ORISKANY

It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to

my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of

Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during

the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive

as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which,

after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.

So, as I do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of

abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of

that sad and unnecessary tragedy.

For three days we had been camped near the clearing called Oriska, which

is on the south bank of the Mohawk. Here the volunteers and militia of

Tryon County were concentrating from Fort Dayton in the utmost disorder,

their camps so foolishly pitched, so slovenly in those matters

pertaining to cleanliness and health, so inadequately guarded, that I

saw no reason why our twin enemies, St. Leger and disease, should not

make an end of us ere we sighted the ramparts of Stanwix.

All night long the volunteer soldiery had been in-subordinate and

riotous in the hamlet of Oriska, thronging the roads, shouting, singing,

disputing, clamoring to be led against the enemy. Popular officers were

cheered, unpopular officers jeered at, angry voices raised outside

headquarters, demanding to know why old Honikol Herkimer delayed the

advance. Even officers shouted, "Forward! forward! Wake up Honikol!" And

spoke of the old General derisively, even injuriously, to their own

lasting disgrace.

Towards dawn, when I lay down on the floor of a barn to sleep, the

uproar had died out in a measure; but lights still flickered in the camp

where soldiers were smoking their pipes and playing cards by the flare

of splinter-wood torches. As for the pickets, they paid not the

slightest attention to their duties, continually leaving their posts to

hobnob with neighbors; and the indiscipline alarmed me, for what could

one expect to find in men who roamed about where it pleased them,

howling their dissatisfaction with their commander, and addressing their

officers by their first names?

At eight o'clock on that oppressive August morning, while writing a

letter to my cousin Dorothy, which an Oneida had promised to deliver, he

being about to start with a message to Governor Clinton, I was

interrupted by Jack Mount, who came into the barn, saying that a company

of officers were quarrelling in front of the sugar-shack occupied as

headquarters.

I folded my letter, sealed it with a bit of blue balsam gum, and bade

Mount deliver it to the Oneida runner, while I stepped up the road.

Of all unseemly sights that I have ever had the misfortune to witness,

what I now saw was the most shameful. I pushed and shouldered my way

through a riotous mob of soldiers and teamsters which choked the

highway; loud, angry voices raised in reproach or dispute assailed my

ears. A group of militia officers were shouting, shoving, and

gesticulating in front of the tent where, rigid in his arm-chair, the

General sat, grim, narrow-eyed, silent, smoking a short clay pipe. Bolt

upright, behind him, stood his chief scout and interpreter, a superb

Oneida, in all the splendor of full war-paint, blazing with scarlet.

Colonel Cox, a swaggering, intrusive, loud-voiced, and smartly uniformed

officer, made a sign for silence and began haranguing the old man,

evidently as spokesman for the party of impudent malcontents grouped

about him. I heard him demand that his men be led against the British

without further delay. I heard him condemn delay as unreasonable and

unwarrantable, and the terms of speech he used were unbecoming to

an officer.

"We call on you, sir, in the name of Tryon County, to order us forward!"

he said, loudly. "We are ready. For God's sake give the order, sir!

There is no time to waste, I tell you!"

The old General removed the pipe from his teeth and leaned a little

forward in his chair.

"Colonel Cox," he said, "I haff Adam Helmer to Stanvix sent, mit der

opject of inviting Colonel Gansevoort to addack py de rear ven ve addack

py dot left flank.

"So soon as Helmer comes dot fort py, Gansevoort he fire cannon; und so

soon I hear cannon, I march! Not pefore, sir; not pefore!"

"How do we know that Helmer and his men will ever reach Stanwix?"

shouted Colonel Paris, impatiently.

"Ve vait, und py un' py ve know," replied Herkimer, undisturbed.

"He may be dead and scalped by now," sneered Colonel Visscher.

"Look you, Visscher," said the old General; "it iss I who am here to

answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who

svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I

do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!"

He waved his short pipe.

"For vy am I an ass to march me py dot ambuscade? Such a foolishness iss

dot talk! I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear."

A storm of insolent protest from the mob of soldiers greeted his

decision; the officers gesticulated and shouted insultingly, shoving

forward to the edge of the porch. Fists were shaken at him, cries of

impatience and contempt rose everywhere. Colonel Paris flung his sword

on the ground. Colonel Cox, crimson with anger, roared: "If you delay

another moment the blood of Gansevoort's men be on your head!"

