1892-93.] MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN WALTER BUTLER. 291 



assenting to the proposed exchange of prisoners, he warmly repHed at 

 once in these terms : — 



" We deny any cruelties to have been committed at Wyoming, either by 

 whites or Indians ; so far to the contrary that not a man, woman or 

 child was hurt after the capitulation, or a woman or child before it, and 

 none taken into captivity. Though, should you call it inJmnianity, the 

 killing men in arms in the field, we in that case plead guilty. The 

 inhabitants killed at Cherry Valley do not lay at my door ; my con- 

 science acquits me. If any are guilty (as accessories) it is yourselves ; 

 at least the conduct of some of your officers. First, Col. Hartley of your 

 forces sent to the Indians the enclosed, being a copy of his letter charg- 

 ing them with crimes they never committed, and threatening them and 

 their villages with fire and sword and no quarter. The burning of one of 

 their villages, then inhabited only by a few families — your friends — 

 who imagined they might remain in peace and friendship with you, till 

 assured a few hours before the arrival of your troops that they should 

 not even receive quarter, took to the woods ; and to complete the 

 matter. Colonel Denniston and his people appearing again in arms with 

 Colonel Hartley, after a solemn capitulation and engagement not to bear 

 arms during the war, and Colonel Denniston not performing a promise 

 to release a number of soldiers belonging to Colonel Butler's corps of 

 rangers, then prisoners among you, were the reasons assigned by the 

 Indians to me after the destruction of Cherry Valley for their not acting 

 in the same manner as at Wyoming. They added that being charged by 

 their enemies with what they never had done, and threatened by them, 

 they had. determined to convince you that it was not fear which had pie- 

 vented them from committing the one, and that they did not want spirit 

 to put your threats against them in force against yourselves. 



" The prisoners sent back by me, or any now in our or the Indians' 

 hands, but must declare I did everything in my power to prevent the 

 Indians killing the prisoners or taking women or children captive, or in 

 any wise injuring them. Col. Stacy and several other officers of yours 

 when exchanged will acquit me, and rhust further declare that they have 

 received every assistance before and since their arrival at this post that 

 could be got to relieve their wants. I must, however, beg leave by-the- 

 by, to observe that I experienced no humanity or even common justice 

 during my imprisonment among you." 



There seems to be no just reason to doubt the truthfulness of his 

 defence. Even had he been abnormally deficient in humanity the simple 

 fact that his mother, three brothers, and a sister were held as hostages by 

 his enemies, besides fifty other women belonging to the families of some 



