I believe of a verity my company would have grumbled almost as loudly as had General Herkimer's men on the morning before the fight at Oriskany, had the old soldier taken station elsewhere, and yet it would have been but natural for him to go into the fight side by side with those of the garrison who were most experienced in warfare.

"This is worse than such an ambush as we fell into on the Oriskany.

They were met by the Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas, and British loyalists, lying in ambush on the banks of the Oriskany, eight miles from the fort.

The lines of the besiegers, which had been thinned by the forces sent to Oriskany, were carried, and the noise of firing and rumors of a reinforcement, animated the hearts of the indomitable men of that day.

Ch. 15.52 Oriskany.

The ambuscade of Oriskany, where Sir John Johnson's men first met their Whig neighbours and relatives, who were defending Fort Stanwix, was one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

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.

XVIII ORISKANY It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which, after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.

XVIII ORISKANY It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which, after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.

So, as I do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of that sad and unnecessary tragedy.

I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear.

For the battle of Oriskany was over.

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.

We had few wounded; we took no prisoners; Oriskany meant death.

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.

"General Arnold has despatches for you, Captain Ormond," he said; "I am Drummond, Brigade Major; we expected you at Varick Manor on the ninthyou wrote to your cousin, Miss Varick, from Oriskany, you know.

They called him a coward the morning of Oriskany.

Colonel Visscher's partial report of the battle of Oriskany.

It was undated: "DEAREST,Your letter from Oriskany is before me.

"They tell me that you have been made colonel of a regiment, and the honor thrills yet saddens meall those colonels killed at Oriskany!

Then came the terrible news from Oriskany!

"And other scouts from the northwest say that St. Leger can scarce hold the Senecas to the siege of Stanwix because of their great loss at Oriskany, which they are inclined to attribute to spells cast by their enemies, who enjoy the protection of the Stonish Giants.

But doubtless you know much more than your officerslike the militia at Oriskany.

We wish to see how the Oriskany man can die!" Dragged, pulled from one to another, I scarcely felt their clutch; I scarcely felt the furtive blows that fell on me.

I did nothing; the confederacy was split by Magdalen Brant, not by me; I did nothing at Oriskany; I cannot understand how General Schuyler should think me deserving of such promotion.