Then, in the tumult, a voice called out: "He's a Tory! We are betrayed!"

And Colonel Cox shouted: "He dares not march! He is a coward!"

White to the lips, the old man sprang from his chair, narrow eyes

ablaze, hands trembling. Colonel Bellinger and Major Frey caught him by

the arm, begging him to remain firm in his decision.

"Py Gott, no!" he thundered, drawing his sword. "If you vill haff it so,

your blood be on your heads! Vorwärts!"

It is not for me to blame him in his wrath, when, beside himself with

righteous fury, he gave the bellowing yokels their heads and swept on

with them to destruction. The mutinous fools who had called him coward

and traitor fell back as their outraged commander strode silently

through the disordered ranks, noticing neither the proffered apologies

of Colonel Paris nor the stammered excuses of Colonel Cox. Behind him

stalked the tall Oneida, silent, stern, small eyes flashing. And now

began the immense uproar of departure; confused officers ran about

cursing and shouting; the smashing roll of the drums broke out, beating

the assembly; teamsters rushed to harness horses; dismayed soldiers

pushed and struggled through the mass, searching for their regiments

and companies.

Mounted on a gaunt, gray horse, the General rode through the disorder,

quietly directing the incompetent militia officers in their tasks of

collecting their men; and behind him, splendidly horsed and caparisoned,

cantered the tall Oneida, known as Thomas Spencer the Interpreter, calm,

composed, inscrutable eyes fixed on his beloved leader and friend.

The drums of the Canajoharie regiment were beating as the drummers swung

past me, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sweat pouring down their

sunburned faces; then came Herkimer, all alone, sitting his saddle like

a rock, the flush of anger still staining his weather-ravaged visage,

his small, wrathful eyes fixed on the north.

Behind him rode Colonels Cox and Paris, long, heavy swords drawn,

heading the Canajoharie regiment, which pressed forward excitedly. The

remaining regiments of Tryon County militia followed, led by Colonel

Seeber, Colonel Bellenger, Majors Frey, Eisenlord, and Van Slyck. Then

came the baggage-wagons, some drawn by oxen, some by four horses; and in

the rear of these rode Colonel Visscher, leading the Caughnawaga

regiment, closing the dusty column.

"Damn them!" growled Elerson to Murphy, "they're advancing without

flanking-parties or scouts. I wish Dan'l Morgan was here."

"'Tis th' Gineral's jooty to luk out f'r his throops, not Danny Morgan's

or mine," replied the big rifleman in disgust.

The column halted. I signalled my men to follow me and hastened along

the flanks under a fire of chaff: "Look at young buckskins! There go

Morgan's macaronis! God help the red-coats this day! How's the scalp

trade, son?"

Herkimer was sitting his horse in the middle of the road as I came up;

and he scowled down at me when I gave him the officer's salute and stood

at attention beside his stirrup.

"Veil, you can shpeak," he said, bluntly; "efery-body shpeaks but me!"

I said that I and my riflemen were at his disposal if he desired leaders

for flanking-parties or scouts; and his face softened as he listened,

looking down at me in silence.

"Sir," he said, "it iss to my shame I say dot my sodgers command me, not

I my sodgers."

Then, looking back at Colonel Cox, he added, bitterly:

"I haff ordered flanking-parties and scouts, but my officers, who know

much more than I, haff protested against dot useless vaste of time. I

thank you, sir; I can your offer not accept."

The drums began again; the impatient Palatine regiment moved forward,

yelling their approval, and we fell back to the roadside, while the

boisterous troops tramped past, cheering, singing, laughing in their

excitement. Mechanically we fell in behind the Caughnawagas, who formed

the rear-guard, and followed on through the dust; meaning to go with

them only a mile or so before we started back across country with the

news which I was now at liberty to take in person to General Schuyler.

For I considered my mission at an end. In one thing only had I failed:

Walter Butler was still free; but now that he commanded a company of

outlaws and savages in St. Leger's army, I, of course, had no further

hope of arresting him or of dealing with him in any manner save on the

battle-field.

So at last I felt forced to return to Varick Manor; but the fear of the

dread future was in me, and all the hopeless misery of a hopeless

passion made of me a coward, so that I shrank from the pain I must

surely inflict and endure. Kinder for her, kinder for me, that we should

never meet again.

