28 



HISTORY OF STEUBEN COUNTY, NEW YORK. 



his command of twenty-six men, and the Oneida, Han 

 Jerry,* were sent out to reconnoitre, and on the 13th met 

 their tragic fate, fifteen of the twenty-eight, including Boyd 

 and the Oneida guide, being killed outright, or most inhu- 

 manly tortured and murdered; Boyd and Sergt. Parker 

 being stabbed in more than twenty places, scalped, their 

 tongues cut out, eyes put out, and heads cut oiF. On the 

 13th the army reached the town of Gaghsauguilahery, 

 where the enemy seemed determined to make a stand. The 

 line of battle was formed and the advance ordered, but the 

 Indians fled from the town across the river, without making 

 any further show of resistance. On the 14th this town 

 and its extensive cornfields were destroyed, and the last 

 stronghold of the Senecas was entered without a gun 

 being fired. 



On the 15th of September General Sullivan issued his 

 congratulatory orders, announcing the successful accom- 

 plishment of the immediate objects of the campaign. On 

 the same day the army began the return march to Tioga, 

 and on the 24th arrived at Newtown, "where Capt. Reed, 

 with a detachment of two hundred men, had thrown up a 

 breastwork to guard some stores and cattle brought forward 

 from Tioga for the army in case of necessity." This forti- 

 fication, called Fort Reed, ran along the bank of Newtown 

 Creek, as far up as the present bridge, below the Arnot 

 Mills ; thence westerly, on the south side of the road, from 

 sixty to eighty rods ; thence to the river, and down the 

 same to the mouth of the creek, including an area of three 

 or four acres, and surrounded by palisades. On the arrival 

 of the victorious army, the garrison at Fort Read fired a 

 salute of thirteen guns, which was responded to by the 

 artillery of Col. Proctor. On the 25th of September the 

 expedition, which had been sent under Col. Dearborn to 

 destroy the villages of the Cayugas, joined the main army 

 at Fort Reed, and a grand celebration was held over their 

 victory and the declaration of war by Spain against England. 

 The success of the expedition was most complete. Forty 

 towns and one hundred and sixty thousandf bushels of corn 

 was destroyed, besides vast quantities of pumpkins, beans, 

 melons, and other vegetables, and peach- and apple-orchards, 

 and a most desolating march executed through the richest 

 portion of the enemy's country, with small loss to the invad- 

 ers. One pitched battle was fought and several skirmishes 

 were had ; the most distressing and shocking loss of ours 

 being that of Lieut. Boyd and his command of twenty-six 

 men, of whom more than half were slain. 



The campaign in its results realized the fullest anticipa- 

 tions of its projector. The Indians were most thoroughly 

 overawed by the destruction of their country by an army they 

 fully believed never could penetrate successfully twenty miles 

 into it. They never again appeared in large numbers on 

 any battle-field of the Revolution. They were driven north 

 to Niagara by the destruction of their supplies, where, owing 

 to the provisions issued to them by the garrison being salted. 



* A chief of the Oneidas, who had been remarkable for his attach- 

 ment to the cause of the Colonies, having served as a volunteer from 

 the commencement of the war. The Dutch, with whom he had fought 

 in the Mohawk Valley, called him Han Jerry,— John George. 



-f- " It was estimated that one hundred and sixty thousand bushels 

 of corn were destroyed during the expedition." — Thatcher. 



the scurvy broke out among them, and the winter being ex- 

 ceptionally severe, they died in large numbers. Terribly had 

 the border settlements sufi'ered from their ravages, and ter- 

 ribly were they avenged. 



EXPEDITIONS UP THE CHEMUNG. 



That detachments of the army were sent up the Che- 

 mung, above Elmira, hoth on their arrival at Newtown, on 

 31st of August, 1779, and after their return, September 

 27 and 28, is evident from several published documents. 

 We quote first. Gen. Sullivan's ofiicial report : 



'' From this place (Elmira) Col. Dayton was detached with his 

 regiment and the rifle corps up the Tioga about six miles, who de- 

 stroyed several large fields of corn." 



Canfield's journal: 



"Augusts!. Col. Dayton was detached to follow the enemy up 

 the Chemung, but could not overtake them, but came to an Indian 

 town which he destroyed, and also the corn." 



Lieut. John Jenkins' journal : 



'' August 31. This day we discovered the enemy going up the main 

 branch of the Tioga with boats and canoes. Maj. Parr, with the 

 riflemen and a company of infantry, was sent after them. . . . Sep- 

 tember 1. Maj. Parr returned to the army about 10 o'clock to-day, 

 and informed us that he could not come up with the Indians with their 

 canoes, but that he burned a number of buildings and destroyed thirty 

 acres of corn, and that the enemy had made a quantity of hay." 



Other journals give substantially the same facts. The 

 journal of Col. Gansevort says : 



" The army waited the return of a detachment which had been dis- 

 patched up the Tioga to lay waste the crops." 



The following is from Sergt. Salmon's account of the ex- 

 pedition. Mr. Salmon was a resident of Northumberland 

 Co., Pa., and was orderly-sergeant of Capt. Sampson's com- 

 pany during the Sullivan campaign. He died in 1837. 

 After describing the battle of Newtown and the retreat 

 of the Indians, he says : 



" The Indians having in this manner escaped, went up the river to 

 a placed called the Narrows, where they were attacked by our men, 

 who killed them in great numbers, so that the sides of the rocks next 

 towards the river appeared as though blood bad been poured on them 

 in pailfuls. The Indians threw their dead into the river, and escaped 

 the best way they could." 



This statement is published under the sanction of the 

 '' Rochester Committee," in a work entitled " Notices of the 

 Sullivan Campaign, or the Revolutionary Warfare in West- 

 ern New York," embodying the addresses and documents 

 connected with the removal of the remains of Lieut. Boyd 

 to Mount Hope Cemetery in 1842. 



The " Narrows" referred to are probably the Chemung 

 Narrows, below Elmira. The writer goes on to say: 

 " From Newtown our army went directly to the head of 

 Seneca Lake," etc. 



The " Manuscript Journal of an Officer," quoted at large 

 in the " Annals of Tryon County," has the following : 



" Sept. 28. This day Cols. Cortland and Dayton were detached with 

 large detachments to destroy corn j the former taking his route up the 

 Tioga branch, to which place he was detached the day before (27th), 

 and destroyed large fields of corn ; and the latter taking his route 

 downwards and destroyed such as the army left in going up." 



