CHAP. XXXIII. A MARAUDING EXPEDITION. 1015 destroyed Fairfield on the 8th, and plundered and burned Norwalk on the 12th. Not content with this wanton destruction of property, the invaders cruelly abused the defenceless inhabitants. The soldiery were given free license to oppress the people, Tryon encouraging instead of restraining them in their horrid work. The Hessians were his incendiaries. To them he entrusted the operation of the torch and the most brutal acts, which British scene. soldiers would not perform. Whilst Norwalk was in flames, Tryon sat in a rocking-chair upon a hill in the neighborhood, a delighted spectator of the Nero fiddled while Rome was burning; this puny imitator of the emperor made merry over the conflagration of a defenceless town inhabited by people of his own nation. In allusion to this and kindred expeditions, Trumbull, in his McFingal, makes Malcolm say: "Behold like whelps of British lion, Our warriors, Clinton, Vaughan and Tryon, March forth with patriotic joy To ravish, plunder and destroy. Great gen'rals, foremost in their nation, The journeymen of Desolation! Like Sampson's foxes, each assails, When Tryon (whom the English people abhorred for his wrong doings in America) had completed the destruction of these pleasant New England villages, he boasted of his extreme clemency in leaving a single house standing on the coast of Connecticut. The Americans, meanwhile, were preparing to strike the British heavy and unexpected blows. The brave and impetuous General Wayne was then in command of infantry in the Hudson Highlands. Washington was at New Windsor just above them. Wayne proposed to surprise the garrison at Stony Point, and take the fort by storm. "Can you do it?" asked Washington. "I'll storm hell, if you'll only plan it, general," replied Wayne. Washington consented to let him try Stony Point first; and on the evening of the 15th of July, Wayne was within half a mile of the bold, rocky promontory with a few hundred men whom he had led secretly through the mountains, from near Fort Montgomery. As stealthily they approached the fort at midnight, arranged in two columns, a greater part of the little force crossed a narrow causeway over a morass, in the rear, and with unloaded muskets and fixed bayonets, marched up to the assault. A forlorn hope of picked men led the way to make openings in the abatis at the two points of attack. The alarmed sentinels fired their muskets, and the aroused garrison flew to arms. The stillness of the night was suddenly broken by the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon from the ramparts. In the face of a terrible storm of bullets and grape-shot, the assailants forced their way into the fort at the point of the bayonet. Wayne, who led one of the divisions in person, had been brought to his knees by a stunning blow from a musket-ball that grazed his head. Believing himself to be mortally wounded, he exclaimed: "March on! carry me into the fort, for I will die at the head of my column!" He soon recovered, and at two o'clock in the morning, he wrote to Washington: "The fort and garrison, with General Johnston, are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men determined to be free." In this assault, the Americans lost about one hundred men ; fifteen killed and the remainder wounded. The British had sixty-three killed; and Johnston, the commander, and five hundred and forty-three officers and men, were made prisoners. The British ships lying in the river near by, slipped their cables and moved down the stream. The Americans attempted to recapture Fort Fayette, on Verplanck's Point opposite, but failed. They removed the heavy ordnance and the stores from Stony Point to West Point, CHAP. XXXIII. BRAVE EXPLOIT OF LEE'S LEGION. 1017 for the republicans were not strong enough to garrison and hold it, and abandoning the post it was repossessed by the British a few days afterward. The Congress awarded a gold medal to Wayne, and a silver medal each to Colonels De Fleury and Stewart, the leaders of the two main divisions, for their gallantry on this occasion. This brilliant victory-one of the most brilliant of the war-was followed by another bold exploit a month later. The British had a fortified post at Paulus's Hook (now Jersey City) opposite New York. Between three and four o'clock on the morning of the 19th of August (1779), its garrison was surprised by Major Henry Lee, who had come from the rear of Hoboken with three hundred picked men, followed by Lord Stirling with a strong reserve force. The British garrison, unsuspicious of danger near, were careless. Lee entered the loosely-barred gate of the outer works, and gained the interior of the main intrenchments before he was discovered, the sentinels being absent or asleep. He captured one hundred and fifty-nine of the garrison. The redoubt, in which the remainder had taken refuge, was too strong to be affected by small arms, and as he was without cannon, Lee retreated, bearing away his scores of captives. For this exploit the Congress honored him with a vote of thanks and a gold medal. In this expedition, Lee had only two men killed and three wounded. These events elated the Americans. A sad one in the far east lessened their joy. Massachusetts had fitted out about forty war-vessels and transports to convey almost a thousand men to attempt the capture of a British fort at Castine, at the mouth of the Penobscot River. They arrived on the 25th of July, and landed on the 28th. Too weak to take the fort by storm, they waited more than a fortnight for reinforcements. Meanwhile