Three Rivers
Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie
History From America's Most Famous Valleys

The Mohawk Valley and the American Revolution
Published by the State of New York
Nelson A. Rockefeller, Governor
Parks and Recreation
Alexander Aldrich, Commissioner
Historic Trust, Louis C. Jones, Chairman
Albany, NY 1972

The Campaign of 1777

<- Joseph Brant (1742-1807) painted by Ezra Ames about 1806. Brant, who had served as Sir William Johnson's secretary, was a respected leader of the Mohawks. Following the Revolution, he devoted himself to improving their social and economic condition in Canada. (New York State Historical Association).

Johnson, Butler and Brant played prominent parts in the historic Campaign of 1777 when British strategists planned an invasion to capture control of New York, thereby separating New England from the Middle Atlantic and Southern states and, thus, they hoped, ending the Revolution. In the plan, the main force under General John Burgoyne would descend the Hudson, via Lake Champlain, from Montreal, with a second, under General William Howe to strike north from New York City. A third force under Lieutenant Colonel Barry St. Leger would head east from Oswego by way of the Mohawk Valley. The three forces, it was expected, would unite in Albany and would control the State's strategic waterways and, therefore, the adjoining land area.

The proposal, while sound on paper, never succeeded as the British had anticipated. Howe failed to receive orders to move north and instead set sail for Philadelphia. Burgoyne advanced as far south as Saratoga (Schuylerville) where his forces were routed, he was captured and the grand strategy of the British command collapsed.

In the Mohawk Valley phase of the campaign, Sir John Johnson was second in command to St. Leger, Colonel John Butler headed loyalist contingents, and Joseph Brant was in charge of the Indians. They found their entrance into the Valley unexpectedly blocked by Fort Stanwix, the dirt and wood fortification the British had erected during the French and Indian War. General Philip Schuyler, of Albany, had urged American authorities to repair the strategic post, which had deteriorated after French threats ended. Following a year of effort, it was rebuilt and renamed Fort Schuyler in the General's honor, but use of the old title persisted. (Another Fort Schuyler was located on the site of the future city of Utica, but played a less conspicuous role in these events.) When St. Leger confidently started the assault, Colonel Peter Gansevoort, also of Albany, commanded the resolute Fort Stanwix garrison.

News of the invading army spread quickly throughout the Mohawk Valley and caused considerable alarm in the frontier settlements. General Nicholas Herkimer, commander of the local militia, summoned all able males between the ages of 16 to 60 to assemble at Fort Dayton (in the center of what came to be the community of Herkimer) to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix. Herkimer was the son of a Palatine German who had prospered after settling near German Flatts. He too, prospered as a trader and as a farmer on a 500 acre tract that his father had given him, located below the present Little Falls. About 1752, he erected on his tract a dwelling that, in 1764, he rebuilt or enlarged into a handsome brick house. As the most prominent person of the upper Mohawk Valley, Herkimer directed the Tryon County Committee of Safety and became Brigadier General of the county militia.

Herkimer and his militia men, numbering about 800, marched to relieve Fort Stanwix, never suspecting their fate. That fate struck on the morning of August 6, 1777, at a marshy ravine, south of the Mohawk and west of a place called Oriskany. There the Tryon County Patriots marched into an ambush of British regulars, Tories and Indians. Sir John Johnson and his followers, after learning of Herkimer's relief column, moved away from Fort Stanwix and carefully concealed themselves in the woods surrounding the ravine. When the inexperienced militia advanced up the ravine side, the enemy sprang the trap and fired on the American from all sides.

A fierce battle soon raged as Patriots fought Indians and former neighbors. They used musket butts, hatchets, knives, spontoons and bayonets in hand-to-hand combat. During the heat of the battle, a group of Fort Stanwix defenders made a sortie on St. Leger's camp and captured wagon loads of valuable supplies they hauled into the fort.

At the start of the encounter, Herkimer was shot in the leg, but he sat on a log, with his sword drawn, and continued to give orders and encourage his men. The Americans, who suffered heavily, held their ground. British regulars, the King's Royal Regiment and the other Loyalist forces also sustained many causalities. In proportion to the numbers engaged, no other battle of the Revolution exceeded the casualties at Oriskany.

<- This famous painting by Frederick C. Yohn dramatically depicts the wounded Nicholas Herkimer directing his forces at the BATTLE OF ORISKANY (Utica Public Library and National Geographic Society)

BTW, the painting has the wrong leg showing as wounded. ajb

Brant's Indians, discouraged by their losses and by the continuing battle, decided to retreat. The battered British soldiers withdrew toward Fort Stanwix to resume the siege wile the shattered American troops returned to Fort Dayton. General Herkimer was carried down the Valley on a litter to his home where, following the amputation of his wounded leg, he died 11 days after the historic battle.

Shortly after the Battle of Oriskany, "Young" Walter Butler made a rash move to recruit Loyalist supporters. He delivered his appeal in the Shoemaker Tavern, a two-story frame structure with a hipped roof erected in the early 1770's in the future community of Mohawk. Troops at nearby Fort Dayton learned of his presence in the tavern, surrounded the place and captured him. Following his trial as a spy, Butler was imprisoned in Albany but escaped to lead later depredations in the Valley.

Miles away from these events, at the eastern end of the Mohawk, where Cohoes is now located, plans had been made to provide additional assistance to end the siege of Fort Stanwix. The brick house of unusual design that Wessel Van Schaick had built in the 1750's was again being used as headquarters for the military as it had been during the French and Indian War. Here General Schuyler turned over command of the Northern Army to General Horatio Gates in advance of the campaign to repel Burgoyne's invasion. And from the camp area adjoining Van Schaick's mansion, Benedict Arnold set out to relieve Gansevoort and his beleaguered garrison.

Exaggerated reports of the size of Arnold's expedition dismayed St. Leger's supporters, particularly the Indians who wearied of continuing the indecisive assault. Ignoring St. Leger's pleas, they vanished into the woodlands. St. Leger had no choice but to end the siege and retreat to Canada. Fort Stanwix, destroyed in an accidental fire, was abandoned in 1781, and most of its remains had disappeared by the middle of the 19th century as the city of Rome grew around the location of the former fort.

British plans to march through the Valley had failed. Arnold and Patriots from along the Mohawk were free to join the forces opposing Burgoyne. The Battle of Oriskany was a vital element in events of the year constituting a turning point in the War for Independence.

Above: Grider's 1895 view of GENERAL NICHOLAS HERKIMER'S RESIDENCE.

Mohawk Valley in The Revolution

 

 

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