It Happened Here -- The Tragedy of Jane McCrae
It was the third summer of the American Revolution (1777). The rebel forces were falling back before the invasion army of Major General John Burgoyne who had been joined by some 500 hundred Indians from the upper Great Lakes region, and even farther west. News of the approach of the invasion force with its screen of Indian warriors in the vanguard was sufficient to cause settlers of both Whig and Tory persuasion to take flight towards Albany. A century and a half of Indian--colonial conflict had made settlers well aware of the danger. Then too, was Burgoyne's proclamation, issued on his march south which contained the naked threat: "I have but to give stretch to the Indian Forces under my direction, and they number in the Thousands [to be] the messengers of justice and wrath...desolation... and every concomitant horror."
off NY Rte 22, on Gilliland Lane, Willsboro
One of the few inhabitants remaining in the area lived on a farm just north of the old Fort Edward, a derelict fort from the French and Indian War, a decade earlier. Jane McCrae had moved there from New Jersey to live with her older brother, after her parents had died. Jane was, by most accounts, a beautiful young woman, in her early twenties with stunning waist-length long hair. Her brother, a colonel in the New York militia, pleaded with her to move out with his family to the safety of Albany, but Jane had fallen in love with a neighbor, David Jones. Jones was a Loyalist and had gone to Canada to join a Tory unit, Peter's American Volunteer Corps. She hoped with the coming invasion, she would be reunited with her fiancée. Abetting her was an older friend, Sara Mc Neil. Sara was the cousin of Simon Frasier, a brigadier General in the invasion force, and Burgoyne's closest friend and advisor. It was on this connection that the two women, no doubt, pinned their hopes for a safe deliverance to the British camp. They were together at Sara McNeil’s cabin.
Co.Rte 29, Gansevoort
From its inception, the use of Indians had been a vital part of General Burgoyne's plan. In his "Thoughts for
Conducting the War from the Side of Canada", that the General had presented to Lord George Germain, the
Secretary of State for the Colonies, in January 1777, Burgoyne had proposed an army of 8,000 Regulars, 2000
Canadians and 1000 Indians. The King, himself, had read the plan and approved of it, noting in the margin that
perhaps more Indians might be used, leaving more regulars and Canadians for the defense of Canada. But Burgoyne
had considerable ambivalence about using Indians. On the one hand he needed native warriors to be the eyes and
the ears of his army, and to screen against attacks by American raiders. In the dense American wilderness, cavalry,
the traditional scouts of European armies could not operate. And Indians were without equal in wilderness fighting,
whether infiltrating through the woods silently, seeing without being seen, one to one combat, or ambush.
On the other hand, Burgoyne knew from the experiences of both the English and the French in the last war that keeping Indian allies in line could be extremely difficult. Unlike in European armies, Indian warriors did not enlist for the duration of a campaign, or for any fixed term. Nor did they agree to follow, unreservedly, the orders of superior officers. For the Indian warrior warfare was more of personal and spontaneous act of allegiance to follow a war chief. That allegiance could be withdrawn at any time if the chief failed to continue to inspire confidence, or if circumstances turned unfavorable.
Disturbing, too, for the General were a variety of Indian practices. Burgoyne knew that, for his native allies, success in battle was proof of manhood, and that proof of that success was the taking of scalps. More disturbing for Burgoyne was the reality that Indians did not distinguish between killing combatants and killing people who were not expected to fight back--women, children, prisoners, and the wounded. Though the eighteenth century was a violent and brutal age , it paled in comparison to earlier centuries when religious strife fractured European societies. Enlightenment philosophers (Hugo Grotius, de Vitoria and de Vattel) reflected on, and codified growing societal consensus on what were legitimate versus what were barbaric ends, objects, and methods of war. American Indians, of course, shared in no part of this tradition or dialogue. To a greater or lesser extent Indian warfare took as its model the hunting party. A central motive for warfare was the hope of improving one’s material conditions. One hunted deer for meat and deerskins. One went to war for plunder. Enemies were prey. Just as one did not single out the young from the mature, female from male animals, for many Indian warrior/hunters it seemed ridiculous to extend mercy on the basis of age or sex, and it made no more sense to spare the life of a wounded or disarmed/captive enemy than it did to spare the life of a wounded bear or a treed raccoon. (If, of course. a captive could be ransomed, or be adopted into one's own tribe to replace a lost family member, that was a different matter.)
Finally, the manner in which his Indian allies were recruited did not give Burgoyne much confidence. Most of the western Indians were recruited and brought to his army by two grizzled French veterans of the frontier wars. We cannot be sure how much Burgoyne knew about the backgrounds of these two men, to whom the British commander took an active dislike. But if he knew a fraction of what we know today about them he would not have been comforted or reassured. Charles Langlade led the Indians who destroyed Pickawillany in 1751 and may have participated in the cannibalism that followed. He was also infamous for his part in planning and leading the ambush that destroyed British General Braddock’s army in 1755. The Chevalier St. Luc de la Corne had participated in French and Indian raids on Saratoga, Deerfield, Massachusetts, and around Schenectady and Albany that had yielded hundreds of prisoners and many more scalps. In 1757 he had led the Indians at the battle of Ft. William Henry, and had been in charge of the Indians escorting English captives – wounded soldiers, women and children. He had reportedly stood by when the Indians, drunk on captured liquor from the fort began killing and scalping their charges. Over five-dozen prisoners had been slain. Who knew what promises and inducements men with this history had made to this assorted collection of native warrior/adventurers!
And to make matters worse, no one on the General’s staff could communicate directly with these Indians. Burgoyne, speaking in French, had to rely on Langlade and St. Luc to translate for him.