Not that I desired to die. I was too young in life and love to wish for

death as a balm. Besides, I knew it could not bring us peace. Still, it

was one solution of a problem otherwise so utterly hopeless that I,

heartsick, had long since wearied of the solving and carried my hurt

buried deep, fearful lest my prying senses should stir me to disinter

the dead hope lying there.

Absence renders passion endurable. But at sight of her I loved I knew I

could not endure it; and, uncertain of myself, having twice nigh failed

under the overwhelming provocations of a love returned, I shrank from

the coming duel 'twixt love and duty which must once more be fought

within my breast.

Nor could my duty, fighting blindly, expect encouragement from her I

loved, save at the last gasp and under the heel of love. Then, only, at

the very last would she save me; for there was that within her which

revolted at a final wrong, and I knew that not even our twin passion

could prevail to stamp out the last spark of conscience and slay our

souls forever.

Brooding, as I trudged forward through the dust, I became aware that the

drums had ceased their beating, and that the men were marching quietly

with little laughter or noise of song.

The heat was intense, although a black cloud had pushed up above the

west, veiling the sun. Flies swarmed about the column; sweat poured from

men and horses; the soldiers rolled back their sleeves and plodded on,

muskets a-trail and coats hanging over their shoulders. Once, very far

away, the looming horizon was veined with lightning; and, after a long

time, thunder sounded.

We had marched northward on a rutty road some two miles or more from

our camp at Oriska, and I was asking Mount how near we were to the old

Algonquin-Iroquois trail which runs from the lakes across the wilderness

to the healing springs at Saratoga, when the column halted and I heard

an increasing confusion of voices from the van.

"There's a ravine ahead," said Elerson. "I'm thinking they'll have

trouble with these wagons, for there's a swamp at the bottom and only a

log-road across."

"Tis the proper shpot f'r to ambuscade us," observed Murphy, craning his

neck and standing on tiptoe to see ahead.

We walked forward and sat down on the bank close to the brow of the

hill. Directly ahead a ravine, shaped like a half-moon, cut the road,

and the noisy Canajoharie regiment was marching into it. The bottom of

the ravine appeared to be a swamp, thinly timbered with tamarack and

blue-beech saplings, where the reeds and cattails grew thick, and

little, dark pools of water spread, all starred with water-lilies,

shining intensely white in the gloom of the coming storm.

"There do be wild ducks in thim rushes," said Murphy, musingly. "Sure I

count it sthrange, Jack Mount, that thim burrds sit quiet-like an' a

screechin' rigiment marchin' acrost that log-road."

"You mean that somebody has been down there before and scared the ducks

away?" I asked.

"Maybe, sorr," he replied, grimly.

Instinctively we leaned forward to scan the rising ground on the

opposite side of the ravine. Nothing moved in the dense thickets. After

a moment Mount said quietly: "I'm a liar or there's a barked twig

showing raw wood alongside of that ledge."

He glanced at the pan of his rifle, then again fixed his keen, blue

eyes on the tiny glimmer of white which even I could distinguish now,

though Heaven only knows how his eyes had found it in all that tangle.

"That's raw wood," he repeated.

"A deer might bark a twig," said I.

"Maybe, sorr," muttered Murphy; "but there's divil a deer w'ud nibble

sheep-laurel."

The men of the Canajoharie regiment were climbing the hill on the other

side of the ravine now. Colonel Cox came galloping back, shouting:

"Bring up those wagons! The road is clear! Move your men forward there!"

Whips cracked; the vehicles rattled off down hill, drivers yelling,

soldiers pushing the heavy wheels forward over the log-road below which

spurted water as the bumping wagons struck the causeway.

I remember that Colonel Cox had just drawn bridle, half-way up the

opposite incline, and was leaning forward in his saddle to watch the

progress of an ox-team, when a rifle-shot rang out and he tumbled clean

out of his saddle, striking the shallow water with a splash.

Then hell itself broke loose in that black ravine; volley on volley

poured into the Canajoharie regiment; officers fell from their horses;

drivers reeled and pitched forward under the heels of their plunging

teams; wagons collided and broke down, choking the log-road. Louder and

louder the terrific yells of the outlaws and savages rang out on our

flanks; I saw our soldiers in the ravine running frantically in all

directions, falling on the log-road, floundering waist-deep in the water

and mud, slipping, stumbling, staggering; while faster and faster

cracked the hidden rifles, and the pitiless bullets pelted them from the

heights above.

