Author ^^*o>> Title ^ *« s _...£ Inciprint 16—47372-3 GPO ORISKANY 6th august, 1777 THE DECISIVE COLLISION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION Maj.-Gen. J. WATTS de PEYSTER One " among those /cw battles [like the mere Caiztwnade of Vahny^ 1792], oj" which a contrary event would have essentially varied the dra^na of the ivorld in alt its su6- seguent scenes.'' Among Creasy' s XI'. Decisive' Bottles from Marathon to Waterloo., Saratoga ranks as XI II . Saratoga, howd'er. was a series of collisions : but the tide actually tUriied at Oriskafiy, in fcivor of the Colonies and J'rccdom. A. S. BARNES & CO NEW Y 0'»iK!liiafeLi_C H I C A G O 1 \ \ Bonk >0G>X\4 ARMY WAR COLLEGE oaVEKHWENT PRiMmia omoB To replac- "o-*: copy it J ORISKANY The turning point of the Burgoyne Campaign and of the American Revolution was the battle of Oriskany on the 6th of August, 1-777. It was also the Thermopylae of America — the self-sacrifice of honest yeo- men, willing to devote themselves, like Curtii, for the salvation of what they deemed right and honest. To this immolation of the male popula- tion of one of the richest original settlements of the State of New York the Thirteen Colonies owe their eventual success, and if Independence can be credited to any one action, the date of this is that of Oriskany, 6th August, 1777. The British Campaign of 1777 was not a single or simple, but a com- bined operation. To Albany as a common objective tended the advance of Burgoyne from the north with an army something near 10,000 strong; the transportation of Howe from the south with 17,000 to 20,000 effect- ives, soldiers and sailors, and St. Leger from the west with a column of 675 regulars and provincials — whites, and 700 to 900 auxiliaries — Indi- ans and mixed breeds. To St. Leger in reality the most important part was assigned. This was the opinion of the British General Clinton and also of the American Major-General Nathaniel Greene, both excellent judges of strategy. St. Leger should have had at least two thousand good white troops, whereas under him was a force, not only the weak- est in quality and personnel, but the most inadequately supplied with artillery and material of all kinds. Burgoyne ascended Champlain, bridged, corduroyed and cle' twenty-one miles between this lake and the Hudson, and watcrem- bination with his attack. How many men Harkheimer had is a mooted point. General history estimates his force at 800. Stedman, a veracious and unprejudiced historian, says 1,000. It is unquestionable that Hark- heimer had Indians with him belonging to the Oneida " House " or tribe of the " Six Nations," but how many is very dubious, although it is p x'- fectly certain that they were of little account. This tribe had beer de- tached from the British interest by Schuyler, and while they accom- plished little for the Americans, they brought down ruin upon themselves b>' their defection from their ties of centuries. After the impending battle the other Five Nations swooped down upon them and cleaned them out generally. Early on the morning of the 6th August, Harkheimer got in mc and into an altercation with his four Colonels and other subordii He wanted to display some soldierly caution, and send out scou reconnoitre and feel the way through the woods. For this his offi x ORISKANY with the effrontery of ignorance and the audacity of militiamen, styled him a " Tory," or a traitor and a " coward." The bickering lasted for hours, until Harkheimer, worn out with the persistency of the babblers, gave the order to "march on." Now comes the question where were his Oneida Indians ? These traitors to a confederacy of " ages of glory " must have been emascu- lated by the dread of meeting their brethren whom they had abandoned, clung close to the main body, and forgot their usual cunning and wood- craft. Meanwhile General St. Leger was perfectly well aware that Hark- heimer was on his way to the assistance of Colonel Gansevoort in Fort Stanwix, and he determined to set a trap for him. He detached his sec- ond in command, '^ local" Major-General, or Colonel, Sir John Johnson and the latter's immediate lieutenant, Major Stephen Watts, with about 80 white Provincials, or " Rangers " and refugees, or " Royal Greens," with Butler and Brant {Thayendanegd) and his Indians. These established an ambush about two miles west of Oriskany — just such as under de Beau- geu and Langlade destroyed Braddock in 1755, and again under the same Langlade, had he been listened to, would have ruined Wolfe by destroy- ing his forces on the Montmorency, below Quebec, in 1759. Harkheimer had to cross a deep, crooked