BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAE SCIENCES 401 



pushed on. The weather was sultry and the men were beginning 

 to show signs of fatigue after their long march, when at four 

 o'clock, three Dowaganha Indians, sent out as scouts, reported 

 that Senecas lay in the way. The Governor sent a hundred 

 Indians to discover their position, and these had gone but a short 

 distance into a defile when they uncovered the Seneca ambuscade 

 in the ravine. 



The Seneca attack was vigorous and pushed home. They 

 fired on the Indian scouts, who returned the fire and under cover 

 of the smoke the Senecas rushed in with their tomahawks. The 

 western Indians broke and fled, but the Mohawk contingent held 

 back the attack long enough to enable the main body of the 

 French to come up to their aid. These attacked vigorously. The 

 Senecas, finding themselves outnumbered, fled, leaving behind 

 their guns and blankets, but taking their wounded. The French 

 bivouaced nearby for the night. 



The loss on each side was small. The French reported that 

 of their men five or six were killed and about twenty were 

 wounded, but that the Senecas had 45 men killed and 60 

 wounded. The Senecas claimed that they had had but sixteen 

 men killed, while the French had lost seven white men and five 

 Indians. 



Next morning, it being the 14th of July, the army marched 

 to the village of "Gannagaro" which they found burned. Here 

 the Governor detailed soldiers to cut down the standing corn and 

 to burn all stored corn of the preceding year. Another force 

 surrounded the small fort nearby, which the Senecas had used as 

 a base before the ambuscade, and which the Governor believed 

 was still occupied by a strong force of Senecas. When the 

 attacking force reached it, however, they found that the defenders 

 had fled. 



For ten days, until the 24th of July, the French army 

 remained in the Seneca country. During this time they seem to 

 have visited all the villages and to have burned those which they 

 found still standing. They broke down or cut down all standing 

 corn in the fields about the villages and burned the old corn in 

 the caches and bark store-houses, an immense quantity, if 

 Denonville is to be believed, for he estimated that his men had 

 destroyed 400,000 minots, or about 1,200,000 bushels. They 

 found and killed a great many pigs also, with which they seem 

 to have found the villages well supplied. 