"Stand! Stand! you fools!" bawled Elerson. "Take to the timber! Every

man to a tree! For God's sake remember Braddock!"

"Look out!" shouted Mount, dragging me with him to a rock. "Close up,

Elerson! Close up, Murphy!"

Straight into the stupefied ranks of the Caughnawaga company came

leaping the savages, shooting, stabbing, clubbing the dazed men,

dragging them from the ranks with shrieks of triumph. I saw one

half-naked creature, awful in his paint, run up and strike a soldier

full in the face with his fist, then dash out his brains with a

death-maul and tear his scalp off.

Murphy and Mount were loading and firing steadily; Elerson and I kept

our rifles ready for a rush. I was perfectly stunned; the spectacle did

not seem real to me.

The Caughnawaga men, apparently roused from their momentary stupor, fell

back into small squads, shooting in every direction; and the savages,

unable to withstand a direct fire, sheered off and came bounding past us

to cover, yelping like timber-wolves. Three darted directly at us; a

young warrior, painted in bars of bright yellow, raised his hatchet to

hurl it; but Murphy's bullet spun him round like a top till he crashed

against a tree and fell in a heap, quivering all over.

The two others had leaped on Mount. Swearing, threatening, roaring with

rage, the desperate giant shook them off into our midst, and cut the

throat of one as he lay sprawling--a sickening spectacle, for the poor

wretch floundered and thrashed about among the leaves and sticks,

squirting thick blood all over us.

The remaining savage, a chief, by his lock and eagle-quill, had fastened

to Elerson's legs with the fury of a tree-cat, clawing and squalling,

while Murphy dealt him blow on blow with clubbed stock, and finally was

forced to shoot him so close that the rifle-flame set his greased

scalp-lock afire.

"Take to the timber, you Tryon County men! Remember Braddock!" shouted

Colonel Paris, plunging about on his wounded horse; while from every

tree and bush rang out the reports of the rifles; and the steady stream

of bullets poured into the Caughnawaga regiment, knocking the men down

the hill-side into the struggling mass below. Some dropped dead where

they had been shot; some rolled to the log-road; some fell into the

marsh, splashing and limping about like crippled wild fowl.

"Advance der Palatine regiment!" thundered Herkimer. "Clear avay dot

oxen-team!"

A drummer-boy of the Palatines beat the charge. I can see him yet, a

curly-haired youngster, knee-deep in the mud, his white, frightened face

fixed on his commander. They shot his drum to pieces; he beat steadily

on the flapping parchment.

Across the swamp the Palatines were doggedly climbing the slope in the

face of a terrible discharge. Herkimer led them. As they reached the

crest of the plateau, and struggled up and over, a rush of men in green

uniforms seemed to swallow the entire Palatine regiment. I saw them

bayonet Major Eisenlord and finish him with their rifle-stocks; they

stabbed Major Van Slyck, and hurled themselves at the mounted Oneida.

Hatchet flashing, the interpreter swung his horse straight into the

yelling onset and went down, smothered under a mass of enemies.

"Vorwärts!" thundered Herkimer, standing straight up in his stirrups;

but they shot him out of his saddle and closed with the Palatines,

hilt to hilt.

Major Frey and Colonel Bellenger fell under their horses, Colonel Seeber

dropped dead into the ravine, Captain Graves was dragged from the ranks

and butchered by bayonets; but those stubborn Palatines calmly divided

into squads, and their steady fusillade stopped the rush of the Royal

Greens and sent the flanking savages howling to cover.

Mount, Murphy, Elerson, and I lay behind a fallen hemlock, awaiting the

flank attack which we now understood must surely come. For our regiments

were at last completely surrounded, facing outward in an irregular

circle, the front held by the Palatines, the rear by the Caughnawagas,

the west by part of the Canajoharie regiment, and the east by a fraction

of unbrigaded militia, teamsters, batt-men, bateaux-men, and half a

dozen volunteer rangers reinforced by my three riflemen.

The scene was real enough to me now. Jack Mount, kneeling beside me, was

attempting to clean the blood from himself and Elerson with handfuls of

dried leaves. Murphy lay on his belly, watching the forest in front of

us, and his blue eyes seemed suffused with a light of their own in the

deepening gloom of the gathering thunder-storm. My nerves were all

a-quiver; the awful screaming from the ravine had never ceased for an

instant, and in that darkening, slimy pit I could still see a swaying

mass of men on the causeway, locked in a death-struggle. To and fro they

reeled; hatchet and knife and gun-stock glittered, rising and falling in

the twilight of the storm-cloud; the flames from the rifles

flashed crimson.

