Revolution Song

by Russell Shorto

  It was a long trek—about 100 miles—but a great many Senecas went, including many women, who understood that something important was in the offing and wanted to have their say. Even before they reached the site, they knew the British had chosen an atmospheric location. The name in Iroquois meant “flowing out”; it referred to the spot where the Oswego River emptied into Lake Ontario. Here, atop high bluffs, the British had constructed a fort. They would deliberate while looking out across the endless water of the great lake, beyond which, Cornplanter knew, lay the expanses of forest that were home to the Algonquin and Huron peoples, against whom, generations earlier, Iroquois warriors had fought brutal territorial wars.

  The women in particular had been worried that the British might have lured them into a trap of some kind, so there was some fear when British officers in their red uniforms appeared. They seemed friendly, however. And they offered rum. Indeed, there was “a flood of rum,” as it seemed to Cornplanter’s sixteen-year-old nephew. The British rolled out barrels of it, more than anyone had ever seen. Then came cows, and barrels of flour, and other presents. People were impressed. Was Britain, they wondered, really so great that it could bestow such a plenitude of gifts? For three days the Iroquois relaxed and talked and celebrated with those from distant villages.

  On the fourth day, after breakfast, the council began with the British commissioner asking whether all six nations were represented by chiefs. Red Jacket, of the Senecas, answered that all were present but that the Onondagas had not sent a chief. “But we are ready to hear your proceeding,” he said.

  The commissioner—whose name was not recorded—wove his remarks around the theme of fathers and children. He had been sent, he said, by “the father . . . the King of England” with a subject of “the greatest importance to be communicated to the red bretheren.” The Americans, he said, were “children” of England, and they had become disobedient, and needed to be punished. The father, he said, “wants you all, the Six Nations and other Indian nations, to turn out and join with him and give the Americans a dressing and punishment for their disobedience and for violating his laws.” The commissioner promised to provide “all the necessary war utensils, guns and powder and lead and tomahawks and sharp edges and provisions and rations.” Referring to King George as having a familial authority over the Iroquois, he declared, “Your father offers you to take his axe and tomahawk and hold it against the Americans.” Then, apparently holding a blade aloft for drama, he added: “Here is the butcher knife that you will also use to take American locks and scalps. Our father will pay for each scalp.”

  The council adjourned, and the Iroquois gathered to deliberate. First to speak was the Mohawk Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brant, who had recently returned from meeting with George Germain and others in London. Brant was about Cornplanter’s age and, like him, was not a hereditary chief but had risen to prominence through his leadership in battle. A rivalry of sorts had been developing between the two Iroquois leaders. Just as the Senecas historically had the most distant relationship with the British, the Mohawks, the easternmost nation, had had the closest dealings, first with the Dutch and then with the English. Brant’s time in England had convinced him of the country’s overwhelming superiority. Philadelphia, the great American city, was a mere village compared to the incomprehensibly vast metropolis of London. The British, he felt certain, would conquer the Americans in this war, and the Iroquois needed to align themselves with the victors. “The king of Great Britain is the father,” he proclaimed. If the Iroquois were to do nothing, to appear to be “sleeping” during the fighting, “then woe for all of us because there will be no peace for us.” He urged the Iroquois to “take up the offer by the red coat man.” After the war, he believed, the British would treat the Iroquois well.

  As the emerging leader of the easternmost nation of the confederacy finished, his opposite, Cornplanter of the Senecas, rose. He knew his people well. He knew that young men such as Thayendanegea were eager to prove their manhood. He knew that decisions made out of bravado often led to years of pain and suffering. By now Cornplanter had developed dual reputations, as a fighter and a sage. The people listened carefully to him. “Warriors,” he said, “you must all mark and listen. War is war. Death is death. A fight is a hard business.” He reminded everyone of the meeting with the Americans at German Flatts, where General Schuyler had asked them to remain neutral, and they had agreed. He said the affairs between the Americans and British were filled with complications that “we, the Indian nations of several different parts of this continent,” simply did not understand, and concluded, “We are liable to make a mistake.” He asked that they hear more from the British commissioner. He warned them that they were “very apt to be deceived.”

