I told him that I was in command at the block-house and asked him his business. He replied: ‘I am a great man of your allies, the Six Iroquois Nations. I am Thayendanegea, the Mohican war-chief. My English name is Captain Brant. In the month of May last I fought in the company of Captain Forster at the engagement of The Cedars, thirty miles from Montreal. We took near five hundred Yankees as prisoners; it was great glory. Yet for the love of Jesus Christ, who died for us all, I restrained my warriors from taking scalps and from burning alive a Yankee captain whom they had secured.’
‘That was a noble action on your part,’ I remarked dryly, ‘and I applaud you for it.’
‘I thank you, Sergeant,’ said he. ‘I persuaded my people to do no more than nick a few of their ears, as we do with cattle, to claim possession.’
‘That must have angered them excessively,’ said I, and he nodded.
‘But,’ said he, ‘they were revenged upon our people for this indignity, for when some of our warriors stripped them of their military finery to wear themselves, the smallpox infected them, and many died.’
He told me that the American Congress had not only refused to ratify a cartel for an exchange of prisoners made between Captain Forster and Colonel Arnold, on the ground of Captain Forster’s inhumanity in the matter of the nicked ears, but had demanded him to be delivered up to them by General Carleton to answer for his conduct in this ‘atrocious massacre’. Congress, Thayendanegea conjectured, took this unheard-of course to spite Colonel Arnold – though why they did not rather fulfil the agreement than leave their hostages in the hands of so merciless an enemy, only Mr Samuel Adams perhaps could explain.
Said I: ‘No doubt Mr Adams and his kind regard their troops only when Heaven makes them victorious.’ I continued: ‘Yet I find it a little singular that you speak English so well, and that the name of the Saviour is on your lips. How does that come about?’
‘Easily answered,’ replied Thayendanegea (which means, in the Indian tongue, ‘holder-of-the-stakes-made-by-the-parties-in-a-wager’, or ‘mediator’). ‘As a youth I attended the missionary school of the Reverend Doctor Wheelock at Lebanon in the colony of Connecticut, and embraced the Christian religion. I am a well-read man. I assisted Doctor Barclay in revising the Prayer Book as translated into the Mohawk tongue, and Doctor Stewart in translating the Acts of the Apostles. I have myself made a translation of the Gospel of Saint Matthew and have converted numbers of my people. I am acquainted with many English men of letters, including your famous Doctor Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and author of that pertinent pamphlet, Taxation no Tyranny; to whom his fidus Achates, Mr James Boswell, introduced me.’
‘From whence do you come now? I had no notification of your approach.’
‘From General Herkimer of the New York Militia at Unadilla, in New York Colony, one hundred and fifty miles to the south-west of this place. He called me to a conference.’
‘You have been treating with the enemy!’ I exclaimed. ‘Do you dare tell me so?’
‘He had been my friend and neighbour on the Mohawk River and I could not refuse to parley with him. It might be that he wished me to take a letter to Sir Guy Carleton, offering his submission to the King. I agreed to a rendezvous at Unadilla, where a large hut was to be erected in an open space between his encampment and ours, a mile apart from each. We covenanted to leave our arms behind us, and to meet with only ten men in the suite of each. This was done.
‘We shook hands and exchanged general talk, he seeking to know my mind, I to know his. The old man spoke much about peace and how greatly to the advantage of the Mohawk nation it would be if we embraced the sacred cause of Liberty, or at least remained neuter. I spoke to him like a brother, warning him that the cause of rebellion was one accursed of God. He grew impatient. He asked me how much money Sir Guy Carleton had paid me for my services in the cause of tyranny, and undertook to double this sum and to give every member of my suite a rifle-gun and other gifts if we would join his forces. I was offended. I asked, did he take us for dogs? I sent my warriors running back for their rifle-guns to show him that we were not beggars. They discharged a volley in the air and uttered a war-whoop, to his great consternation. He said: “You have broken the cov enant,” and he was right. For in my impetuosity I had forgotten that no weapons were to be brought to the hut. Then he said: “Tomorrow let us meet again, tomorrow in the morning, and talk quietly without anger on these matters.” We agreed that only four of us were to be present at the meeting.