Sir George Collier sailed into the Penobscot with a British squadron, just as the republicans were about to assail the fort (August 14), and attacked the American flotilla. He captured two war-vessels, when the rest, with the transports, fled up the river, and were burned by their crews. Sir George took many of the soldiers and sailors prisoners, and drove the remainder into the wild forests, where they suffered intensely while making their way back to Boston. The survivors reached that town toward the close of September. The atrocities of the Indians in the valley of Wyoming and around the headwaters of the Susquehanna in the summer and autumn of 1778, kindled the hottest indignation of the American people, and it was determined by the Congress to chastise the savages who committed the murderous deeds, especially the Senecas. In the summer of 1779, Washington sent General Sullivan, with a little army of Continental troops, into the heart of the country of the Six Nations, all of whom, excepting the Oneidas, had been won over to the royal cause by the Johnsons and other British emissaries. Sullivan gathered his troops in the Wyoming Valley, and with these, three thousand strong, he marched up the Susquehanna on the last day of July. On the 22d of August he was joined, at Tioga Point, by General James Clinton, who had come from the Mohawk Valley with about fifteen hundred men. Meanwhile there had been hostilities in the wilderness. In April several hundred soldiers, led by Colonels Van Schaick and Willett, had penetrated the Onondaga country from Fort Schuyler, destroyed three villages, burned the provisions of the inhabitants, and slaughtered their live-stock. Three hundred Onondaga braves were immediately sent out upon the warpath charged with the vengeance of the nation. They spread terror and desolation far and near, in conjunction with other savages. They pushed down to the waters of the Delaware and the borders of Ulster county. In July, Brant, with Indians and Tories, fell upon and devastated the settlement of Minnisink in the night. Growing crops were destroyed, and cattle and other plunder were carried away. One hundred and fifty militia and volunteers went in pursuit, when, on the 22d of July, the savages turned upon them. A severe conflict ensued; the republicans were beaten, surrounded, and murdered after they were made prisoners. Only thirty of the patriotic pursuers survived to tell the dreadful story. These events gave strength to the courage of Sullivan's men. The forces of Sullivan and Clinton, at Tioga Point, numbered five thousand men. They moved cautiously, and on the morning of the 29th, dis CHAP. XXXIII. DESOLATION OF THE SENECA COUNTRY. 1019 persed a party of eight hundred Indians and Tories strongly fortified at Chemung, now Elmira. Brant was at the head of the Indians, and Sir John Johnson, with the Butlers and Captain McDonald, led the Tories. The fight was severe. Sullivan's army rested on the battle-ground that night, and the next morning pushed on in pursuit of the fugitives. That pursuit was quick and sharp. A part of the army penetrated the wilderness to the Genesee Valley, and a part to Cayuga Lake. In the course of three weeks, they destroyed forty-three Indian villages, with a vast amount of food in fields, gardens, and garrisons-one hundred and sixty thousand bushels of corn. Flourishing and fruitful orchards were cut down; hundreds of gardens were desolated; the inhabitants were driven into the forests to starve, and were hunted like wild beasts; their altars were overturned, and their graves were trampled upon by strangers; and a beautiful well-watered country, teeming with a prosperous people, and just rising from a wilderness state by the aid of cultivation, to a level with the productive regions of civilization, was desolated, and cast back almost a century. This scourging awed the Indians for the moment, but did not crush them. The fires of hatred were fiercely kindled, and spread like a conflagration far among the tribes upon the great lakes and in the valley of the Ohio. Washington, who ordered the chastisement, was called "The Town Destroyer." Cornplanter, a chief of the Senecas, standing before President Washington, said, in the course of a long speech: "When your army entered the country of the Six Nations, we called you The Town Destroyer; and to this day, when that name is heard, our women look behind them and turn pale, and our children cling close to the necks of their mothers." With the chastisement of the Indians, the campaign of 1779 ended in the North, where, at the close of the year, events appeared somewhat encouraging to the Americans. The British had withdrawn from Rhode Island, and had abandoned the forts on the Hudson, giving the freedom of King's Ferry, at Stony Point, to the Americans; and nowhere in New England, west of the Penobscot, did the enemy hold a foot of the soil. At the same time the army and the finances of the Americans were in a wretched condition, and gave a gloomy appearance to the future of the republican cause. The army, cantoned in New Jersey, were enveloped in snow two feet in depth, before the middle of December, and suffered dreadfully, at times, because of a lack of the necessaries of life. Washington's headquarters were again at Morristown, in the midst of a fertile region and patriotic people. Fortunately for the army and the cause, the crops in New Jersey during the year just closed, were abundant, and the people were willing to do all in their power to meet the requisitions upon the several counties from time to |