August Ambush at Chemung Recalled
By Ellsworth Cowles, Monday, August 13 1979
From
West Point on August 1, Gen. Washington informed John Sullivan al
Wilkes Barre that Mohawk Capt. Joseph Brant was "himself killed or
wounded (during his attack on Minissink). His party came from Chemung in
quest of provisions of which the Indians are in great want. At Chemung
were 2-300 warriors ...Chemung was appointed as the place where the
Indians and Tories intend to give you battle."
GENERAL Ill
On
Aug. 5, the same day that Tory Capt. John McDowell reported from Tioga
Point regarding the devastating incursion by his Rangers on Indians into
the Susquehanna River's West Branch Valley, General Sullivan's sluggish
army advancing about ten miles each day up the Susquehanna toward
Tioga, reached the abandoned Indian, Moravian mission, Tory town of
Wyaluslng. The general was illand was being cared for by a nurse on one
of the propelled boats.
Abandoning Tioga in such haste
that they left deerskin pallets and blankets at their camp, McDonell's
band left their West Branch prisoners and cattle at Chemung, when he
hurried north, reached Col.Butler's headquarters at Canadasaga
accompanied by wounded John Montour.
On Aug. 9, while
Col. Proctor destroyed Newtychanningo an Indian town of 22 new cabins.
Sulljvan's army moved on to the lower Sheshequin Flats. The next day the
general with his officers and two regiments searched the river as far
as Tioga Point for a place, choosing a spot 3 miles below the Point. On
the 11th,
ColoneJ Proctor landed artl11ery on the west bank and
fired a few cannon shots in the woods to forestall any Indian ambush.
The army then forded by platoons, each man holding onto a comrade as
they crossed from the east to the west of the swift armpit deep river at
Greens Landing, above the old Tory hamlet of Sheshequin.
Lieutenant
Barrrer and his horse were nearly lost as he rescued a floundering
soldier who had lost his footing in the deep water and was tumbling down
the rapids. There were several other close calls as his regiments of
infantry and riflemen, with one of artillery and the Wyoming militia,
300 frightened cattle and 1,200 laden pack horses waded or swam acrossed
the Fort Stanwix treaty line into Indian territory, three miles below
Tioga Point.
With the women and children :still in the
boats, the army then tramped through the high grass, hiding the year-old
ruin of Queen Esther Montour's Town with it's many various fruit trees
still standing. Indian graves were thick and bout 4 feet high. About 9
am with the powder horns lifted high on their bayonets, the Continentals
began fording the Chemung River to Tioga Point. This was familiar
ground to Lt John Jenkins who had guided Colonel Hartley's men to the
same spot in September. Drums were beating; fifes were playing, colors
flying. They were greeted by Captain Jeboiken, a Stockbridge Indian, and
4 scouts who had arrived the day before.
FEW RATIONS
The
men were hungry and would not eat until the next day, the ration boats
being slow on arriving. Several cattle had fallen from the narrow path
200 feet precipice at Break Beak Hill. Boatmen below butchered and
dressed them out. A number of soldiers were overcome by the heat. Time
was running out, if, as the British believed and General Washington had
hoped, Niagara was the target.
Meanwhile, Colonel
Butler recalled all available Tory rangers to Canadasaga and 300 Indians
bravely advanced to oppose Sullivan's invaders.
FORT STARVED
At
Tioga Point, while tents were being set up from river to river near a
line of camouflaged foxholes dug by the Indians or Tories Corps of
axmen, still wet from the river crossing, immediately began felling and
squaring timbers in the rain for the construction of Fort Sullivan
across the 300-foot-wide canoe carry at the narrow neck of land between
the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers, a mile and a half above their
landing point.
The fort was constructed as a
nearly-square stockade of pointed logs with a ditch on the outside and a
blockhouse at each corner, one blockhouse at each river bank and the
other two facing north and south straddling the Great Warrior path
through the Tioga water gap. The fort was built at Washington's
suggestion as a base of supplies and for the security of the Flying
Hospital, the women and children, the sick, the boatmen and their fleet.
