PLANS FOR THE FUTURE
Daniel was not to be seen when we entered the cave, but Master Bartlett
explained his absence by saying that he was out in search of game. That
he had been at work industriously we could see, for there were the
carcasses of two deer cut up and stacked inside, while near by were a
dozen or more pheasants.
Even before making any attempt to tell such a story regarding the
events of that fearful day as had been decided upon, Giles March and I
gave attention to the wounded.
Samuel Rogers was resting comfortably on a pile of leaves at the
farther end of the cave, and declared that he had improved wondrously
since we brought him there, while Oscar Stephenson appeared to be
suffering rather from exhaustion, caused by rapid travel and loss of
blood, than from the bullet, which had ploughed its way through the
flesh without breaking bones.
Having seen so much of killing during the day just past, I was actually
surprised at learning how many of us had been spared from what was
neither more nor less than a massacre. The cave had seemed too large
when we first found it; but now, with so many inside, it was all too
small for comfortable living.
Lest the reader may have forgotten how many of us were here assembled,
let me set down the list:
First, there was Mistress Morley, and the other woman whose name I do
not now remember, with the two Morley children. Esther Hinchman made up
the list of females.
Master Bartlett and Stephen Morley represented the men of the valley,
and in addition we had of the Minute Boys, Daniel Hinchman, for we
counted him as among us, Samuel Rogers, Giles March, Oscar Stephenson,
Miles Parker, and myself.
I had not supposed so many of our company escaped the tomahawk and the
scalping-knife until I saw them here assembled, and it was in my mind
that we were more in numbers than all the others who had come out alive
from the battle with John Butler’s renegades and red wolves.
That Daniel Hinchman and Master Bartlett had worked like beavers during
the absence of Giles March and myself, there could be no question. The
cave, if such it could be called, had been cleared of rubbish, and that
part of it to be used as sleeping quarters was covered with leaves and
fir-tips.
To my great delight, during such house-cleaning a living spring at the
farther end of the excavation had been found, and, as showing how we
might hold out against a considerable force for many days without fear
of bodily suffering, Master Bartlett explained that it was his purpose,
now we were all there to aid in the labor, to bring a number of large
rocks in order to partially close up the mouth in such fashion that
only one person could enter at a time. Therefore did it seem as if we
would be more secure, in event of an attack, than if we were holding
the best stockade that had ever been built in the valley.
Mistress Morley and Master Bartlett had made further plans for the
bettering of this refuge as soon as there was time in which to do the
work, and among other things it was decided that it might be possible
to drill a hole through the side of the mountain into the cave, using
a sharpened sapling as a drill,--in case there were no rocks to
interfere,--and thereby an outlet for smoke could be had.
Both Giles March and I said all we could by way of encouraging the
others in making the place more habitable, for after what had occurred
since those hot-heads at Forty Fort insisted upon doing exactly as
John Butler would have them, it was more than reasonable to suppose
this place would be their only shelter and refuge until the Tories and
savages were minded to leave the valley. In other words, as we who knew
the truth believed, many months must elapse before it would be safe for
the women and children to venture out from the hiding-place.
Before the new day was an hour old, Daniel Hinchman came in with a
goodly supply of game, which had been taken in the snares, and it goes
without saying that he was feverishly impatient to learn how the battle
had terminated, therefore, acting upon the advice of Stephen Morley
that the truth should not be told in the presence of the women, Giles
March and I led him a short distance up the mountainside, where we
related the terrible story.
He was nearly overcome by astonishment and grief, and how could it be
otherwise, for we had the same as told him that all his neighbors and
friends, those whom he knew and loved, were dead, and yet, at that time
we were ignorant of more than half the horrors which had come upon us
of Wyoming since we, who had escaped from the retreat, entered the
swamp to make our way alone.
“And now what is to be done?” Daniel Hinchman asked, helplessly, when
we were come to an end of the dreadful recital. “Are we to stay here?”
“Where else, think you, will your sister be safe, unless peradventure
you make the attempt to lead her across the mountains to the Delaware
River?” Giles March asked, and I added:
“Even though it were probable she could withstand all the fatigue
and hardships of a long, perilous journey, Daniel Hinchman, are you
warranted in leaving the other women? Seeing that we are come out,
as if led by God, from all the horrors which have descended upon the
valley, are we not bound together until such time as the entire party
may go forth in peace, if, peradventure, that day shall ever come?”
“I am not minded to leave you, lads, because, save for your company
of Minute Boys, Esther would yet be a prisoner among the Mohawks, if
they had allowed her to live, and I, most like, be among those who are
slain. I was only questioning if we were to make of yonder cave our
dwelling?”
When we had come to this point in the conversation, Master Bartlett and
Stephen Morley joined us, as if understanding that we were holding a
consultation as to the future, and so did it become right speedily, for
Master Morley took it upon himself to reply to Daniel’s question.
