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A white man named John Butler is to command 'em." Paul shuddered. "I've heard of him," he said. "They called him 'Indian' Butler at Pittsburgh. He helped lead the Indians in that terrible battle of the Oriskany last year. And they say he's got a son, Walter Butler, who is as bad as he is, and there are other white leaders of the Indians, the Johnsons and Claus."
And he further said that Cherry Valley would not have been made such a shambles except that Colonel Clyde and Colonel Campbell lived there, who had done them so much injury at Oriskany.
The next morning they met a company of one of the regiments of General Herkimer who had gone in pursuit of Red Snout and his followers. Learning what had happened to that evil band and its leader the soldiers faced about and escorted Solomon and his party to Oriskany. Mrs. Scott and her child lived in the family of General Herkimer for a month or so.
In the face of overwhelming odds they gallantly stood their ground, until the enemy was alarmed by hearing firing in its rear, and drew off, leaving Herkimer's little band of heroes to retire unmolested from the field. The firing had been heard at Fort Stanwix, and the cause easily guessed. While the battle was raging at Oriskany, the garrison of the fort sallied out upon the besiegers' camps.
Leger's Indian scouts were more nimble than Herkimer's messengers, so that he obtained his information sooner than Gansevoort. An ambush was skilfully prepared by Brant in a ravine near Oriskany, and there, on the 6th of August, was fought the most desperate and murderous battle of the Revolutionary War.
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."
BRITISH. Bituminous schists of Gamrie, Caithness, etc., with numerous fish. BRITISH. Arbroath paving-stones, with Cephalaspis and Pterygotus. FOREIGN. Oriskany sandstone of Western Canada and New York. BRITISH. Upper Ludlow formation, Downton sandstone, with bone-bed. FOREIGN. Niagara limestone, with Calymene, Homalonotus, etc. BRITISH. Bala and Caradoc beds.
After two delightful days at home, General Schuyler suggested that they could do a great service by traversing the wilderness to the valley of the great river of the north, as far as possible toward Swegachie, and reporting their observations to Crown Point or Fort Edward, if there seemed to be occasion for it, and if not, they were to proceed to General Herkimer's camp at Oriskany and give him what help they could in protecting the settlers in the west.
He also described the fate of the Oriskany prisoners and some bateaux-men taken by Walter Butler's Rangers near Wood Creek; and I could scarcely endure to listen, so horrid were the details of our soldiers' common fate, where Mohawk and Tory, stripped and painted alike, conspired to invent atrocities undreamed of for their wretched victims.
He knew better now, he had long known better, ever since that dreadful battle in the dark defile of the Oriskany, when the Palatine Germans, with old Herkimer at their head, beat the Tories, the English, and the Iroquois, and made the taking of Burgoyne possible.
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