on, who came on
the field in time to stop it.
[Footnote 2: After remaining a prisoner in the hands of the British from
December, 1776, to April, 1778, Lee had been exchanged for a
British officer.]
After the battle the British hurried on to New York, where Washington
partially surrounded them by stretching out his army from Morristown in
New Jersey to West Point on the Hudson.
%149. Stony Point.%--In hope of drawing Washington away from New
York, Clinton in 1779 sent a marauding party to plunder and ravage the
farms and towns of Connecticut. But Washington soon brought it back by
dispatching Anthony Wayne to capture Stony Point, which he did (July,
1779) by one of the most brilliant assaults in military history.
%150. Indian Raids.%--That nothing might be wanting to make the
suffering of the patriots as severe as possible, the Indians were let
loose. Led by a Tory[1] named Butler, a band of whites and Indians of
the Seneca tribe of the Six Nations[2] marched from Fort Niagara to
Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, and there perpetrated one
of the most awful massacres in history. Another party, led by a son of
Butler, repeated the horrors of Wyoming in Cherry Valley, N.Y.
[Footnote 1: Not all the colonists desired independence. Those who
remained loyal to the King were called Tories.]
[Footnote 2: By this time the Five Nations had admitted the Tuscaroras
to their confederacy and had thus become the Six Nations.]
%151. George Rogers Clark%.--Meantime the British commander at
Detroit tried hard to stir up the Indians of the West to attack the
whole frontier at the same moment. Hearing of this, George Rogers Clark
of Virginia marched into the enemy's country, and in two fine campaigns
in 1778-1779 beat the British, and conquered the country from the Ohio
to the Great Lakes and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi.
%152. Sullivan's Expedition%.--In 1779 it seemed so important to
punish the Indians for the Wyoming and Cherry Valley massacres that
General Sullivan with an army invaded the territory of the Six Nations,
in central New York, burned some forty Indian villages, and utterly
destroyed the Indian power in that state.
%153. The South invaded%.--For a year and more there had been a lull
in military operations on the part of the British. But they now began an
attack in a new quarter. Having failed to conquer New England in
1775-1776, having failed to conquer the Middle States in 1776-1777, the
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