Some of the men dug into the Indian graves looking for pipes, beads and
tomahawks.
That very night Captain Cummings with Lt.
John Jenkins of Hand's brigade as his guide, who had been a captive at
Chemung two years before went forward with the Oneida scout Hanyary ,
Capt. John Franklin and five riflemen, to reconnoiter the war town of
Chemung 12 miles above.
INDIANS SIGHTED
Lying
concealed on the crest of the high hill above McDowell's spring, they
looked down upon the Indian town and counted, as the fog lifted, the
number of fires below, estimated the number of huts and cabins, and
noted the general confusion among the enemy during the exodus of Tories
and Indians with their women and children carrying what they could, up
the trail I toward Chucknut and Newtown
McDonell's
captives from Fort Freeland, most of his cattle and the sick had already
been sent north to Canadasaga. Meanwhile Colonel Brodhead at Fort Pitt,
disregarding the latest orders from General Washington, moved north
from his base with a force of 650 men toward the Monsey, Mingo and
Seneca towns on the upper Allegheny and Genesee rivers. His supplies
moved by boats as the men. packhorses and cattle train went overland
guided by a dozen friendly Delawares. Although hopeful that he and
Sullivan would operate "In favor of each other' the year was half gone
and Brodhead doubted if there was enough time to form a useful
cooperation" against Fort Niagara.
SUPPLIES SHORT
At
the same time Colonel Butler at Canadasaga informed his son Captain
Walter, that all the Indians about Niagara had been ordered by their
chiefs to hurry down by forced marches, "night and day", to join him in
an attempt to stop Sullivan. Powder, shot al1 moccasins were in short
supply. John Secord, a Wyalusing Tory then at Niagara, was ordered to
bring packhorses carrying ammunition for the Rangers and Indians. Also
two gross of scalping knives and 50 pounds of war paint, to boost the
moral of the Indians.
About noon on August 13, General
Sullivan received Captain Cumming's report of what he and his scouts
had observed at Chemung. He examined two fresh scalps taken by the
Indians and found by one of the captain's men. Four hours later, after
ordering a gill of rum for each man, he, with most of his command,
carrying one day's cooked rations and Colonel Proctor's little cohom
quietly moved away from Fort Sullivan toward Chemung. General Hand's
riflemen were in the van, preceded by the Oneida scouts.
SLOW GOING
The
men spent most of the night in a slow advance along the old Forbidden
Path, hoping to surprise the enemy at Chemung. Often sitting down for
short periods and then moving only eight or ten yards
at a time
because of swamps narrow hillside paths and dark defiles, they advanced
but seven miles before break of down. The attackers then moved rapidly,
running the last mile in a heavy fog. Two regiments crossed the river to
prevent .Indians attempting to escape into the cornfields in that
direction, and also to enter the town from the west. Gen. Hand with the
light corps moved in front to attack "on the north of the town". The
third group led by General Poor rushed directly into the town with fixed
bayonets, from the south and east. They all entered at sunrise on Aug.
13, 200 years ago.
NO SURPRISE
There was no
surprise. Only a few Indian stragglers were observed moving out. General
Hand ordered the light infantry from General Hubley's regiment with
Captain Bush in command to hasten forward in pursuit on a trail which
led toward Chucknut and Newtown, about three miles west.
About
a mile beyond New Chemung, near where the path led along and between
high, forested "hog back" ridges, Captain Bush discovered a
hastily-abandoned Indian encampment where fires still burned, a dog lay
sleeping, and there were a number of deer skin pallets and several
blankets.
Informed of the discovery, he remainder of
the Light Corps, comprising two independent companies and Hubley's
regiment,!7moved forward preceded by Captain Walker and 24 riflemen. As
they again approached the Indian campfires, the apparently careless
advance guard was twice fired upon from ambush by the enemy rear guard,
composed of some 40 Monsey Delaware led by Capt. Roland Montour.