“If Jonathan Ogden and Giles March have described to you one-half the
horrors which we three have witnessed since yesterday’s sun rose,
then must you know that, until some great change can be effected, are
we bound to remain here, where those whom we love are in reasonable
safety, and it seems to me as if we could do no better than settle down
with the idea of making this our abiding-place for a time.”
“That is all which can be done,” Master Bartlett added. “With so many
hands, the labor of making the cave more habitable will be simple, and
it is not likely, unless we ourselves grow careless, that any of the
enemy will come to suspect the whereabouts of our refuge.”
“Of course we must know what may be going on in the valley,” Giles
March said, quickly, “and there should not be overmuch danger if one of
us sets out very soon in gaining the information.”
“I will be that one, and go to-night,” Daniel Hinchman said, before it
was possible for me to propose that I myself make the venture. “The
canoe in which I came across the river is hidden snugly some distance
from the water, and I alone can find it.”
Master Bartlett nodded his head, as if to say that the proposition was
one which should be entertained by us, and, therefore, without further
words, was it settled that Daniel should go out at nightfall to learn
what he might.
Such information as he brought back would determine our future
movements, although we were well convinced that there could be no
immediate change of location.
The women, together with those of us who were not wounded, spent the
remainder of this day in working upon our underground dwelling, and
many and great were the improvements we made.
Master Bartlett, with the assistance of Miles Parker, succeeded in
drilling a hole for a chimney, as had been proposed, and Stephen Morley
made a serviceable fireplace of rocks at the farther end of the cave
near the spring. The women, by weaving boughs together, succeeded in
setting up something in the shape of a screen which shut off a small
portion of the cave for their sleeping quarters, and, without very much
disturbance of the foliage, we rolled two large boulders to the mouth
of the cavern in such a manner as satisfied me that we could stand a
long siege, however many might come against us.
As a matter of course, our food consisted of deer meat or birds, cooked
without salt, and nothing more; but people who have been as near death
as we had, and come off alive, are not warranted in complaining about
the quality or the sameness of their provisions, provided there be
sufficient to satisfy hunger.
To my mind God had been very good to us,--better far than our deserts,
for He had led us through a Red Sea of blood to this refuge, and verily
we had cause for most fervent thanksgiving.
It lacked but an hour of sunset when Daniel Hinchman announced that he
was ready to set off on the scout, explaining that it was his purpose
to start thus early in order that he might find the canoe before night
had fully shut in, and when no one made protest at his going, for we
all believed it necessary to learn of the situation of affairs, he
said, quietly:
“I beg of you not to feel alarmed concerning me during eight and forty
hours, for it is my purpose to be absent that length of time. If I am
not returned nearabout sunrise on the third day, then may you know I
have come to grief.”
“It is not well that you take overly many chances, lad,” Master
Bartlett said quickly. “Make your way to Forty Fort, and if you find
there the enemy in possession, as doubtless you will, give it a wide
berth. In some of the stockades should those who are yet alive be
gathered, and once you have good assurance of coming upon a remnant
of our people, don’t make any effort at learning the whereabouts of
the enemy, for we know full well they will be roaming up and down the
valley, slaying and burning until those exceeding wise men in the
Congress come to understand that something should be done for our
relief.”
Well, Daniel Hinchman went out as he planned, and during the eight and
forty hours which he had set as the time of his absence, we worked at
making our underground dwelling more habitable, being able to add to it
much which, in the eyes of people not in such sore distress, would have
seemed rude and uncouth, but to us were improvements and even luxuries.
Then came the time when Daniel Hinchman should return, and in our
anxiety for his safety, those of us who were able to walk ventured a
mile or more from the cave toward the river to hear the news which he
might bring as speedily as possible; but he came not.
Only at noon did we give up all hope of him, and then, while inside
the cave, we spoke cheeringly lest his sister should be overcome with
grief, saying that doubtless he had found more of our friends alive
than we expected, or was waiting to bring us a bigger budget of good
tidings than could be gathered in a short while. Yet even as we spoke
our hearts were like lead, and I dared not hold converse with my
comrades concerning his fate, for it seemed all too certain he had but
added another to the long list of victims which had been sacrificed to
satisfy John Butler’s love of cruelty.
That evening the two older men, with Giles March and me, went up the
mountainside where we could talk without fear of being overheard, and
discussed seriously whether it were well to send out another scout, for
it seemed absolutely necessary we should know what was going on in the
valley.
