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Updated: June 18, 2025
When we left the ravine in search of the lad, it was necessary we advance over much the same course as when we carried General Herkimer's message, and it was slightly in our favor that we knew fairly well at how great a distance from the general encampment of the enemy we must keep in order to avoid running into the Indians.
Then each of us got on his side of the house and went to reading. I never was as glad to see a ten-ounce nugget as I was that book. And Idaho took at his like a kid looks at a stick of candy. Mine was a little book about five by six inches called "Herkimer's Handbook of Indispensable Information." I may be wrong, but I think that was the greatest book that ever was written.
Almost at the beginning a ball shattered Herkimer's leg and killed his horse. But the stout old warrior refused to leave the field. He bade his men take the saddle from his horse and place it at the root of a great beech tree. Sitting there he directed the battle, shouting his orders in his quaint guttural English, and calmly smoking a pipe the while. They were the last orders he was to give.
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.
"Well, by Jove!" said Steingall, recovering first from the spell of the story, "doesn't that prove exactly what I said? They're jealous, they're all jealous, I tell you, jealous of everything you do. All they want us to do is to adore them. By Jove! Herkimer's right. Rantoul was the biggest of us all. She murdered him just as much as though she had put a knife in him."
So our own strange tragedy had, as I have said, scant attention. People listened to the recital, and made answer: "Both dead at the foot of the cliff, eh? Have you heard how William Seeber is to-day?" or "Is it true that Herkimer's leg must be cut off?"
And if you was to step inside you'd see on the marble-top centre table in the parlour "Herkimer's Handbook of Indispensable Information," all rebound in red morocco, and ready to be consulted on any subject pertaining to human happiness and wisdom.
And it was high time we had a breathing-spell. More than two hundred of General Herkimer's force lay dead among the trees, while even a larger number were so seriously wounded as to be unable to defend themselves, therefore it was impossible for us to act in concert with those who were making the sortie, and the commander issued orders to fall back.
It is my purpose to send Colonel Dayton to Johnstown with part of his regiment, to settle the thing once for all. He will have the aid of Herkimer's militia if he needs them, and will arrest Sir John, the leaders of his Scotch followers, and all others, tenants and gentlemen alike, whose freedom is a threat to the neighborhood. In short, he will stamp out the whole wasps nest.
"The morning was dark, sultry, and lowering. General Herkimer's troops, composed chiefly of the militia regiments of Colonels Cox, Paris, Visscher, and Klock, were quite undisciplined, and their order of march was irregular and without precaution.
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