  He hadn’t even finished before Brant was on his feet again. “Nephew!” he cried at Cornplanter. It might have been an ordinary form of address if they had been of different generations, but since they were close to the same age, it rang as an insult. “Stop speaking! You are a very cowardly man. It is hardly worth taking notice of what you have said. You have shown your cowardice.”

  There were hundreds of Iroquois at the gathering, and after Cornplanter and Joseph Brant had stated their positions, they quickly fell into two camps, arguing their positions all through the next day.

  When the British commissioner reconvened the council, it was with a dramatic flourish: “Brothers, our father in old England loves you as well as the white people, because he believes we are one.” He let that sink in, then reiterated: the king’s American children were disobedient and he was in the process of disciplining them; he wanted the Iroquois to assist. Then came the kind of coaxing that George Germain had been pushing for. “Come, go along with the father, and he will give you all you want,” he said. “Your children and women shall not suffer.” The Americans “are poor, and the father is very rich.” He exhorted them: “Take up the hatchet and sharp edge and paint against the enemy.” He promised to fulfill all their needs: “Eat and drink and ware and money.”

  Still, after the second session the Iroquois remained divided, and continued to discuss for another day and a half. Then a ship arrived, and it swayed the deliberation. The British soldiers commenced to offload and distribute a procession of gifts. The money that George Germain had earmarked for wooing the Indians had been carefully spent. Each one of the hundreds of Iroquois present received, as one participant recalled, “a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun and tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quantity of powder and lead [and] a piece of gold.” There were many other interesting items, such as “jingling bells” and ostritch feathers, which delighted the women and girls. The Iroquois people, Cornplanter’s nephew said, “never did see” such quantities of fine goods. Finally, the commissioner produced two ancient belts of wampum, one of twenty rows, which he said represented the old covenant between the Iroquois Confederacy and Great Britain.

  The Iroquois regathered. Once again, Cornplanter voiced his opposition to entering the war on either side.

  By now, however, Governor Blacksnake believed that the women had been swayed to the British side. They liked the baubles, but they were entranced by the household goods. A brass kettle, they knew, could enrich life for a whole longhouse, an entire extended family, and be passed down to the children and grandchildren. More to the point, however, was the covenant chain, the alliance the Iroquois had made with the British long before. The Iroquois agreed to fight with the British.

  Cornplanter rose to speak. He did not believe in the wisdom of entering the fight, but, his people having decided on it, he made plain his intention not only to follow the general will but to lead in this war. He understood that it would be different from all other wars they had engaged in, with greater consequences. This was not about America or Britain. It was about Iroquois freedom, his people and their way of life. Now that they had committed themselves, the Iroquois would have to put everything into the fight. “Every brave man must show himself now,” he declared. �
�Hereafter, we will find many dangerous times. During the actions of the war we will see many a brave man among the American soldiers we meet. Therefore I say you must stand like a good warrior against your white brother, because as soon as he finds out that you are against him he will show no mercy. I say, therefore, stand your post.”

  Joseph Brant was pleased. “I suppose our minds are all settled,” he said. When they met for the last time with the British commissioner, Brant informed him the Iroquois would “turn out and fight for the king.” Then he asked what would be the first objective.

  The commissioner thanked the Iroquois and proposed that “we will firstly go to dinner and drink rum and sugar.” There followed a night of happy excess. The next day, the commissioner announced the battle plan. First they would attack Fort Stanwix, to the east. After that, they would swing south and wreak terror on rebel strongholds in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley. The Iroquois were to be part of the campaign of Barry St. Leger, which George Germain had set in motion as a diversion from the main British force under Burgoyne in the Hudson Valley. But to the Iroquois the commissioner presented the campaign they would participate in as the central fight, a potentially fatal blow. They would rain down lethality and ruin on the American outposts. British soldiers and Iroquois fighters, side by side, would bring blood and suffering. “When we do these things,” he said warmly, “the Americans may reconsider and surrender all at once.”