"Kape ye're eyes to the front, sorr; they do be comin'!" cried Murphy,

springing briskly to his feet.

I looked ahead into the darkening woods; the Caughnawaga men were

falling back, taking station behind trees; Mount stepped to the shelter

of a big oak; Elerson leaped to cover under a pine; a Caughnawaga

bateaux-man darted past me, stationing himself on my right behind the

trunk of a dapple beech. Suddenly an Indian showed himself close in

front; the Caughnawaga man fired and missed; and, quicker than I can

write it, the savage was on him before he could reload and had brained

him with a single castete-stroke. I fired, but the Mohawk was too quick

for me, and a moment later he bounded back into the brush while the

forest rang with his triumphant scalp-yell.

"That's what they're doing in front!" shouted Elerson. "When a soldier

fires they're on him before he can reload!"

"Two men to a tree!" roared Jack Mount. "Double up there, you

Caughnawaga men!"

Elerson glided cautiously to the oak which sheltered Mount; Murphy crept

forward to my tree.

"Bedad!" he muttered, "let the ondacent divils dhraw ye're fire an'

welcome. I've a pill to purge 'em now. Luk at that, sorr! Shteady!

Shteady an' cool does it!"

A savage, with his face painted half white and half red, stepped out

from the thicket and dropped just as I fired. The next instant he came

leaping straight for our tree, castete poised.

Murphy fired. The effect of the shot was amazing; the savage stopped

short in mid-career as though he had come into collision with a stone

wall; then Elerson fired, knocking him flat, head doubled under his

naked shoulders, feet trailing across a rotting log.

"Save ye're powther, Dave!" sang out Murphy. "Sure he was clean kilt as

he shtood there. Lave a dead man take his own time to fall!"

I had reloaded, and Murphy was coolly priming, when on our right the

rifles began speaking faster and faster, and I heard the sound of men

running hard over the dry leaves, and the thudding gallop of horses.

"A charge!" said Murphy. "There do be horses comin', too. Have they

dhragoons?--I dunnoa. Ha! There they go! 'Tis McCraw's outlaws or I'm a

Dootchman!"

A shrill cock-crow rang out in the forest.

"'Tis the chanticleer scalp-yell of that damned loon, Francy McCraw!" he

cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot hell into the

dommed Tories!"

The Caughnawaga rifles rang out from every tree; a white man came

running through the wood, and I instinctively held my fire.

"Shoot the dhirrty son of a shlut!" yelled Murphy; and Elerson shot him

and knocked him down, but the man staggered to his feet again, clutching

at his wounded throat, and reeled towards us. He fell again, got on his

knees, crawled across the dead leaves until he was scarce fifteen yards

away, then fell over and lay there, coughing.

"A dead wan,"' said Murphy, calmly; "lave him."

McCraw's onset passed along our extreme left; the volleys grew furious;

the ghastly cock-crow rang out shrill and piercing, and we fired at long

range where the horses were passing through the rifle-smoke.

Then, in the roar of the fusillade, a bright flash lighted up the

forest; a thundering crash followed, and the storm burst, deluging the

woods with rain. Trees rocked and groaned, dashing their tops together;

the wind rose to a hurricane; the rain poured down, beating the leaves

from the trees, driving friend and foe to shelter. The reports of the

rifles ceased; the war-yelp died away. Peal on peal of thunder shook the

earth; the roar of the tempest rose to a steady shriek through which the

terrific smashing of falling trees echoed above the clash of branches.

Soaked, stunned, blinded by the awful glare of the lightning, I crouched

under the great oak, which rocked and groaned, convulsed to its bedded

roots, so that the ground heaved under me as I lay.

I could not see ten feet ahead of me, so thick was the gloom with rain

and flying leaves and twigs. The thunder culminated in a series of

fearful crashes; bolt after bolt fell, illuminating the flying chaos of

the tempest; then came a stunning silence, slowly filled with the steady

roar of the rain.

A gray pallor grew in the woods. I looked down into the ravine and saw a

muddy lake there full of dead men and horses.