The discussion we had there was a long one, owing to the fact that both
Giles March and myself were eager to be off, in the poor hope that
there was yet time to be of service to Daniel Hinchman, while Master
Bartlett and Stephen Morley insisted that we remain within our place of
refuge six full days before making a move, the old man saying:
“It is only reasonable to suppose the savages are running riot through
the valley, and our people have been slain or driven out to the last
man, otherwise I am minded that Daniel Hinchman would not have been
taken, for he went with his eyes open, knowing all the dangers,
therefore surely could have shunned them.”
“Yet we _can’t_ sit here idle, Master Bartlett!” I cried, passionately.
“It may be we are needed there, and it were cowardly to remain in
hiding when we are able to lend aid to those who are so sorely pressed.”
“How would you aid them, lad, if you crossed the river only to find
yourselves in the hands of the savages? It would be as great an act
of wicked folly for us to venture out now, knowing that John Butler’s
wolves are sweeping everything before them, as it was for those
hot-heads whom you and Stephen Morley strove against at Forty Fort.
Content yourself, however hard it may be, with idleness until such time
comes as you can be of real service, and I venture to say that, by
saving your lives now, you will be of benefit to our neighbors and our
friends--if any there be yet alive.”
Well, it is not needed I should say that the counsels of the older
men prevailed, for we lads would have been foolish indeed had we set
ourselves up as being more wise in such a case, where they had had all
too bitter an experience.
Yet when we laid down that night there was in my heart a feeling of
shame that I remained there comfortable and apparently content, while
there was so much of suffering and agony near at hand which I might
relieve.
Esther Hinchman had not spoken above a dozen words during all that
long, weary day, and although knowing full well she believed, and
with good reason, that her brother was a prisoner in the hands of the
savages, or had already been killed by them, we did not venture words
of sympathy lest it should be seen by her that we feared the worst.
Then another day came, and we who were despairing and sorrowing
became electrified, as it were, by hearing the cheery voice of Daniel
Hinchman, as he hailed us from the thicket a short distance from the
cave.
“He has come back!” Esther cried, in a fever of joy. “He whom I
believed had been killed has come back!”
Then we who were burning to embrace the lad, who had seemingly come
from out the jaws of death, held back that she might have the first
privilege of greeting her brother whom she had mourned.
Daniel Hinchman’s story was a long one, and when he came to an end of
it, we had almost as good an idea of what had occurred in the valley
since our flight as if we ourselves had taken part in all that was done.
Because each of us in turn interrupted the lad here or there in his
story that we might ask for some unimportant details which he had
neglected to mention, thereby prolonging the sad tale, I will make no
attempt at setting it down as he related it; but, rather, put in few
words that account which is already a matter of history.
As we already knew, many of the fugitives from the field of battle fled
to Monocasy Island, believing there to find a safe refuge; but Colonel
Zebulon Butler’s men told Daniel that fully an hundred Indians, and
nearly as many Tories, hid themselves on the river banks until such of
the fugitives as were aiming for the island gained that poor place of
refuge, and then did they hunt them down like wild animals.
It was even said, and I have no question as to the truth because the
man Pensil himself boasted of it, that he, who was a Tory and had
joined John Butler’s force, found his brother on the island and slew
him, even while the poor man pleaded to his own flesh and blood for aid.
Daniel’s voice trembled and his cheeks paled as he related the horrors
which the savage horde boasted of as having taken place on Monocasy
Island that night.
Colonel Zebulon Butler, with perhaps fifteen or twenty men, escaped to
reach Wilkesbarre fort, and Colonel Dennison, accompanied by a small
number, gained Forty Fort. Both these officers made preparations to
defend the stockades so long as life lasted, knowing full well what
would be in store if there was a surrender at that time.
When night was come, John Butler’s wolves, red and white alike,
assembled to dispose of their prisoners, and one has a feeling near
akin to shame at setting down all that was done before the sun rose
again. Captain Bidlack, who had led one of our companies in the
battle and was wounded, was thrown alive upon the burning timbers of
Wintermoot’s Fort, and there held down with sticks and pitchforks until
he was dead. Squads of prisoners were ranged in line, bound hand and
foot, while their savage captors began with the first, deliberately
murdering one after the other until the last had fallen. A half-breed
woman, who was called Queen Esther, herself, with maul and tomahawk,
butchered sixteen, who were forced to kneel around that boulder which
in later days has been called “Queen Esther’s rock.”
I am minded to set down here that which was written afterward, by one
who was a witness of the terrible scene in which the half-breed squaw
supped on blood:
“The time was midnight, and the scene being lighted up by a large fire
burning near, this Queen Esther appeared like a very fury from Hades
while performing her bloody work. With the death of each victim her
fury increased, and her song rose louder and clearer upon the midnight
air. Leddeus Hammond and Joseph Eliot, seeing there was no hope, shook
off the Indians who held them, and, with a desperate spring, fled to
the thicket amid rifle-bullets and tomahawks that were sent after them,
and escaped. This was not the only scene of a similar kind that could
have been witnessed between the ruins of Wintermoot’s and the walls of
Forty Fort.”
