Wabash with his Virginia militia, had appeared at Fort Vincennes and compelled Hamilton to surrender. The blow was a severe one and robbed the western tribes of their courage; they were so discomfited, indeed, that they would not venture into the country of the enemy. Balked in his purpose, Brant was forced to remain inactive at headquarters.

During the spring of 1779 the whole struggle in America was rather bare of events. The raids against Wyoming and Cherry Valley had roused the indignation of the Congress of the United States, and it had turned its attention energetically to the Indian races who were opposed to its rule. They must be crushed at all hazards. On February 25 Congress had voted that means should be taken to bring aid to those settlements which had been suffering from the Indians. A campaign of vengeance into the homeland of the Six Nations was to be the crowning effort of the year. This was the plan. A numerically strong force was to operate under the command of General Sullivan. Sullivan was to move up from Pennsylvania, and along the Susquehanna until he reached the Tioga river. At the same time, General James Clinton was to advance from the north, meeting his brother officer by the way. The two divisions should then follow the bed of the Chemung river, and sweep mercilessly upon the villages of the Senecas and Cayugas.

Clinton was at Canajoharie Castle on June 16. With difficulty he crossed the twenty-mile portage to Lake Otsego, and by the end of the month was able to tell General Sullivan that he was ready for the last stage of the journey. Sullivan, on the other hand, was making no attempt to hasten. He moved forward at a leisurely pace, and Clinton grew very impatient at the delay. Even Brant marvelled at Sullivan's inaction. The War Chief knew only too well that when the two rebel forces met the struggle to save the homes of his people would be difficult.