It Happened Here -- The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler --part 1

Old Trail Rd., Fonda

At the beginning of 1774 the future must have seemed bright for Walter Butler.  For two generations the Butlers had been faithful and trusted functionaries of the great landowner and crown Superintendent of Indian affairs, Sir William Johnson.  Walter's grandfather had been given a huge piece of land overlooking the Mohawk valley by the Mohawks (some said during a night of carousing with them at Fort Johnson,  Sir William's second home and trading post)  In 1742 Walter's grandfather had built Butlersbury and Walter had been born there about 1751.  In 1774 Walter was practicing law in Albany.

The Butler Homestead

Little is known about Walter's childhood. His father was frequently away on business with the Indian Department, and it is likely he formed an especially close bond with his mother who with three younger children must have depended heavily on him to help run her household. He may have been educated at home and he may have received some education from Edward Wall, a schoolmaster at Sir William's free school, set up before 1769 in Johnstown.  Wall married Walter's cousin Deborah. One historian has suggested he may have followed in the footsteps of Joseph Brant, a decade before, receiving some instruction at Eleazer Wheelock's school, in Lebanon, Connecticut.  In 1768 John Butler was commissioned as a Lt. Colonel in a new militia regiment and as was typical for the time, son Walter along with several other sons of prominent fathers was commissioned an ensign in the unit.  By the early 1770's Walter was reading for the practice of Law in the office of Peter Silvester in Albany and a few years later was in a law partnership with Peter Van Shaak.

Then beginning in the summer of 1774 things began to fall apart. In July, Sir William suddenly died. The heirs to the Johnson empire, son Sir John Johnson, nephew Guy Johnson, and cronies Daniel Claus and Joseph Brant did not share the same affection for the Butler family that Sir William had, and throughout his short life they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time second guessing or belittling his and his father's efforts. Seemingly, almost overnight the difficulties and squabbles of the New England Yankees became the concerns of settlers in the Mohawk Valley. The Loyalists, as they soon would call themselves, felt compelled to draft a statement of loyalty to the Crown in March 1775, which young Walter naturally signed; then following the conflict at Lexington and Concord, in April, a group of dissidents attempted to raise a "Liberty Pole" near Caughnawaga*. Walter rode out with the Johnsons to break up this meeting. The Johnsons collected arms and fortified Johnson Hall while local Committees of Safety were formed to counter any actions of the Loyalists might take. 

Johnson Hall, Johnstown

*NYSHMs It Happened Here post of 7/4/15

Rte 5, Amsterdam

In May,  Guy Johnson heard he was about to be arrested by the provisional government in Albany and the local Committee of Safety. He fled to Canada, taking Sir John and 170 of his male supporters with him. Walter and his father John Butler left with them. Soon after they arrived in Montreal they learned Lady Johnson and Mrs Butler had been taken into custody with Walter's younger brothers and sister. This fact likely weighed heavily on Walter and he would spend a great deal of effort the next few years going through channels to obtain their release and obtaining women and children hostages to exchange for his family members.

The Battle of Bunker Hill and the attack on Fort Ticonderoga confirmed that a state of war existed.  Walter enlisted as an ensign in the 8th Regiment of Foot helping to thwart the first attack on Montreal by Ethan Allen's force. The following summer Butler was with St. Leger's Army when it invested Fort Schuyler (Stanwix).  He was there in the thick of the fighting at the Oriskany ambush and less than a week later he initiated one of the strangest episodes of his life.

Oriskany Battlefield,  Rte 69,  West of Oriskany

Rte 5, Mohawk

From the long perspective of history the Battle of Oriskany was an American victory because it turned back the western invasion force that intended to link up with Burgoyne's Army. But in the first days following the battle it seemed anything but a rebel victory. After a horrific battle, the Tryon county militia limped home, having failed to break the siege of Fort Schuyler, and having lost over 400 of its approximately 730 militiamen. On the heels of this debacle, Walter Butler talked his superiors into allowing him to go to the heart of the Mohawk Valley to recruit disillusioned valley residents to the Loyalist side. With about a dozen loyalists and Indians he appeared at the Shoemaker Tavern, the home of a prominent Tory, in German Flats,  under a flag of truce and began to harangue Tory sympathizers and anyone who would listen. Before long, the local militia got wind of Butler's activity; the tavern was surrounded and Walter Butler was in custody. Walter was not in uniform so he was charged with being a spy. Butler may have believed his flag of truce exempted him from being held and tried as a spy, but the court convened by Col. Marinus Willet would have nothing of his arguments and shortly he was carted off to Albany, in irons, to be hanged. But in Albany his fortunes began to look up as former law colleagues and friends convinced the authorities to stay his execution indefinitely. Conditions in the Albany gaol, however, were brutal as he sat in irons in an unheated cell, subsisting on starvation rations. After a few months his health broke down and his Albany friends feared for his life. They prevailed on the authorities to offer him a parole--a house arrest in Albany, in exchange for his promise not to try to escape.  While his health gradually improved, his father and his loyalist friends in Canada learned of his improved situation and plotted his escape. Though the details were never revealed, some facts became known. Alcohol was provided to get the lone guard stationed at his quarters drunk.  A horse was provided to allow him to slip through the early morning streets of Albany and a guide or guides met him to make his escape through the wintry Adirondacks to Quebec.

