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We are two of the three messengers who left camp at Oriskany to go to Fort Schuyler, and are now returnin'." "Returnin'?" the soldier said, for it was indeed one of General Herkimer's sentinels whom we had come upon. "It must please you to skulk around among the Tories and savages, if, after having once gained the fort, you come back."
If that had been done, he would have held the whole Hudson, separating the rest of the colonies from New England, and having it in his power to punish and subdue, first the Yankees, then the others at his leisure. Oriskany prevented this!
We had late dinner, I remember, at the house of stout old Peter Wormuth, near the Palatine church. Both he and his son Matthew a friend of mine from boyhood, who was to survive Oriskany only to be shot down near Cherry Valley next year by Joseph Brant had of course gone forward with the Palatine militia.
They were very docile and contrite and obedient now, explaining that it was a customary safeguard, as hanged men had been revived more than once a flimsy excuse, indeed! "Very well," I said; "your shots may draw McCraw's whole force down on us. But doubtless you know much more than your officers like the militia at Oriskany."
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.
"I have before me Colonel Visscher's partial report of the battle of Oriskany. Your name is not mentioned in this report, but, knowing you as I believe I do, I am satisfied that you did your full duty in that terrible affair; although, in your report to me by Oneida runner, you record the action as though you yourself were a mere spectator.
I had no more than time to tell my mother what I had seen, when my comrades were ready to set out for Oriskany Creek, counting to make their way over much the same ground we had just traversed.
That romance dealt with the first serious split in the Iroquois Confederacy; it showed the Long House shattered though not fallen; the demoralization and final flight of the great landed families who remained loyal to the British Crown; and it struck the key-note to the future attitude of the Iroquois toward the patriots of the frontier revenge for their losses at the battle of Oriskany and ended with the march of the militia and continental troops on Saratoga.
We forded the river at Fort Schuyler, just below where Utica now stands, and pushed slowly forward through the forest, over the rude and narrow road, to the Oneida village of Oriska, something to the east of the large creek which bears the name Oriskany.
The old man ceased speaking abruptly, turned about without word or sign, and plunged into the thicket, Jacob and I following close at his heels. On the Oriskany
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