ween Connecticut and Pennsylvania, and carried
fire and sword through the settlements there. This raid
was commemorated by Thomas Campbell in a most unhistorical
poem entitled _Gertrude of Wyoming_:

On Susquehana's side, fair Wyoming!
Although the wild-flower on thy ruined wall
And roofless homes a sad remembrance bring
Of what thy gentle people did befall.

Later in the year Walter Butler, the son of Colonel John
Butler, and Joseph Brant, with a party of Loyalists and
Mohawks, made a similar inroad on Cherry Valley, south
of Springfield in the state of New York. On this occasion
Brant's Indians got beyond control, and more than fifty
defenceless old men, women, and children were slaughtered
in cold blood.

The Americans took their revenge the following year. A
large force under General Sullivan invaded the settlements
of the Six Nations Indians in the Chemung and Genesee
valleys, and exacted an eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth. They burned the villages, destroyed the crops,
and turned the helpless women and children out to face
the coming winter. Most of the Indians during the winter
of 1779-80 were dependent on the mercy of the British
commissaries.

This kind of warfare tends to perpetuate itself
indefinitely. In 1780 the Loyalists and Indians returned
to the attack. In May Sir John Johnson with his 'Royal
Greens' made a descent into the Mohawk valley, fell upon
his 'rebellious birthplace,' and carried off rich booty
and many prisoners. In the early autumn, with a force
composed of his own regiment, two hundred of Butler's
Rangers, and some regulars and Indians, he crossed over
to the Schoharie valley, devastated it, and then returned
to the Mohawk valley, where he completed the work of the
previous spring. All attempts to crush him failed. At
the battle of Fox's Mills he escaped defeat or capture
by the American forces under General Van Rensselaer
largely on account of the dense smoke with which the air
was filled from the burning of barns and villages.

How far the Loyalists under Johnson and Butler were open
to the charges of inhumanity and barbarism so often
levelled against them, is difficult to determine. The
charges are based almost wholly on unsubstantial tradition.
The greater part of the excesses complained of, it is
safe to say, were perpetrated by the Indians; and Sir
John Johnson and Colonel Butler can no more be blamed
for the excesses of the Indians at Cherry Valley tha