Rte 166, Cherry Valley

While his son was still in custody, Walter's father, John had been given permission to recruit a new unit, Butler's Rangers. Walter was given a captaincy in the Rangers. Throughout the spring and summer of 1778, Walter, while still recovering,  worked to build up and provision and house the new regiment while his father led contingents of the Rangers with Joseph Brant's Indians in attacks on the Wyoming Valley, on the Pennsylvania frontier.  The Americans retaliated by burning the Loyalist and Indian towns of Unadilla and Ouaquaga where Joseph Brant had based his operations.

By November, Walter was ready for a campaign of his own. The rich farming community of Cherry Valley was targeted, and because of the lateness of the season it was expected that all the summer's grain harvest would now be stored in barns where it could be destroyed. On the way, Butler's Rangers met up with Brant's Indians, still smarting from the destruction of their Susquehanna bases. Because it was so late in the year, the Cherry Valley Fort commander, Colonel Alden refused to believe reports of Indians and Tories in the vicinity of the Valley, and in the early morning hours of November 11th, Walter Butler's and Joseph Brant's raiders fell on a community totally unprepared for an attack. Most of the fort's officers were caught away from the fort in the homes of local residents where they were garrisoned. Colonel Alden was tomahawked and scalped as he attempted to make a run for the fort.  While Walter and his Rangers concentrated on attempting (unsuccessfully) to take the fort, Brant's Indians and Indian department men attacked the houses and barns in the village. Probably on Walter Butler's orders, a large number of women and children were taken captive for hostages, but many of the men in the village, children too young to survive the rigors of captivity, and women who resisted were slaughtered.  Did Butler order a massacre?  Did Brant?  We will probably never know.  It is just as likely the Seneca Indians that comprised most of the native-American raiders, out of control, initiated the atrocities themselves.  Brant, a Mohawk, probably did not have the control over the Senecas he might have had over his own Mohawks.  One thing is certain, among the Americans,  Butler was blamed for the massacre of innocents, and his reputation, following on the heels of the his father's campaign on the Pennsylvania frontier, the "Wyoming Massacre," experienced a rapid growth.

 The following year, Indians and Tories operating out of Fort Niagara were thrown on the defensive by a large scale offensive of the Continental Army, itself, designed to break the back of  Iroquois, and force them into dependency on their British allies.  Rebel armies under General George Clinton and General John Sullivan met at Tioga and began marching north into the heart of the Iroquois homeland destroying everything in their path. John and Walter Butler's Rangers were out in front of them and snapping at their heels, taking an occasional straggler but there was little the Butler's 250 or so Rangers could do against a Continental army of 4000 to 5000.  And their Indian allies, so adept at the techniques of ambush and confident in small force maneuvers stood overawed at their enemy's numbers. Desperate to stop the American advance, the Indians and Tories constructed a line of breastworks along the Chemung River, camouflaging them with tree branches in the futile hope they could spring a trap on the American army. While ambushes might work against small forces (Oriskany, Battle of Lake George--"the Bloody Morning Scout") or larger incautious armies (Braddock at the Monongahela), they would not likely succeed against a larger army well screened by scouts and pickets.

Chemung Co. Rte 60, Lowman

And so it was that the Clinton-Sullivan Army knew of the Indian/Tory's intentions even before their breastworks were completed. While John and Walter waited with their Rangers behind the concealed breastworks, and groups of Indians attempted to lure a column of Continentals to within range of the hidden Tories and Indians, two other columns of Sullivan's army attempted to work their way around in back to envelop them.  It was then Sullivan's artillery opened up on the breastworks, to focus British and Indian attention in front of the barricade, to allow Sullivan's columns to complete their encirclement undetected.  But then the unexpected happened. The exploding shells landing in back of the Indians led them to believe they were already encircled by artillery. The panicked Indians scattered and quickly discovered the encircling columns before Sullivan's army could close the trap. In total disarray Indians, Tories and British regulars bolted through the opening, and escaped. Remarkably less than three dozen Indian and Loyalist troops were killed, wounded or captured, but the Indians were badly rattled. They would never again stand to fight Sullivan's Army during the rest of the entire campaign. Only when Sullivan, after four weeks of destroying Indian fields and villages was preparing to return did a significant skirmish occur.  In the Genessee Valley a large party scouting ahead of the main army was ambushed.
Twenty two scouts were killed and its leaders, Lieutenant Boyd and and Sargent Parker were captured. The Indians poured out their weeks of frustration and impotence into torturing them.  The Butlers, infamously, did nothing to stop them.

Next week-- The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler --part 2

Marker of the Week-- What ever happened to Melancton Lloyd Woolsey?

Cumberland Head Road, Plattsburgh.

 When we last heard of Melancton Lloyd Woolsey (NYSHMs:It Happened Here of 7/19/15) Major Woolsey at the Middle Fort in Schoharie Valley had a failure of nerve and tried to negotiate a surrender with the Indians and Tories. Timothy Murphy had prevented that; Woolsey surrendered his command and the next day had slunk away in disgrace.  Never to be of heard of again?  Right?  No!

It is amazing what an attractive personality and a few high placed friends can do to cover over all sorts of sins and inadequacies.

It appears Mr Woolsey apparently landed on his feet, garnering both a lucrative federal job and a county job in Plattsburgh. Hopefully, if personal courage was not one of his strong points, incorruptibility was.


                            (nice house.)