The wounded Tory near us was still choking and coughing, dying hard out

there in the rain. Mount and Elerson crept over to where we lay, and,

after a moment's conference, Murphy led us in a long circle, swinging

gradually northward until we stumbled into the drenched Palatine

regiment, which was still holding its ground. There was no firing on

either side; the guns were too wet.

On a wooded knoll to the left a group of dripping men had gathered.

Somebody said that the old General lay there, smoking and directing the

defence, his left leg shattered by a ball. I saw the blue smoke of his

pipe curling up under the tree, but I did not see him.

The wind had died out; the thunder rolled off to the northward,

muttering among the hills; rain fell less heavily; and I saw wounded men

tearing strips from their soaking shirts to bind their hurts. Details

from the Canajoharie regiment passed us searching the underbrush for

their dead.

I also noticed with a shudder that Elerson and Murphy carried two fresh

scalps apiece, tied to the belts of their hunting-shirts; but I said

nothing, having been warned by Jack Mount that they considered it their

prerogative to take the scalps of those who had failed to take theirs.

How they could do it I cannot understand, for I had once seen the body

of a scalped man, with the skin, released from the muscles of the

forehead, hanging all loose and wrinkled over the face.

With the ceasing of the rain came the renewed crack of the rifles and

the whiz of bullets. We took post on the extreme left, firing

deliberately at McCraw's renegades; and I do not know whether I hit any

or not, but five men did I see fall under the murderous aim of Murphy;

and I know that Elerson shot two savages, for he went down into the

ravine after them and returned with the wet, red trophies.

The sun was now shining again with a heat so fierce and intense that the

earth smoked vapor all around us. It was at this time that I,

personally, experienced the only close fighting of the day, which

brought a sudden end to this most amazing and bloody skirmish.

I had been lying full length behind a bush in the lines of the Palatine

regiment, eating a crust of bread; for that strange battle-hunger had

been gnawing at my vitals for an hour. Some of the men were eating, some

firing; the steaming heat almost suffocated me as I lay there, yet I

munched on, ravenous as a December wolf.

I heard somebody shout: "Here they come!" and, filling my mouth with

bread, I rose to my knees to see.

A body of troops in green uniforms came marching steadily towards us,

led by a red-coated officer on horseback; and all around me the

Palatines were springing to their feet, uttering cries of rage, cursing

the oncoming troops, and calling out to them by name.

For the detachment of Royal Greens which now advanced to the assault

was, it appeared, composed of old acquaintances and neighbors of the

Palatines, who had fled to join the Tories and Indians and now returned

to devastate their own county.

Lashed to ungovernable fury by the sight of these hated renegades, the

entire regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing

detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred

made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either

side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to

death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, rolling over the wet ground.

The tide had not yet struck us; we fired at their mounted officer, whom

Elerson declared he recognized as Major Watts, brother-in-law to Sir

John Johnson; and presently, as usual, Murphy hit him, so that the young

fellow dropped forward on his saddle and his horse ran away, flinging

him against a tree with a crash, doubtless breaking every bone in

his body.

Then, above the tumult, out of the north came booming three

cannon-shots, the signal from the fort that Herkimer had desired to

wait for.

A detachment from the Canajoharie regiment surged out of the woods with

a ringing cheer, pointing northward, where, across a clearing, a body of

troops were rapidly advancing from the direction of the fort.

"The sortie! The sortie!" shouted the soldiers, frantic with joy. Murphy

and I ran towards them; Elerson yelled: "Be careful! Look at their

uniforms! Don't go too close to them!"

"They're coming from the north!" bawled Mount. "They're our own people,

Dave! Come on!"

Captain Jacob Gardinier, with a dozen Caughnawaga men, had already

reached the advancing troops, when Murphy seized my arm and halted me,

crying out, "Those men are wearing their coats turned inside out!

They're Johnson's Greens!"

At the same instant I recognized Colonel John Butler as the officer

leading them; and he knew me and, without a word, fired his pistol at

me. We were so near them now that a Tory caught hold of Murphy and tried

to stab him, but the big Irishman kicked him headlong and rushed into

the mob, swinging his long hatchet, followed by Gardinier and his

Caughnawaga men, whom the treachery had transformed into demons.