Recovering
from their surprise the riflemen then advanced rapidly in a flanking
movement as well as straight up the ridge in a bayonet charge which gave
no time for the Indians to again reload. The Delawares fell back and
scattered, taking one dead warrior and their wounded. Hearing the bells
of cattle ahead, Hubley's regiment attempted to pursue the enemy for
nearly a mile, advancing in eight columns to gain their rear, but
without success since most of the Indians took refuge in a nearby swamp.
TROOPS AMBUSHED
In the ambush, at the place
some called the "Hell Hole," General Hand lost seven men killed and 13
wounded, including four officers, Captains , John Franklin, Carbury and
Walker and Adjutant Houston.
Part of the losses, in spite of their
training as bush fighters, was due to their own crossfire in the half
light of the fog and the confusion during the short but deadly
engagement.
The contingent halted near the swamp,
where, on the arrival of Gen. Sullivan it was determined to proceed to
farther toward Newtown. Returning to Chemung they joined the main army
in turning the town into two great bonfires. In that 'pretty capital
place" they found quantities of striped linen nearly 300 dressed deer
and bear skins, brass kettles, pewter plates, knives, ladles and other
trade and household items. A considerable quantity of furniture was
found hidden in the woods.
New Chemung lay in two
parts, Upper and Lower Chemung, on the Rose Valley flats, just west of
the Chemung Narrows and Katydid Curve.
GROWING NEW CHEMUNG
The
town consisted of 40 or more sturdy log-and-frame houses, some of them
"very large and well furnished" split and hewn timbers and slabs, some
covered with bark, without chimneys or floors. There were also a number
of bark covered huts and two large public buildings. One was thought to
be a chapel or council house, containing "an Idol" and some painted
'feathers. The other may have been the trading post home of the
prominent Tory Warren.
Lieutenant Shute reported that
one cabin belonged to Esther Montour, sister of Catherine. On an early
English map in Corning's Ben Patterson Inn the town is shown not as
Chemung, but is named "Warrens."
CROPS DESTROYED
One
soldier was killed and three wounded by Indian marksmen as the army
destroyed some 40 acres of corn in the milk on both sides of the river.
They trampled large fields of beans, potatoes, squashes, cucumbers and
watermellons, "planted with as exactness as any farmer."
The
larger fields of corn were i believed to have been planted by Tories to
supply the British. The smaller ones were for the Indians. A few acres
bearing corn with ears ''as long as a man's forearm" were left standing
to augment army rations during the expected return of the army when it
marched to Newtown.
RIDE TO GRAVES
During the
march of the army from Chemung to Fort Sullivan the, eight dead officers
and soldiers were bound and braced stiffly upright on horses and thus
rode to their place of burial in unmarked grave near the Fort. It was
assumed that Indians watching from the hilltops along the route would
thus never know the number of casualties they had inflicted.
It
was near sundown when they arrived at their encampment. Most of them
had been without sleep for 36 hours and on active duty without
intermission for 23 hours. They returned without prisoners except for
several colts found corralled at Chemung. They also brought a number of
scalps taken by the Indians, found
cleaned, dressed and panted in the lodges at Chemung.
SMOULDERING RUINS
The
following day, Aug 14th, Joseph Brant and his band of raiders returned
to Chemung with their captives and a few cattle taken during their
successful attack at Minissink. They found nothing but a place .of
total, smoldering ruin and disorder. Limping from an ugly foot wound
taken near Minissink, Brant moved on and waited at Newtown for the
arrival of John and Walter Butler with their rangers. Sayenqueraghta
with the Senecas and Secord's packhorses with the munitions.
Soon
the warriors at Newtown numbered over 300 and seemed in high spirits,
confident that they could and would turn back Sullivan's invaders at
their next encounter. Joseph Brant, however, was "a little afraid of the
outcome.