‘That evening a squaw, who was living as the wife of an American named Waggoner, came secretly to me; she made me swear to spare her husband if she disclosed a plot to take my life. I swore. She was a good woman and to be trusted. “Father,” she said, “tomorrow the General and his three men, my husband among them, will have pistols concealed in their shifts. When he proffers you his snuff-box and you go forward to take a pinch, it will be the signal to them to murder you with a volley.”
‘The next day I went to the hut with my three men, all unarmed. The General spoke to me very mildly, like a dove, and asked me whether it would be the act of a Christian to permit savages to fall upon my co-reli-gionists, to burn, kill, and destroy them. I replied: “When I was at Lebanon, learning at the feet of the Rev. Dr Wheelock, he told me that war was evil. But, Neighbour Herkimer, were not your people the first to take up arms in this war?” “Never mind about that,” said he hotly. “God damn it, my friend, we were but defending our liberties.” I said: “The Rev. Dr Wheelock, that excellent man, taught me and my friends that the first duty of a Christian was to fear God, and the second to honour the King. Now you both blaspheme God and try to win me, by bribery, to take up arms against your King.” He turned pale with rage and said to me: “Let us not bandy arguments, Captain Brant, but know each other for open foes, since you will not listen to the voice of conscience. Let me offer you a pinch…”
‘I interrupted him: “No, General Herkimer, I will have none of your SNUFF.” At that word, which was a signal, five hundred of my warriors sprang from the long grass where they had lain concealed, dressed in their war-paint and brandishing their arms. “Now,” says I, “you see, Neighbour Herkimer, how unwise it would have been for me to accept your snuff. I would have sneezed you into your graves. You are in my power, but since we have been friends and neighbours, I will not take advantage of you. We have both been at fault, I to forget yesterday that rifles were not to be brought near to the hut; you to come here today with a pistol concealed in the bosom of your shirt. But let me assure you of this, that if ever we meet again before the hatchet is buried, I know well which scalp, of our two, will adorn the other’s wigwam.” So we came away through the woods, and here I am.’
‘Can such treachery be possible?’ I asked. ‘I have heard that General Herkimer is much regarded among the Americans as a gentleman of honour.’
‘That may be,’ he replied. ‘But with American gentlemen there is this reservation to their code of honour: as none would ever believe the oath either of a whore or an Indian, so one would not hold oneself bound by any oath sworn to a whore or an Indian. They seldom cloak their sentiments, neither. I would rather a thousand times deal with a poor French farmer or a raw British subaltern officer than with General Washington himself, who is the most honourable man in their whole army, barring only Philip Schuyler.’
It came into my mind to ask him what his opinion was upon negro slavery, which I regarded as a detestable practice and incompatible with the Americans’ claim in their Declaration of Independence that all men have an inalienable right to be free. Says he: ‘That is a matter for their consciences. The Congress of Massachusetts raised the subject two years ago, but upon their considering the ill effect that a motion condemning slavery would have upon their friends in the South, the matter was allowed to subside. I am told that General Washington is an attentive and just master to his slaves, and there are many like him in this respect. Should I settle down to farm an estate when this war is over, I
should assuredly employ negro slaves. No Indian is apt to the labour of farming, and no white man would care to work for an Indian. Besides, the blessed Bible countenances slavery, saying, “Ham shall serve his brethren.”’
I objected to this conclusion, declaring that there was a world of difference between service and slavery. Then he told me a fable current among the Indians, which I consider not unworthy of repetition here.