In an instant all around me men were swaying, striking, shooting,

panting, locked in a deadly embrace. A sweating, red-faced soldier

closed with me; chin to chin, breast to breast we wrestled; and I shall

never forget the stifling struggle--every detail remains, his sunburned

face, wet with sweat and powder-smeared; his irregular teeth showing

when I got him by the throat, and the awful change that came over his

visage when Jack Mount shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the

struggling fellow and shot him through the stomach.

Freed from his death-grip, I stood breathing convulsively, hands

clinched, one foot on my fallen rifle. An Indian ran past me, chased by

Elerson and Murphy, but the savage dodged into the underbrush,

shrieking, "Oonah! Oonah! Oonah!" and Elerson came back, waving his

deer-hide cap.

Everywhere Tories, Royal Greens, and Indians were running into the

woods; the wailing cry, "Oonah! Oonah!" rose on all sides now.

Gardinier's Caughnawaga men were shooting rapidly; the Palatines, master

of their reeking brush-field, poured a heavy fire into the detachment of

retreating Greens, who finally broke and ran, dropping sack and rifle in

their flight, and leaving thirty of their dead under the feet of the

Palatines.

The soldiers of the Canajoharie regiment came up, swarming over a wooded

knoll on the right, only to halt and stand, silently leaning on

their rifles.

For the battle of Oriskany was over.

There was no cheering from the men of Tryon County. Their victory had

been too dearly bought; their losses too terrible; their triumph

sterile, for they could not now advance the crippled fragments of their

regiments and raise the siege in the face of St. Leger's regulars and

Walter Butler's Rangers.

Their combat with Johnson's Greens and Brant's Mohawks had been fought;

and, though masters of the field, they could do no more than hold their

ground. Perhaps the bitter knowledge that they must leave Stanwix to its

fate, and that, too, through their own disobedience, made the better

soldiers of them in time. But it was a hard and dreadful lesson; and I

saw men crying, faces hidden in their powder-blackened hands, as the

dying General was borne through the ranks, lying gray and motionless on

his hemlock litter.

And this is all that I myself witnessed of that shameful ambuscade and

murderous combat, fought some two miles north of the dirty camp, and now

known as the Battle of Oriskany.

That night we buried our dead; one hundred on the field where they had

fallen, two hundred and fifty in the burial trenches at

Oriskany--thirty-five wagon-loads in all. Scarcely an officer of rank

remained to lead the funeral march when the muffled drums of the

Palatines rolled at midnight, and the smoky torches moved, and the

dead-wagons rumbled on through the suffocating darkness of a starless

night. We had few wounded; we took no prisoners; Oriskany meant death.

We counted only thirty men disabled and some score missing.

"God grant the missing be safely dead," prayed our camp chaplain at the

burial trench. We knew what that meant; worse than dead were the

wretched men who had fallen alive into the hands of old John Butler and

his son, Walter, and that vicious drunkard, Barry St. Leger, who had

offered, over his own signature, two hundred and forty dollars a dozen

for prime Tryon County scalps.

I slept little that night, partly from the excitement of my first

serious combat, partly because of the terrible heat. Our outposts, now

painfully overzealous and alert, fired off their muskets at every

fancied sound or movement, and these continual alarms kept me awake,

though Mount and Murphy slept peacefully, and Elerson yawned on guard.

Towards sunrise rain fell heavily, but brought no relief from the heat;

the sun, a cherry-red ball, hung a hand's-breadth over the forests when

the curtain of rain faded away. The riflemen, curled up in the hay on

the barn floor, snored on, unconscious; the batt-horses crunched and

munched in the manger; flies whirled and swarmed over a wheelbarrow

piled full of dead soldier's shoes, which must to-day be distributed

among the living.

All the loathsome and filthy side of war seemed concentrated around the

barn-yard, where sleepy, unshaven, half-dressed soldiers were burning

the under-clothes of a man who had died of the black measles; while a

great, brawny fellow, naked to the waist and smeared from hair to ankles

with blood, butchered sheep, so that the army might eat that day.

The thick stench of the burning clothing, the odor of blood, the piteous

bleating of the doomed creatures sickened me; and I made my way out of

the barn and down to the river, where I stripped and waded out to wash

me and my clothes.

A Caughnawaga soldier gave me a bit of soap; and I spent the morning

there. By noon the fierce heat of the sun had dried my clothes; by two

o'clock our small scout of four left the Stanwix and Johnstown road and

struck out through the unbroken wilderness for German Flatts.