ravine, with a marshy bottom and its rivu let, drained, traversed and spanned by a causeway and bridge of logs. Sir John completely enveloped this spot with marksmen, leaving an inlet for the Americans to enter and no outlet by which to escape. Moreover he placed his best troops — whites — on the road westward, to bar all access to the fort. No plans were ever more judicious, either for a battue of game or ambuscade for troops. Harkheimer's column, without scouts or flankers, plunged into the ravine and had partially climbed the opposite crest and attained the plateau, when, with his wagon train huddled together in the bottom, the environing forest and dense underwood was alive with enemies and ahght with the blaze of muskets and rifles, succeeded by yells and war whoops, just as the shattering lightning is almost simul- taneous with the terrifying thunder. ^ Fortunately for the Americans, Brant or Butler gave the signal to close in upon them a. few moments too soon, so that Harkheimer's rear guard was shut out of the trap instead of in, and thus had a chance to fly. They ran, but in many cases were outrun by the Indians, and suf- fered almost if not as severely as their comrades whom they had aban- doned. Then a slaughter ensued, such as never has occurred upon this 4 ORISKANY continent, and if the Americans had not displa^-ed heroic bravery they would have been exterminated at once. Most likely they would have been so eventually, had not Heaven interposed at the crisis and let down a deluge of rain, which stopped the slaughter, since in the day of flint locks firing amid torrents of rain was an impossibility. This gave the Americans a breathing spell and time to recover their senses. Almost at the first volley Harkheimer was desperately wounded in the leg by a shot, which likewise killed his horse. He caused his saddle to be placed at the foot of a beech tree, and there sitting upon it and propped against the trunk, he lit his pipe, and while quietly smoking continued to give orders and make dispositions which saved all th ^t escaped. His orders on this occasion were almost the germ of the best subsequent rifle tac- tics. He behaved like a perfect hero and perished a martyr to Liberty, for he died in his own home at Danube, two miles below Little Falls, ten days afterwards (i6th August), of a bungling amputation and subse- quent ignorant treatment. When the shower was about over Sir John Johnson seeing th^t the Indians were flinching and giving way, sent back to camp for ; uiali reinforcement of his " Royal Greens," or else St. Leger sent thera f end the matter more speedily. These, although they disguised them-c .es like Mohawk valley militia, were recognized by the Americans as broth- ers, relatives, connections or neighbors, whom Harkheimer's followers had driven orassisted in driving into exile and poverty. These ' " '^ were certainly coming back to simply regain what they had doubtless to punish if victorious. At once to the fury of battle was added the bitterness of hate, spite and mutual vengeance. If the prev- ious fighting had been murderous, the subsequent was horrible. Fl-^ arms, as a rule, were thrown aside; the two forces mingle grasped each other by the clothes, beards and hair, slashed and abbci with their hunting knives and were found dead in pairs, locke ■ 1 in th. embrace of hate and death. There is no doubt but that Sir John Johnson commanded the Liiuah at Oriskany. One original writer alone has questioned the fact, wherea< ail the other historians agree to the contrary. The reports of St. Leger es- tablishes the fact of his presence and praise his able dispositions for the fight. Moreover, family tradition and various contemporari- pub- lications corroborate it. His brother-in-law. Major Stephen Watts, of New York city, almost wounded to death, appears to have been second in command, certainly of the whites, and in the bloodiest, closest fighting. The latter, like Harkheimer, lost his leg in this action, but ORISKANY - unlike him, under far more disadvantageous circumstances, preserved his life. Without attempting to develope the completeness of this fratri- cidal butchery, curious to relate, Harkheimer's brother was not only a sort of Quartermaster to St. Leger, but especially charged with the super- vision of the Indian auxiliaries, who were the cause of the General's death and the slaughter of so many of their common kinsmen, connections, friends and neighbors. All the Revolutionary battles on New York soil were more or less family collisions, and realized the boast which Shakespeare, in the closing lines of his tragedy of King John, puts in the mouth of the valiant bas- tard Faulconbridge . " This England [New York] never did (nor never shall). Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itself. ******** Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them : Nought shall make us rue. If England [New York] to itself do rest but true." This fratricidal butchery crazed even the Indians. It overpassed their own venomous ferocity. They lost their heads, or went mad, like wild animals at the sight and smell of blood. They came to the conclu- sion that the white men had lured them into this very hell of fire and slaughter to exterminate them. The arena of battle became a maelstrom ot bloodshed, and the Indians tomahawked, stabbed and slew friend and foe alike, and in the wild whirl and cataclysm of passions more power- ful than their own, suffered a loss which appalled even the fell instincts of the savage. As an American, and especially as a Knickerbocker, the historian cannot but rejoice in the heroism exhibited by the people of his State and of kindred blood, and the opportunity of demonstrating it ; but as a chronicler of events there is no evading the concurrent testimony of facts of Kapp's History of his People—/, e., the Dutch and German set- tlers of the Mohawk Valley, and of St. Leger's Report. All of these concur in their evidence, dii-ect and circumstantial, that Harkheimer's little army suffered a disastrous tactical defeat. That this did not remain a defeat, and was transmuted into an eventual success, was due to the common-sense generalship of Harkheimer. According to his plan, the advance and attack of his column of Mohawk Valley men was to be a combined movement, based upon or involving a simultaneous sortie from Fort Stanwix. This sortie was not made in time to save Harkhei- 5 ORISKANY raer's life or the lives and serious casualties of and to about a half or two-thirds of his command. Nothing- absolutely preserved the surviv- ors of Harkheimer's column but the direct interposition of a beneficent Providence in letting down at the crisis the deluging " shower of bless- ing." When and not till the flood began to abate did Willett take advantage of the storm to make his sortie and attack that portion of St. Leger's lines of investment, which had been denuded of their defenders to cooperate with the Indians in the ambush set for Harkheimer. The siege works or lines of investment, to apply a serious term to very tri- fling imitations, were very incomplete. In real military parlance, to style them lines of investment is humbug. St. Leger's three batteries mounted the first, three light guns ; the second, four diminutive mortars ; the third, three more light guns, whereas there were fourteen pieces of artillery mounted in the fort. The redoubts to cover the British bat- teries, St. Leger's line of approaches and his encampment, were ail on the north side of the fort. These were occupied by between four hun- dred and fifty to five hundred regulars and Provincials. Sir John John- son's works, held by from 130 to 175 Loyalist troops, were to the south- ward. It was against these last, almost entirely stripped of their defenders, that Willett made his sortie and attack. St. Leger's works and those of Sir John Johnson were widely separated and independent of each other, and the intervening spaces or intervals, to make the cir- cuit of the investment apparently complete, was held or rather patrolled by the Indians. These last during the sortie were away assaulting Hark- heimer. Consequently Willett's sortie, however successful in its results as to material captured and as a diversion, was utterly devoid of peril. That he had time to plunder Sir John Johnson's camp and three times send out wagons, load them and send them back into the post without the loss of a man, is unanswerable proof that he met with no opposition. He surprised and captured a small squad of prisoners — five, an officer (commissioned or non-commissioned) and four privates — and saw, a few dead Indians and whites, but it does not appear whether they had been killed by the fire from the fort or in the attack. All the merit that inures to his sortie, militarily considered, is the fact that to save what- ever material Willett did not have time to remove, Sir John Johnson had to extricate and hurry back his " Royal Greens " from the battle-ground of Oriskany, four to five and a half miles away farther to the south- ward, leaving the completion of the bloody work to the Indians. These, however, had already got their fill of fighting, and thus it was alone that the remnants of Harkheimer's column were left in possession of the