mainland. In November the French fleet sailed for the West Indies, and
Clinton was obliged to send 5000 men from New York to the same quarter
of the world.

[Sidenote: Wyoming and Cherry Valley, July-Nov., 1778.]

In the years 1778 and 1779 the warfare on the border assumed formidable
proportions. The Tories of central New York, under the Johnsons and
Butlers, together with Brant and his Mohawks, made their headquarters at
Fort Niagara, from which they struck frequent and terrible blows at the
exposed settlements on the frontier. Early in July, 1778, a force of
1200 men, under John Butler, spread death and desolation through the
beautiful valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. On the 10th of November,
Brant and Walter Butler destroyed the village of Cherry Valley in New
York, and massacred the inhabitants. Many other dreadful things were
done in the course of this year; but the affairs of Wyoming and Cherry
Valley made a deeper impression than all the rest. During the following
spring Washington organized an expedition of 5000 men, and sent it,
under Sullivan, to lay waste the Iroquois country and capture the nest
of Tory malefactors at Fort Niagara. While they were slowly advancing
through the wilderness, Brant sacked the town of Minisink and destroyed
a force of militia sent against him. But on the 29th of August a battle
was fought on the site of the present town of Elmira, in which the
Tories and Indians were defeated with great slaughter. The American army
then marched through the country of the Cayugas and Senecas, and laid it
waste. More than forty Indian villages were burned and all the corn was
destroyed, so that the approach of winter brought famine and pestilence.
Sullivan was not able to get beyond the Genesee river for want of
supplies, and so Fort Niagara escaped. The Iroquois league had received
a blow from which it never recovered, though for two years more their
tomahawks were busy on the frontier.

[Sidenote: Conquest of the northwestern territory, 1778-79.]

At intervals during the Revolution there was more or less Indian warfare
all along the border. Settlers were making their way into Kentucky and
Tennessee. Feuds with these encroaching immigrants led the powerful
tribe of Cherokees to take part with the British, and they made trouble
enough until they were crushed by John Sevier, the "lion of the border."
In 1778 Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, attempted to
stir up all