  Ten o’clock in the morning, June 25, 1777: two men and a dog slipped out of Fort Stanwix for a morning’s bird hunt. It wasn’t much of a fort. Actually, it wasn’t even called Stanwix anymore. The American forces manning it had renamed it Fort Schuyler, after the general in charge of the north. Like Fort Pitt at the Forks of the Ohio, it had been built during the French and Indian War to take advantage of a strategic intersection of waterways. When an advance party of Seneca fighters reached it, what they saw was essentially a ruin. The pickets had rotted away; supporting timbers lay akimbo; a relic of a drawbridge stood devoid of purpose, as the moat that had once existed was no more. There were 550 American militiamen inside, trying to figure out how to make it a defensive structure once again.

  The Indians, hidden among the trees, watched the two men head out, saw their rifles, and surmised their task. They let them walk a mile or so from the fort. Then two of them followed.

  That afternoon, the search party sent out to look for the men—which was led to the scene by the dog—found both shot, scalped and, for good measure, chunked in the head with tomahawks. Remarkably, one, Captain Gregg, was still alive. The officer in charge of the fort, militia colonel Peter Gansevoort, who was not yet used to war, let alone Iroquois fright tactics, scribbled a frantic note to General Schuyler to let him know that the Iroquois had sided with the British and were massing. Of the man lying before him, caked in gore, he added, “Gregg is perfectly in his senses, and speaks strong and hearty, notwithstanding that his recovery is doubtful.”

  Colonel Gansevoort was right in thinking the enemy was approaching. As he wrote, 2,000 men, under Barry St. Leger, were marching toward him. About half were Iroquois; the rest included American loyalists, Canadians, and a contingent of German mercenaries. Cornplanter, Joseph Brant and the other Iroquois who had been at Oswego led, walking in five widely spaced columns through woods and meadows. Iroquois fighters also wrapped around to flank the main body of soldiers.

  The army arrived at the fort and commenced a siege. Weeks went by; the trapped militiamen ran low on food. They sent out parties to cut down trees to build up the walls of the fort, but even though the parties were accompanied by armed guards, they were attacked by Iroquois raiders. On August 3, St. Leger sent a messenger into the fort with terms of surrender. They were rejected. Some reinforcements had arrived, emboldening the Americans. With the reinforcements had come news. Eight weeks earlier, the Congress had authorized a flag for the new country. The militiamen tore strips of red, white and blue fabric, stitched them together and raised the hodgepodge on a pole, in what would apparently be the first time the young country’s flag would fly in battle.

  The initial response to the defiance within the fort came from the Iroquois. Evening fell, and as the light faded from the sky, one officer recorded the sensation of fear that gripped his men: “the Indians, who were at least one thousand in number, spread themselves through the woods, completely encircling the fort, and commenced a terrible yelling, which was continued at intervals the greater part of the night.”

