JSSSBsmR i mam I 9 THE FIGHT FOR THE VALLEY A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF FORT SCHUYLER AND THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY IN THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN OF 1777 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant http://www.archive.org/details/fightforvalleystOOstod Brom liimself was trying to draw a bead on one of them. THE FIGHT FOR THE VALLEY A STORY OF THE SIEGE OF FORT SCHUT- LER AND THE BATTLE OF ORISKANT IN THE BURGOTNE CAMPAIGN OF 1777 BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD AUTHOR OF CROWDED OUT O' CROFIELD, LITTLE SMOKE THE SPY OF YORKTOWN, ETC. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1912 Copyright, 1904, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Published, September, 1904 Printed in the United States of America PREFACE Many of the old-time battles are utterly forgotten. Of many other battles the importance is but imperfectly pre- sented in history. An ordinary reader is ready, for instance, to ascribe due value to the American victories over the British army under General Burgoyne, but too many who read may be almost ignorant of the Oneida Lake and Mo- hawk Yalley campaign which made those victories possible. There was a long trial endured by the frontier heroes who held Fort Schuyler against great odds, and there was terribly hard fighting done at Oriskany. It is worth while to know by whom this was done and how. In attempting to tell the story of it, however, the author of this book has labored under one peculiar difficulty. He has been com- pelled to interpret or translate as best he might all of the conversations which were necessarily carried on in Dutch. While doing so, he has often been led to recall memories of his own early childhood and to hear again the fragments of Dutch songs which were sung to him by his Mohawk Yalley grandfather and grandmother. Sometimes, too, they would scold him, for fun, in the tongue which even VI PREFACE in their own younger days was still spoken by many thou- sands of their neighbors. Other memories also came, of boyhood visits at the old Schuyler mansion in Albany, and of its legends, which were then told him concerning General Philip Schuyler and his Revolutionary feats. With these were vivid recollections of eager explorations of the old Sir William Johnson palace in the Herkimer County back- woods, with its deeply engraved or tomahawked reminis- cences of Tha-yen-da-ne-gea. Added to all these, with reference to the varied features of the Burgoyne campaign, were searchings among the ruins of the old fortifications at Ticonderoga, but even more than these, for this present story, were fishing excursions on Oneida Lake, and studies of the manner in which the British forces under St. Leger found their way from Oswe- go to the siege of Fort Schuyler and the bloody struggle in the woods at Oriskany. It is not well to confine attention to what are called the great battles only, but every boy in America ought to ac- quire a deep and inquiring interest in the minor points of the heroic history of his country. No other land has pro- duced braver or better men and women, and the boys and girls of to-day ought to be made familiar with the splendid examples which have been set for them. William O. Stoddaed. —— CONTENTS CHAPTER page I. The frontier boy 1 II. Ready for the fight 14 III.—A GREAT DISCOVERY 28 IV.—Peril . 41 V. Closely hunted . 54 VI.— Water and woods 68 VII. The Oneida spy . 84 VIII.—A SCATTERED ARMY 98 IX. The two generals 112 X. The postboy 126 XI. Perplexity . 140 XII. The runaway 159 XIII. The militia . 174 XIV. Oriskany 185 XV. The wounded hero 200 XVI. The broken pipe-stem 221 XVII.—The fate of Hon Yost 234 THE FIGHT FOR THE VALLEY CHAPTER I THE FRONTIER BOY "Oh, Brom Roosevelt! Do come in! This is dread- " ful! She was a short, stout woman, and she stood in the porch of a neatly painted frame house, not many steps from the roadside. She was wiping her eyes with a cor- ner of her apron, and she had called out to a sturdy-look- ing boy who had halted at the gate. His dress was not at all remarkable for that time and place, but it might have been considered so for some other times and places. He wore moccasins instead of shoes. Above these, reach- ing to the knee, were well-made woolen stockings. Then came what were sometimes called small-clothes, of blue woolen homespun ; but his best garment was in his buckskin hunting-shirt, fringed all around and fastened at his throat by a broad brass buckle. On his head was a cap, " 2, THE FIGHT FOR THE VALLEY which was also made of buckskin. It was so dented on top and so turned up at the edges, with a flap behind, that if there had been a little more of the leather it would have passed for something like a cocked hat. "What is the matter, Aunt Schuyler?" he shouted back, as he opened the gate to walk in. " Has anything happened? "Happened!" she echoed. "Why, Brom, that wretched boy Hon Yost has run away again. I'm afraid he has gone to Albany. Oh, dear! He was singing Tory songs all day yesterday. Then he disappeared." " " " That's where he's gone ! exclaimed Brom. I heard him say we were all rebels here and he was going to Albany to see the King. But, Aunt Schuyler, he isn't half so crazy as some people say he is." u 'No, he isn't! " she responded. "He knows a great deal. He took some money of mine that I had put away in a closet, and he took a pony that belongs to your Uncle Herkimer. I had borrowed it, to do some errands with, and now I've got to go and see the general and tell him what has become of that pony. You had better go with me." " Well," said Brom, thoughtfully, " he isn't really my uncle. He's only mother's cousin. You'd better take her with you than me. But he won't be so mad about the pony as he will about Hon. He's always been a trouble." THE FRONTIER BOY o " So lie has," she said; " and the other Tories stir him up, and you can't tell who's a Tory and who isn't, and there's dreadful news from the British army in Canada, and I don't know what we're to do." " That's so," said Brom. " They say Burgoyne is coming. So are the Canada Indians. If they come, and if our Indians join 'em, there'll be fighting all up and down the Mohawk Valley." " It's awful! " she groaned. But it was a pleasant day, and she never thought of putting on a hood or a wrap just to run to the Herkimer place. Brom went with her, and they stopped at one house on the way. The tall, dark, intelligent-looking woman who joined them there did not appear to be greatly disturbed by Mrs. Schuyler's account of her troubles. She was so very cool that it was almost irritating. " Anneke, dear," she said, " just what you might have expected. But Hon can do no harm at Albany. I don't think the general will care much for one pony just now. He is going to Albany, himself. I'm glad to go with you, anyhow, if it's only to hear what the news is." " Mother," said Brom, " I've talked with three Oneida Indians this morning. I want to tell the general what they said to me." " He might wish to know," she said; " but the Oneidas are friendly. It's the Western tribes that Brant and the 4 THE FIGHT FOR THE VALLEY Johnsons are likely to bring against us. They are old ene- mies of ours." Brom's face resembled hers and he was tall for his age, if he were not yet seventeen, but his blue-gray eyes and his brown hair may have come to him from his father's side of the family. As for the color of his face, the sun and wind had painted that, and made it even darker than hers. She was an exceedingly calm and self-possessed woman, but now, as she recalled the ancient feud between the settlers and the Iroquois, she stood still for a moment and gazed dreamily southward. " The fort is there yet," she said, " but it is almost a ruin. That was in the old French War, when we were all English. They said we were. It is Fort Dayton now, but it was Fort Herkimer then. Your uncle was only a lieuten- ant, but he rallied the settlers and he held the fort against the French and Indians. All of us women and the children were inside of the stockade. We would all have been toma- hawked if it hadn't been for Nicholas Herkimer." She was thinking of old times and old perils, but Mrs. Schuyler was more interested in her runaway son just then, and urged her forward. As for Brom, he may have heard that story before, and he was a good deal more ex- cited concerning any fighting which was likely to come into the valley at the present time.