Exactly what happened to the two women may never be known. Historian Richard Ketchum describes
it as [an affair] "so shrouded in hearsay, wild tales, and propaganda that it was the stuff of legend for a
century or more, retold in lurid prints, etchings and paintings, in novels and plays making it virtually impossible to
determine the truth of what occurred on that Sunday in July . What we do know is that soon after the western Indians arrived several war parties were out ranging south of Burgoyne's encampment. One led by an Indian
called Le Loup, also called the Wyandot Panther attacked the Allen farm. The family of six and three slaves
on loan to help with the summer wheat harvest were killed and scalped.
Later, the war party spotted an American patrol and set a successful ambush. A Lieutenant Tobias
Van Vechten, two sergeants and two privates were felled in the surprise volley and were killed and scalped. (The wounded Van Vechten may have been taken captive and killed later.)
Rte. 4, south of Ft. Edward
The Indians next turned their attention to the McNeil cabin. A militiaman fleeing from the ambush
may have warned the women of the Indian's approach because the women were found by the Indians
hiding beneath a trap door in the cabin's cellar. Some sources say the Indians were looking for the women,
having been directed by General Simon Frasier. Other sources say McCrea's fiancee, David Jones had
offered them money to bring her in. In any event the women were made captive and the war party
continued south. At some point the women became separated. Jane McCrea may have been mounted on a
horse, probably taken from the Allen's or her farm. Sara McNeil, a very large middle-age women,
was forced to walk.
About 3 miles south of Fort Edward something happened.
In the most accepted version of the story, the Indians quarreled over who would get the reward for bringing
their captives in. In a fit of anger one brave shot (or tomahawked) Jane McCrea. She was scalped,
stripped of her clothes and her body mutilated. Her body was dumped and covered with leaves near
the body of Lt. Van Vechten. Plausibly, Le Loup's party could have met up with Indians sent out by
David Jones, setting the stage for a quarrel between groups of Indians.
A third scenario, one put forward by Le Loup in his defense was that his war party had run into a group
of American militiamen and they had fired on the Indians, killing McCrea.
Whatever happened, LeLoup's warriors reappeared at the British camp the next day with a furious
Mrs McNeil, stark naked, in tow. An angry and embarrassed Simon Frasier sought in vain for
some women's clothing to fit the ample widow McNeil. He ended up loaning her his great coat
until an outfit could be stitched together for her. The rest of the story emerged that evening. David Jones
wandered into the Indian encampment looking for information about his fiancée. As the Indians danced
and celebrated their victories Jones spotted a pile of fresh uncured scalps in the middle of their celebrations.
U.S. Rte 4 & Kingsbury Rd.
Burgoyne was horrified. He called the Indians together the next day to demand that the perpetrator of the atrocity be surrendered for prosecution. Frasier, and some of his other officers, and St.Luc cautioned him that this action might cause the Indians to defect and perhaps take their anger out on Canadian settlements on the way home. The Indians pleaded with the General to spare the life of such a young and bold warrior. Burgoyne relented but insisted that women and children must not be harmed and that henceforth, all raids must be supervised by a British officer. The Indians agreed, but there is no evidence they took this order seriously. The killings, scalpings and mutilations of settlers, and random individuals, along with enemy pickets and patrols continued daily for the next week until the army moved to the vicinity of Ft. Edward.
Burgoyne again took the opportunity to lecture his Indian allies. He reiterated he would not tolerate the murder of women and children and the plunder of settlers’ homes. For their part, many of the Indians told him they had had enough of his restrictions and his strange notions of warfare, and they intended to leave. Burgoyne attempted to salvage his relationship with the Indians by returning in the afternoon to restate his positions, which this time he hoped would be made more palatable by the casks of rum he brought with him. The Indians agreed to stay on, asking only that those warriors who lived closest might be allowed to leave to help with their families’ harvests. But by the next day dozens left, followed by more and more in the following days until the General was left with fewer Indians than he had when he began the expedition.
At first, the young girl’s murder and the series of attacks and atrocities that followed were extremely
demoralizing to the American troops and their supporters. The territory between the armies became
a true no-man’s land, devoid of settlers. Militia units melted away. The citizen-soldiers were simply
scared. Over time, however, anger replaced panic. While the frequency of attacks diminished as more
and more Indians abandoned the British expedition, many colonists realized their only salvation was to
stand up to the invaders. Would-be loyalist supporters were disheartened. Burgoyne promised a restoration
of order and protection from their rebel neighbors, but how could he protect anyone when he could not
protect the King’s loyal subjects from his own Indians? New volunteers swelled the ranks of the rebel
militias, and new militia companies were formed. Burgoyne had lost the battle for the people’s loyalty.
In the heights along the Hudson north of the village of Stillwater the strengthened American army made
its stand. The invasion ground to a halt. American militia forces appeared from nowhere and everywhere.
In two pitched battles the British could not break out. Surrender eventually followed.
In death, the sister of the Rebel militia colonel and fiancée of the Tory soldier became an
American heroine, and a martyr to the cause of freedom. Her story became a dramatic tragedy,
one that the British General, himself an aspiring playwright, might have wished he had written,
circumstances being different. It became a subject of books, plays, novels and paintings. Copies
of one painting, John Vanderlyn’s (1804) “The Murder of Jane McCrea” hung in the Wadsworth
Antheneum, in Hartford Connecticut and in an upscale bordello in New York City.
Jane McCrae’s body was found by her fiancée, David Jones and given a decent burial
near where it was found. This story should have ended there, but martyrdom and fame,
sometimes have a way of making sure the dead don’t “rest in peace”.
Next time--"The body of Jane McCrae."
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