In an effort to create panic in the frontier and regain control of the Mohawk Valley, Loyalist captain Walter Butler led an attack on the fort and settlement at Cherry Valley, New York, in November 1778, during the Revolutionary War (1775-83).

Butler commanded a force of more than 300 Indians, 150 rangers, and 50 regular British troops. He was also accompanied by a number of Mohawk and Seneca leaders, including Joseph Brant. The staff at Fort Stanwix alerted Ichabod Alden, the local commander at Cherry Valley, that scouts had identified a large Loyalist force on its way to his area. Alden, relying on his own forward patrols, did not believe that such a large contingent could be approaching. In the meantime, Butler's men seized a party of Alden's scouts and learned of Cherry Valley's minimal defenses. Alden's men also revealed the identity of the civilian residence outside of the fort where many Continental army officers were quartered. The raiders attacked that building first, killing Alden and several other officers. Despite this initial success, Butler was unable to capture the fort. The Indians attacked anyone outside the gates of the fort, killing nearly 50 soldiers and civilians, and the raiders took 71 captives, many of whom were women and children. Butler released more than half of the captives before he left Cherry Valley and began the 300-mile trek to Fort Niagara.

The battle was a tactical success for Butler but a public relations fiasco for the British. Even though both sides had committed similar atrocities before, the Revolutionaries seized on this episode to argue that Loyalists and Native Americans were responsible for all kinds of outrages on the frontier. These reports even made it to Great Britain, leading to expressions of public opposition toward the employment of Indians in waging war against the United States.

Bibliography:

Colin Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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