The Great Spirit, God, made the world. It was solitary and very lovely to look upon. The forests were rich in game and fruit, the prairies abounded in deer, elk, and buffalo, the rivers were well stocked with fish. There were also countless bears, beavers, and other fat animals, but no sentient being was present to enjoy these good things. God then spoke: ‘Let us make man.’ And man was made; but when he came up before his Maker he was of a pale, whiteish colour. God was sorry, He had pity on the poor pale creature and did not resolve him into his original elements, but permitted him to live. God tried once more, determined to improve upon his handsel task, but inadvertently ran to the other extreme, making his second man of a black colour. He liked this black man even less than the white, but at the third trial he was fortunate enough to accomplish his design: he made a red man, and was content.
These three men were very poor at the first. They had no lodges, no houses, no tools, no traps – nothing. All of a sudden down came three large chests from the sky on ropes; and the three men, the red, the white, and the black, watched their gradual descent. They landed in a meadow. God said: ‘My poor white eldest-begotten, you shall have the privilege of first choice from these boxes. Open them, examine them, choose your portion.’ The white man opened, looked, chose. The chest was filled with pens, ink, paper, sand-castors, spectacles, nightcaps, chairs and tables. He put spectacles on his nose, a nightcap on his head, took a pen in hand, sat down on a chair at a table, and began writing out his accounts; nor did he pay any further attention to the proceedings. God thrust the black man aside and said, ‘I do not like you, the red man has the next choice.’ The red man chose a box filled with tomahawks, war-clubs, traps, knives, calumets, and a variety of other useful objects. He thanked his Maker and went off proudly into the wilderness. God laughed with pleasure. The black man had what was left. It was a chest full of hoes, sickles, water-buckets, ox-whips and shackles; and this slavish lot has been the lot of the negro ever since, and so will ever be.
I should add to this that the Indian would slay a negro with as much unconcern as a dog or a cat. I heard of an Indian woman of rank who had a negro slave captured in a raid from an estate in Virginia; application was made to her for the return of this negro, who was a remarkably tall, handsome fellow. She listened quietly to the American officers who came after their property, but was determined not to gratify them. Instead, she stepped inside her lodge, fetched a large knife and walking up to her slave, without any sign of emotion plunged it into his belly. ‘Now,’ she said to the Virginians, ‘you can have him if you wish.’ The negro lay writhing on the ground in agony until one of the warriors compassionately put him out of his pain with a blow of a tomahawk.
While I was thus agreeably conversing with Captain Brant, his companion had sidled out of the room and begun conversing with the men in the lower apartment. Hearing angry oaths, loud laughter, and shrill falsetto cries, I hastily drew out the wedge, or stopper, from a musket-hole in the floor and gazed down. Sweet Yellow Head had taken a fancy to Sergeant Buchanan, who had just entered the room, and now pursued him with disgusting advances, which the troops found very ludicrous but which enraged the Sergeant beyond measure. He flung the Indian from him, seized a musket and would have shot him had I not loudly bawled out: ‘No, no!’ from above him. This prompted Corporal Terry Reeves, who stood by, to knock up the musket and disarm him; and I then hurriedly descended the ladder by way of the trap-door.
Thayendanegea came after me, and thanked Terry and myself for our good services. Said he: ‘If this sergeant had killed my poor cousin, I should have been obliged in honour to avenge the death, as his nearest relation. I am deeply grateful that no blood has been shed. My poor cousin is a bardash, born neither one thing nor the other; God knows the reason but not I. He is a brave man and the fleetest on his feet of our whole nation. He has married three men and been faithless to all. I should not have let him out of my sight.’
He called his cousin to him, and publicly chastised him, to the great amusement of the barrack-room. Thereupon, bidding me good-day and assuring me that I could always call upon his services were I ever in need of them, he went off under the escort of Terry Reeves and another soldier in the direction of the camp, taking Sweet Yellow Head with him. On the following day another Indian arrived at the block-house with a fine buck upon his shoulders and a great basket of cranberries in his hand, as a present from Thayendanegea for myself. I recognized the Indian as Strong Soup, his locks still untrimmed, his face still black in mourning. He told me that his squaw having died, his Sachem had at length permitted him to join the war-party; soon his luck would change. I would have given him a present; but he refused, saying that Theyendanegea had forbidden him either to ask for or accept anything, unless it were a fill for his pipe. The fresh meat was so seasonable that I filled his pouch with tobacco, and he appeared gratified. He skinned the buck for me very dexterously and cut it into steaks. The cranberries we boiled in maple sugar.