Daniel told us that the only ray of light in this dreadful time to our
people of the valley was just after sunset, when Captain John Franklin
arrived at Forty Fort with a company of thirty-five men from Hunterdon
and Salem, and before the sun had risen again, Colonel Zebulon Butler,
with those who had taken refuge in Wilkesbarre Fort, joined the people,
who were now beginning to hope.
Therefore it was that in all the valley, the only stockade remaining
in the hands of our friends was this same Forty Fort. The stockades at
Pittstown had long since been abandoned.
On the following morning, which was the day before Daniel had crossed
the river on his scout, John Butler sent a messenger demanding the
surrender of Forty Fort, and particularly of Colonel Zebulon Butler,
with such of the Continental troops as he had with him, threatening in
event of a refusal to comply, that an immediate attack would be made,
and every one, including women and children, should be put to torture
when taken.
Now it appears that there were only fifteen men belonging to the
Continental army left alive, and knowing John Butler would, however
many promises he might make, put to death all the soldiers that fell
into his hands, Colonel Zebulon proposed that he and his followers
should immediately leave the valley before there was time for John
Butler to set out in pursuit. Therefore, taking his wife behind him on
a horse, the colonel rode through the woods that same day, intending
to sleep at Conyngham in the Nescopeck Valley, twenty miles away. The
soldiers followed on foot as best they might.
Then there remained only Colonel Dennison with some of the men from
Hunterdon, the cripples and old men, the women and children, which
had escaped the massacre, to be surrendered. And so he returned word
to John Butler, understanding that there was no hope of making a
successful resistance, and taking the chances that the Tory, who was
more of a savage than the most benighted of his followers, would hold
to the word which he should be called upon to give in writing. These
terms, which Colonel Dennison himself drew up, were much as follows:
First, that the inhabitants of the valley should lay down their arms,
and the garrison be destroyed. Again, that the people be allowed to
occupy their farms peaceably, and the lives of all be preserved.
Thirdly, that all stores supplied for the Continental army, wherever
they might be hidden, should be delivered up as soon as possible, and
that John Butler would use all his influence toward saving the private
property of the inhabitants.
There was also inserted afterward, at the dictation of Butler, that
such property as had been taken from the people who were called
Tories, at any time since the beginning of the war, be made good;
that they should remain in peaceful possession of their farms, and be
allowed to trade throughout the province without molestation.
Not to make too many words of the story, this surrender was effected
late that same evening, which explains why Daniel Hinchman did not
return as agreed upon, for he had succeeded in gaining entrance to
Forty Fort, and was minded to remain until he could tell us all the
tale, which would not be until he was able to see whether John Butler
held faithfully to the terms of the surrender.
Here is an account as set down by Colonel Dennison himself:
“Everything being arranged, the two gates of the fort were thrown open
that evening. The arms of the patriots were piled up in the centre,
and the women and children retired within the huts that lined the
interior of the stockade. At the appointed time the victors approached
with drums beating and colors flying. They came in two columns, whites
and Indians. The former were led by John Butler, who entered the
north gate, and the latter by Queen Esther, the bloody priestess of
the midnight sacrifice. She was followed by Giengwatah, who, with his
warriors, entered the south gate. The wily chief, fearing treachery,
glanced quickly to the right and left as he entered. The Tories, with
their natural instinct for plunder, immediately seized the piled
arms. Butler ordered them to desist, and presented the muskets to
the Indians. The inhabitants were then marked by the Indians with
black paint on their faces, and ordered to carry a white cloth on a
stick. These were objects, the savages said, which would ensure their
protection.”
Before morning came, so Daniel Hinchman told us, every dwelling in
Wilkesbarre, and there were then twenty-three, was given over to the
flames; but, so far as he could learn, no more blood had been shed.
Colonel Dennison and those men who had surrendered remained in the fort
instead of seeking refuge elsewhere, in order that he might do what
he could toward defending the women and children in case the savages
proved too unruly for John Butler to control.
That was the story in substance, without going into the details, and it
showed us that now indeed was the valley lost to us. John Butler had
made arrangements for the Tories to remain in undisturbed possession,
not only of such property as they then held, but all which had been
taken from them shortly after the war began, and Wyoming was become a
nest of loyalists who would do all they could to harrow, if not kill,
those of us who had held to the American Cause.
The question which had come to us now in that cave of refuge, with the
telling of Daniel Hinchman’s story, was where we should go? Surely not
to our homes, for we had none; not again to the Susquehanna River, for
of a verity would we be driven out if allowed to live, and until our
wounded had recovered we were the same as prisoners in an underground
dwelling, unless we were minded to play the part of savages and leave
the helpless ones to their fate.