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Where was Sir John's pitifully youthful and unfortunate lady, and her handsome brother, crippled at Oriskany, and the gentle, dark-eyed sister of Walter Butler, and his haughty mother? All either dead or prisoners, or homeless refugees, or exiles living on the scant bounty of the Government they had suffered for so loyally.
"This lad an' I," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, after attracting the attention of all within sound of his voice, "have within a short time seen just such scoundrelly curs as you are provin' yourselves to be. We have heard them cry out against a commander who was fitted to lead brave men, and their blood is not yet dry on the banks of the Oriskany.
In 1784 he became partner with George Clinton in some land purchases in the State of New York with the expectation of buying the "mineral springs at Saratoga; and ... the Oriskany tract, on which Fort Schuyler stands." In this they were disappointed, but six thousand acres in the Mohawk valley were obtained "amazingly cheap."
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.
Joe put his hand for a second on my shoulder and then turned away, talking with his eyes fixed out the window in the direction of the Grass. "General Herkimer had both legs shot off at the battle of Oriskany. He made his men put his back to a treestump and with a flintlock rifle fired at the enemy until he bled to death. Commodore Lawrence, mortally wounded, had only one order.
Fortunately we did not come face to face with the redskins, therefore a detailed story of our march would be dull reading, for it could only be the same thing over and over again until the hour arrived when we entered General Herkimer's camp on the Oriskany, receiving there such a greeting from the commander himself as caused me to believe he really needed us for some important task.
"Who are you, and where did you come from?" a voice asked, and Sergeant Corney took it upon himself, much to my relief, to act as spokesman. "Messengers sent by General Herkimer, who have come from Oriskany." "When did you leave there?" "Yesterday." "We thought the woods were overrun with Indians and Tories."
About ten o'clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the Johnstown road, marching noisily north towards Whitestown, and learned that General Herkimer's brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet called Oriska, only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix, and a little to the east of Oriskany creek.
Leger received information of the approach of Herkimer, and placed a large body consisting of the "Johnson Greens," and Brant's Indians in ambush near Oriskany, on the road by which he was to advance. Herkimer fell into the snare.
"Tell him that within five minutes after giving the signal we will make a sortie from the main gate in the direction of Oriskany." "An' if it should be that we didn't get through alive?" Sergeant Corney said as if to himself, and the commandant replied, quickly: "In such case, without means of knowing what has happened to you, we shall make the sortie and shed much blood uselessly.
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