Chapter XV
TO JUDGE from reports that reached us, the American armies were a most haphazard and disorderly assemblage of men. They could be roused to desperate and courageous action in defence of their homes, but were altogether impatient of discipline. The regimental officers were often the servants, not the masters, of the men; and known for their obsequiousness and easy humour rather than for military qualities; they were also constantly engaged in struggles among themselves as to who should be the highest in office. We all heartily laughed at a report which our informant, an American volunteer in the transport service, swore was true, of a Connecticut captain shaving one of his men, for a fee, on the parade-ground; and how another was cashiered for stealing and selling his men’s blankets, which he did as a revenge for their having insisted that he throw his pay into the common stock! However, one of our people who had served in 1762 upon the Spanish Peninsula told me that this very sort of thing was known in Europe also: at Lisbon a Portuguese officer would supplement his meagre pay with journeyman tailoring and cobbling, and his lady would take in washing – nor was he above asking alms of passers-by as he mounted the guard at the gates of the Royal Palace at Lisbon. Yet at least, our man said, the Portuguese service had never suffered from the spirit of insubordination that reigned in the American. There it was so strong that, as we now know, General Philip Schuyler resigned his command rather than be forced to ‘coax, to wheedle and even to lie to carry on the service’; and that General Montgomery had on more than one occasion informed his officers that unless they would obey his orders he would quit the service and leave them to cut one another’s throats at their pleasure. General Washington himself declared that, had he seen what was before him, no earthly consideration should have wooed him to accept the chief command; for discipline was impossible while men considered themselves the equals of their officers and regarded them no more than a broomstick. These three were all generals in the aristocratic way, and were greatly hindered in their efforts to improve the fighting efficacy of the forces: by two or three humbly born colleagues who had won general’s rank, not because of proved military experience or talent but because of their known inveterate rancour against the British and a talent for ingratiating themselves with members of Congress. General Washington made many enemies in Congress by his too ingenuous plea that gentlemen and men of character should be given the preference in the allotment of commissions.
The length of service fixed by the various provincial Assemblies for their militia varied greatly, but more than a year was never required of them. Volunteers might engage themselves to serve for six months or a year,
for six weeks or four weeks, or for as long as it pleased them. A militiamen might buy a substitute and many did so, from the dregs of the population; the American Army contained numbers of ruffians so hired, transported felons and such, to whom the Mosaic allowance of thirty-nine lashes was a contemptible punishment – they would offer, after receiving it, to suffer as much again for the fee of a pint of rum. These regiments were continually fluctuating between camp and farm. A soldier would announce unceremoniously to his captain: ‘See here, Neighbour Hezekiah, my old woman writes to tell me that she has but one nigger and my boy left on the farm, since the hired man was called. She has all the ploughing to do yet for the winter grain, and ten loads of hay to get in. Within ten days she’ll be lying in, and my elder daughter is tarnal sick with fever. I believe now, I must make my way home to Waterbury tomorrow, battle or no battle.’ When he went, he took his firelock and the powder and shot served out to him, and seldom returned. The Connecticut men were the worst offenders in this respect; but the staunch Virginians accused the New Englanders in general of having an ‘ardent desire to be chimney-corner heroes’.
When we British enlist, we know what to expect from a soldier’s life; but with the Americans the motive of Liberty, which spurred a peaceful man to take up arms on an impulse, was often insufficient to nourish him as a soldier. Washington is reported to have written to Congress at this very time that: ‘Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, and totally unacquainted with every kind of military drill are timid and ready to fly from their own shadows. The sudden change in their manner of living, particularly in their lodging, brings on sickness in many, impatience in all, and such an unconquerable desire of returning to their respective homes that it not only produces shameful deserters among themselves, but infuses the like spirit into others.’