It Happened Here -- The Short Violent Life of Walter Butler --part 2

 The following year, 1779, Indians and Tories operating out of Fort Niagara were thrown on the defensive by a large scale invasion by 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.  Some 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 anger from weeks of frustration and impotence into torturing them.  The Butlers, infamously, did nothing to stop them.

The year 1780 remains a large mystery in the life of Walter Butler.  In the dead of winter Butler was sent to Detroit to establish a small garrison among the Miami Indians. He was back in Montreal in February pushing for the exchange of his mother and siblings, and fuming when the courier going between the British and American capitals left without his knowledge, frustrating him from sending money and correspondence to his mother.  Among the rebels, the Butler legend had  grown such that he was rumored to be involved in every frontier attack from the smallest raid on an isolated cabin, to the campaign of Sir John Johnson and Joseph Brant that swept up the Schoharie  and both sides of the Mohawk valley, causing the destruction of  hundred of homes and farms. But the documentary evidence does not support his participation in any raids that year.  So where was he? Can one infer anything from a cryptic comment in a letter he wrote in the summer? Butler wrote he was ready to give up his prejudice against Ethan Allen and was ready to fight with him.  In 1780 Governor of Quebec, Sir Frederick Haldimand began secret diplomatic initiatives to get Vermont to join Canada as an independent province. For several years Vermont had tried to become the 14th State of the United States. Their efforts had been frustrated by powerful land speculators in New York and New Hampshire who hoped to still be able to carve off large chunks of Vermont territory for their states, and their personal gain. In response to this rejection Vermont had declared itself an independent republic. Haldimand hoped to bring Vermont back into the British fold by beginning a secret correspondence with Vermont's leaders, Ethan Allen, his brother Ira, and Thomas Chittenden, the Vermont Governor. Was Walter Butler involved in this secret initiative?  Was he being held back in reserve, so if the negotiations should succeed he might be ready with Ethan Allen to defend Canada's new province, or to go on the offensive, from Vermont?  We probably will never know.

In the fall, the following year Walter Butler was back in public view when  Major John Ross and Butler embarked on another raid of the Mohawk Valley, this year focusing on Johnstown, which had been spared in last year's major valley raid.  A strategy seems to have emerged in which many smaller raids of from a half dozen to a few dozen Indians and Tories would be launched from the early spring through the summer to keep Whig forces off balance and under pressure and to provide scouting information to the British in Montreal and Fort Niagara.  A larger raid, or raids, were planned for the fall, after the wheat was harvested and could be destroyed in the barns.

Whig strategy was evolving, too, as community militias were cooperating to counterattack and attempt to destroy the raiders.  In the 1780 valley raid militia garrisons from several forts and the Albany County Militia had sallied out to meet the invaders but poor coordination had contributed to their defeat at Stone Arabia.  Militia units, nevertheless, continued to pursue them, resulting in a running battle that became known as the battle of Klock's field. In the spring of 1781 Governor George Clinton asked Marinus Willett  to take over command of  militia along the New York frontier. Willett, formerly in charge of Fort Stanwix, was known and trusted by Mohawk Valley residents. Intelligent, and a fighter, he based his operations at Fort Plain, but developed a plan for a "flying camp"--he and a sizable militia strike force would shuttle between the twenty-four forts in the Mohawk, Schoharie and Cherry Valleys so his enemies would never know from where they might be counter-attacked.  Increased numbers of scouts and runners would provide intelligence to his forces as soon as raiders entered the region.

Johnson Ave., Johnstown

Coming down the Champlain, Lake George, Scandaga corridor, Ross and Butler hit the settlements of Warrensbush and Currytown  (Coreytown) but avoided setting fire to buildings in Currytown for fear of alerting Willett's forces, before they reached their main objective, Johnstown.  They had just reached Johnstown when Willett caught up with them near Johnson Hall with a force of about 415 militiamen. Though outnumbered by nearly 300, Willett divided his force sending half of his men to attack the British/Indian/Tory force from the rear. The right side of Willett's line gave way and began to fall back into Johnstown when Willett's flanking force hit the raiders from the rear. The battle then broke up into a number of small fights before the raiders began to withdraw.

Herkimer Co. 129/147 SE of Grey, bridge at Black Creek

Soon after the battle, Willett's men regrouped and provisioned themselves to give chase to the raiders. Five days later, along Black Creek the militiamen caught up with stragglers from the fleeing raiders. A sharp little skirmish occurred before the raiders were able to break clear.
Later in the day, with a wet snow falling, the militiamen caught up again with the Indians and Loyalist on the banks of the West Canada Creek
Several Oneida Indians, were at the head of Willett's pursuing force. In the rear guard of the raiders was Walter Butler. When Butler saw the Indians emerge from the dense forest and level their rifles at him he growled "Shoot and be damned!" and attempted to scramble up the opposite bank.  A rifle ball pierced his hat trimmed with gold braid and split the upper part of his skull. As he fell back, dying, the Oneidas moved in to remove his boots, his clothes and his scalp.

[ARROW]
1 MILE EAST
COL. MARINUS WILLETT ROUTED
BRITISH-TORY FORCE OCT. 30, 1783 (sic)
ALONG WEST CANADA CREEK;
WALTER BUTLER, TORY LEADER
WAS KILLED BY AN ONEIDA
Location: FAIRCHILD RD., 
NORTH OF HINCKLEY RESERVIOR

(1781 is the correct date. I was unable
 to locate this marker.)

With the weather steadily worsening Colonel Willett abandoned the pursuit.  The people of the Valleys greeted the news of Walter Butler's death with more joy and relief than they expressed for the surrender of Lord Cornwallis' Army in Virginia that same week.  Justified or not, Walter Butler had come to symbolize the cruelty and savagery of war on the frontier.

Over time, Walter Butler became a figure of legend, and myth. A story developed that Butler's body instead of being left to the animals of the forest had been secretly brought back to Schenectady to be interred underneath his family pew at St. George's Church. A rector of St. George's wrote this bit of
doggerel:
                                      "Beneath the pew in which you sit,
                                       They say that Walter Butler's buried.
                                       In such a fix, across the Styx,
                                       I wonder who his soul has ferried?
                                       And so the ages yet unborn
                                       Shall sing your fame in song and story,
                                       How ages gone you sat upon
                                       A Revolutionary Tory."*

N. Ferry St., Schenectady

The Broadalbin author, Robert W. Chambers in six historical novels created, as one of his fictious villians "Walter N. Butler," and Stephen Vincent Benet writing the short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" made Walter Butler the foreman of the jury-of-the-damned that included Benedict Arnold and Simon Girty.

*quoted from www.findagrave.com

Marker of the Week--Military Roads

Military Rd., corner of Herkimer Co. Rte. 60, Norway

Last year in a Marker of the Week, (9-7-14) "If you think its a Long Way to Tipperary..." I reported on a marker in Gloversville that told of General Izard's march from Plattsburgh to Sacketts Harbor.  Such a round-about route was necessitated by the British control of the Saint Lawrence and the lack of a direct route across the northern part of the state. This summer I came across a NYSHM marking that route crossing the hamlet of Norway, in Herkimer County.  

After the end of the War of 1812 the U.S. built an east/west road across northern New York, beginning in Peru, on the shore of Lake Champlain. through Plattsburgh, ending in Hopkinton.  The road which ended before it reached Sacketts Harbor, was one of the first forays of the U.S. government into road building, after the National (Cumberland) Road, which crossed the Alleganys and connecting Cumberland Maryland with Wheeling, WVA.

Military Tpke. Corner of Clinton Co. Rte. 3

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.)