  Meanwhile, people throughout the county had observed the advance of St. Leger’s army toward the fort. At Fort Dayton, 25 miles to the east, a militia leader named Nicholas Herkimer rustled up 800 men to march to its rescue. Ten miles from the destination, near an Oneida village called Oriska, the path through the forest narrowed and crossed a ravine. A group of 400 Iroquois, with Brant in the lead, formed a semicircle around the ravine. They were primed for battle, faces painted, many of them stark naked. Once Herkimer’s men had clambered down the banks, the Iroquois closed the circle and let out their warbling cries. Rifle cracks sounded, and the men in the front and rear fell. Herkimer’s horse was shot, and as it fell it crushed his leg. Musket balls and arrows whirred. Iroquois fighters charged forward to tomahawk fallen men. Herkimer’s soldiers propped him against a tree and from here, despite a wound from which he would later die, he shouted orders. The Americans pulled themselves into a circle and returned fire. But the Iroquois were relentless. Knowing that after a man fired it took at least twenty seconds to reload, they would rush a soldier whose musket had discharged and hack him to death. The ravine was filling with gore. But before the end came, the Americans were saved by a sudden, savage summer storm. For the next hour the rain fell so hard it forced all sides to stop. When the storm ended, the Americans had regrouped, and the fighting began again, now at close quarters. Men lunged at one another with bayonets and spears and the butts of their muskets. Now that they were so close, many of the loyalists and revolutionaries, who were all from the same region, recognized each other—cousins, neighbors, former friends—and the killing and mauling became personal. A scout who returned to the scene several days after the battle found the bodies of “the Indians and white men were mingled with one another, just as they had been left when death had first completed his work.” What would later be referred to as one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution, both for its savagery and the percentage of casualties, ended inconclusively. The Americans held the fort, which blocked St. Leger from continuing down the Mohawk Valley and meeting up with General Burgoyne. But the Iroquois lost only about 50 men, while a participant at the battle reported that upwards of 500 of the 800 Americans had died.

  Eventually, Cornplanter and his Senecas, bodies streaked with blood, made their way back to their camp, carrying the injured. There, they received possibly the biggest shock of the day. While they were ambushing Herkimer’s party of reinforcements, men had slipped out of Fort Schuyler, found their camp, and taken everything. The Indians were left with nothing to eat, nothing to sleep on and, since they had stripped for battle, nothing even to cover themselves with. They normally traveled with medicine packs, which, after the hard fight, they had been desperate to get to. These included such things as a concoction of dried and powdered herbs, tree parts and animal hearts, which their healers combined with spittle and applied to gunshot wounds. These were taken; the survivors would have to go without. Maybe most forboding of all, their charms, the mystic connectors to the supernatural arena, were gone as well. It was surely a foul omen.

  Two weeks after the battle, George Washington, huddled in the temporary refuge of a stone farmhouse in Pennsylvania, opened a letter from Philip Schuyler. The general in command of the north gave him a lengthy (and largely inaccurate) report about what had transpired near the fort that had been named after him. He concluded with a seemingly offhand observation: “General Burgoyne is advanced to Saratoga, seventeen miles from hence.”

  Washington had been keenly follow
ing news of Burgoyne. Mostly, however, he was obsessing over the thrusts, parries and feints of the enemy general closer to hand, William Howe. Howe had established a base in New Brunswick, New Jersey, so Washington had made his camp in Middlebrook, 10 miles to the east. In late June, Howe abruptly moved several thousand troops westward, causing Washington to believe he was marching on Philadelphia, so he alerted the militia in the area and began to muster his forces. But then Howe’s army doubled back and settled in at Amboy. Several days later, the British lines suddenly pushed forward again, so quickly that this time Washington thought they were making a charge directly at his camp. But the British looped back to the same base once again. Washington confessed that he was “much at a loss to account for these strange Maneuvers,” which were meant to confound him, and did. He spent much of the summer marching his own army around New Jersey and southeastern Pennsylvania on a series of fruitless pursuits.

  Then came yet another surprise: he received word that Howe’s entire army had marched back to Staten Island and from there loaded itself into ships. Washington was thrown into a different kind of quandary. Where would his nemesis sail to? He could be making for an invasion of Philadelphia. But he might also be heading north, to rendezvous with Burgoyne’s army. “I am yet perplexed to find out the real intentions of the Enemy,” Washington wrote on July 4, the first anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He tried to cover both eventualities, sending one division northward and keeping the rest of his army, with himself at their head, in the south.

  Finally, four weeks later, the British ships were spotted in the Delaware River; Howe, Washington now knew, would move to take Philadelphia. At the same time, with an exercise of great intuitive insight, Washington dismissed the notion that Burgoyne’s presence in the north was a mere distraction: “One Reason operates strongly against this, in my opinion, and that is, that a Man of General Burgoyne’s Spirit & Enterprize would never have returned from England, merely to execute a plan, from which no great Credit or Honor was to be derived.”