field, ORISKANY „ soaked with their blood and covered with their dead and their wounded. Therefore, all the glory of Oriskany belongs to the men of the Mohawk Valley, who, notwithstanding they were completely entrapped, defended themselves with so much heroism for five or six hours, and displayed so much cool courage, that they were able to extricate even a remnant from the slaughter-pit. That Willett captured '* five British standards," or five British stand of colors, cannot be possible ; in fact, to a soldier this claim seems nonsense. They may have been camp colors or markers. The regimental colors are not entrusted to detachments from regiments. The " Royal Greens " may have had a color, a single flag, although this is doubtful, because at most they constituted a weak battalion. The colors of the Eighth or King's Regiment of Foot were certainly left at headquarters, likewise those of the Thirty-fourth. The same remark applies to the Hanau Chasseurs. As still further incontrovertible proof, the camp of the Regulars was not attacked. The fact is the Ameri- can story of Willett *s sortie has an atmosphere of myth about it. St. Leger's report to Burgoyne and likewise to Carleton — the latter the most circumstantial — in their very straight-forward simplicity of Ian- gauge present the most convincing evidence of truthfulness. St. Leger writes to Carleton : " At this time [when Harkheimer drew near] I had not 250 of the King's troops in camp, the various and extensive operations I was under an absolute necessity of entering into, having employed the rest ; and therefore [I] could not send above 80 white men, rangers and troops Included, with the whole corps of Indians. "SiVi. ]om>i '^OK-mon put himself at the head 0/ this party. * * * * " In relation to the victory [over Harkheimer] it was equally complete as if the whole had •alien ; nay, more so, as the 200 who escaped only served to spread the panic wider. But it vas not so with the Indians ; their loss was great. I must be understood, Indian comptitation, aeing only about 30 killed and wounded, and in that number some of their favorite chiefs and ;onfidenlial warriors were slain. * ^ * * * as I suspected the enemy [Wil- ett] made a sally with 250 7nen towards Lieut. Bird's post, to facilitate the entrance of the ■elieving corps, or bring on a general engagement with every advantage they could wish. * * " Immediately upon the departure of Captain HoYES I learned that Lieut. Bird, misled by the nformalion of a cowardly Indian that SiR JoHN was prest, had quitted his post to march to his .ssistance ; I marched the detachment of the King's Regiment in support of Captain Hoyes, by . road in sight of the garrison, which with executive fire from his party immediately drove the enemy nto the fort without any further advantage than frightening some squaws and pilfering the packs of he warriors, which they left behind them." It was Harkheimer who knocked all the fight out of the Indians, and t was the desertion of the Indians that rendered St. Leger's expedition .bortive. What is more, honest reader, remember this fact : St. Leger had mly 675 Regulars and Provincials besides Indians, and ten light guns 8 ORISKANY and diminutive mortars to besiege a fort well supplied, mounting; fourteen guns and garrisoned with 750 at least, and according to most authori- ties, 950 troops of the New York line, i. e., to a certain degree regulars. Harkheimer(bear the repetition) had knocked all the fighting out oi the Indians. Nevertheless, St. Legcr continued to press the siege with at most 650 whites against 750 to 950 whites, from the 6th until the 226 August, and when he broke up and retreated at the news of Arnold's ap- proach with a force magnified by rumor, it was more on account of the infamous conduct of the Indians than anything else. All the evidence, when sifted, justified his remark that the Indians " became more formid- able than the enemy we had to expect." By enemy he meant Arnold's column hastening its march against him and the garrison in his immedi- ate front, and yet neither St Leger nor Burgoyne under-estimated the American troops — not even the militia. The gist of all this and the moral of this story concentrates in one fact : — it was not the defense of Fort Stanwix but the heroism of Hark- heimer's militia that saved the IMohawk Valley, and constitutes Oriskan); the Thermopylae of the American Revolution, the crisis and turning point against the British of the Burgoyne campaign, and the " Decisive Conflict " of America's seven years war for Independence. J. WATTS DE PEYSTER LIBRARY OF CONGRESS !ll I nil nil V 011 800 353 6